How much does a website cost in 2026?

The real market price ranges

In 2026, a professional website costs between €500 and more than €20,000. There is a reason for this huge gap: the same word "website" covers services that have nothing to do with each other. Here are the main price brackets you will come across.

What really makes the price vary

Four factors explain most of the differences between quotes:

• Genuinely custom work: a design drawn for you costs more than a template, and the difference shows immediately.
• The scope: number of pages, e-commerce, multilingual, specific features.
• The content: who writes the copy, who supplies the photos? Professional copywriting has a cost, and a return.
• What is included afterwards: training, guarantee, maintenance, SEO. The cheapest quotes are often bare.

The traps of teaser prices

The first trap is the disguised subscription: €150 to €200 a month for an "all-in" website. Over 24 months, you have paid nearly €5,000 without owning anything: the day you stop, the site goes dark.

The second is the disposable site: delivered quickly and cheaply, but slow, invisible on Google and impossible to develop. It will need rebuilding in 18 months, so the real price is double.

Our prices, fully transparent

At Widesign, prices are public and fixed: a trial mock-up at €390 (deducted from the first payment if the project goes ahead), a full redesign from €1,490, a complete new site from €2,490. The price set in writing after the trial mock-up doesn't change, and the site belongs 100% to you: files, design, domain.

For a personalised estimate straight away, use our budget calculator.

What a quote really contains

A website quote isn't a single price: it is a starting package, chosen according to the number of pages, plus the items you need. Understanding this breakdown is the simplest way to compare two proposals, and to know what you are really paying for.

With us, the starting package already includes copywriting, custom design, basic SEO and training. The more pages the site has, the higher the price, in clear steps.

There is no compulsory subscription: the site belongs to you. The exact price is set in writing after the trial mock-up, and then it doesn't change. Payment is made in two stages, 50% on signing and 50% on delivery, with the trial mock-up deducted from the first payment.

Our prices are shown without VAT: VAT not applicable, article 293 B of the French General Tax Code (CGI).

How to reduce the bill without damaging the result

There are good and bad ways to bring a quote down. The bad ones cut back on what makes a site work: the structure, the speed, the copy. The good ones aim accurately, and push back what can wait. Here are the four approaches that really work.

• Start with five pages. Up to five pages, the Essential Website starts at €2,490; beyond that, you move to the Advanced Website. Five solid pages are worth more than twelve empty ones, and each page added later is billed from €190, when it has a reason to exist.
• Target the searches that pay. A page written for a specific search, a service, an industry or a town, costs from €290 and works for you every month. It is often more profitable than several generic pages.
• Phase the additions. An English version or an online shop is only useful if the demand exists. Adding them later, once the site is bringing in enquiries, avoids paying for a hypothetical use.
• Judge before you commit. The €390 trial mock-up shows you your home page before any development. If the project goes ahead, it is deducted from the first payment; if not, it is still yours.

What you shouldn't sacrifice, on the other hand: copywriting, speed and basic SEO. That is why they are included in all our packages: their absence doesn't show at delivery, but it shows very clearly six months later, when the site brings in nothing.

The costs that come back every year

The build price is only part of the bill. A website is a living thing, and three items come back every year. Ignore them at quote stage and you discover the bill twelve months later.

• The domain name is renewed every year. It is the smallest item, and the most critical: if it expires, the site disappears. It must be in your name, not your provider's.
• Hosting is paid monthly or yearly, and its price follows the power you need. Hosting that is too tight is a false economy: it slows the site down, and slowness costs you lost visitors.
• Maintenance covers updates, backups and monitoring. It isn't compulsory, but a WordPress site left without updates for two years becomes an open door. With us, it is optional: €90/month, including hosting, updates, backups and small fixes.

The right way to compare two quotes is therefore to think over three years, not the initial invoice. A €150-a-month subscription seems painless; over three years it adds up to €5,400 and you still own nothing. A site bought for €2,490 that belongs to you, hosted and maintained, is structurally cheaper over the same period.

What must be included, whatever the price

Some lines have no business being optional. If a quote presents them as extras, it isn't a cheaper quote: it is an incomplete one, and you will be billed the difference later.

• Mobile display. More than half your visitors will arrive by phone. A site that isn't designed for mobile isn't a professional site.
• The HTTPS certificate. Without it, browsers show your visitors a warning. It is free and automatic with any serious host.
• The technical SEO structure: headings, tags, sitemap, speed. It is the foundation everything else is built on, and fixing it after the fact costs more than doing it properly.
• Training to get started. You should be able to edit a text, add a news item or change a photo without going back to a provider.
• Ownership. The domain name, hosting and files must be in your name. This is the clause that decides your freedom the day you change provider.

At Widesign, these five points are in all our packages, with 30 days of iterations from the signing of the quote: we rework until you approve, at no charge.

How to compare quotes

• Insist on the detail: pages included, who writes, who supplies the images, SEO included or not.
• Check ownership: domain, hosting and files must be in YOUR name.
• Ask for the 3-year cost: subscriptions, maintenance, foreseeable redesigns.
• Look at real work, and test its speed on your phone.
• Be wary of a quote with no questions: nobody can price seriously without understanding your business.