"How much does a website cost?" is the first question almost every client asks me. Most articles answer "it depends" and give a range from 500 € to 50,000 €, which doesn't help anyone. So here are my real prices, what changes them, and the hidden cost that has little to do with money.
My prices
I price by complexity, not by the hour, so you know the full price before we start. Every site includes a custom web design (no templates), basic SEO, three months of SEO with one blog post a week, two rounds of revisions and one language. Each extra language costs 200 €.
Visibility: 1,500 €
A one-page website for professionals and small businesses who need to be found and look trustworthy, and whose information rarely changes.
Manage: 2,200 €
Adds a secure admin panel, so you can update events, menus, services or prices yourself without calling a developer. The extra cost covers building the panel and securing it.
Sell: 3,200 €
Adds online payments and bookings. These have to handle availability, confirmations and money correctly every time, so they take more building and testing. Beyond this there's no fixed ceiling: integrations, memberships or complex logic get a custom quote.
Hosting and running costs
Hosting depends on how much there is to look after:
- 20 € a month for Visibility: a static site with no login or database, so very little can break (1,740 € for the first year)
- 50 € a month for Manage: user accounts and data need monitoring, security updates and backups (2,800 € for the first year)
- 80 € a month for Sell: failed payments or lost bookings cost you money, so I check them closely (4,160 € for the first year)
Add your domain, whose yearly price depends on the extension you choose, and business email, which providers like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 charge per user per month. They're small amounts, but they aren't free.
Case study: half the first estimate
An event organiser working with sponsors came to me with a dated site that wasn't giving their events enough visibility. At first the project looked like a separate site for each event, which would have cost about 4,400 €.
After talking through how they work, we realised they only needed one site and a simple admin panel to publish events. They paid 2,200 € for the Manage tier, half the original estimate, and got a refreshed image for their sponsors, a site they're proud to share and the freedom to publish events themselves. My job isn't to sell you the most expensive option. It's to find the simplest site that does what you need.
The alternatives, honestly
DIY builders like Wix, Squarespace and WordPress
Good on a tight budget if you want to learn, but expect a lot of effort and less style. The real problem is when something breaks: one of my clients' WordPress sites went down after a plugin update, and they had nobody to call.
AI website generators
Fine if you're technical or need something very simple. Otherwise, the time spent prompting and fixing results can cost more than you save.
Cheap freelancers and templates for 300 to 800 €
Fast, but not custom, and quality is often low. If you go this way, be very specific about what you want.
Large agencies from 10,000 €
Suited to very complex projects, with longer waits and everything billed in detail. I've never worked with one, so I can't say whether it's worth it. I sit in the middle: custom quality, without agency wait times or itemised billing.
The hidden cost: your time
What slows a project down isn't a surprise fee. It's time. Writing the copy takes longer than the design, because you have to decide who you serve and what makes you different. Access takes longer than building the pages, because hosting, domain, email and social accounts are usually spread across different emails and passwords, and verification codes go to your phone.
An hour of preparation before your first call can save you weeks:
- One sentence on what your business does and for whom
- The main action you want visitors to take
- Two or three websites you like
- Your logo and photos
- A list of your accounts and the email each one uses
Who's behind this
I'm Alfredo, founder of Lazo Studio. I'm an industrial engineer with a master's in computer engineering and AI, and I've worked as a full-stack developer for more than six years, five of them at a startup, where I learned to adapt fast and focus on what matters for the business. I speak four languages, Italian, French, English and Spanish, so your multilingual site will read naturally in each one. You always talk directly to the person building your site.
Not sure which tier you need? Message me on WhatsApp and I'll tell you honestly, even if it's the cheapest one.