How much does a WordPress website cost, and what you pay for

How much a WordPress website costs: the short answer

Our WordPress website with a custom design starts at €1,500. The price includes up to 8 pages, content editing without code, a contact form, an SEO foundation and a 24-month warranty on the work. WordPress itself is free, you pay for the work.

On the market the same "website" is offered for a few hundred or a few thousand euros. The difference is not the platform but what is included: a ready theme with your texts dropped in, or a design built around your content. You can only compare offers once you know what each one contains.

What drives the cost of building a website

The main factors:

• the number of pages and how many different templates they need
• languages
• features: booking, filters, calculations, a CRM integration
• migration from an old site with 301 redirects

Content matters a lot too: who writes the texts and takes the photos. The most common cause of delay is content that is not ready, not development. Features a template cannot handle are developed separately at €40/h, with the hours estimated before the work starts.

Ready theme or custom design: where the difference is

A ready theme is cheap, e.g. a licence for the popular Avada theme costs $69. That is why cheap offers are almost always a theme with changed colours. It comes with a page builder, dozens of unused features and dependence on the theme author's updates.

A custom design is built around your content and services: fewer plugins, lighter code, a faster page on mobile. It costs more at launch but less to maintain. When a custom-built system makes more sense than WordPress, we cover in the article on WordPress versus a custom website.

What the price includes and what offers usually leave out

Our price includes:

• a custom design that works on phones
• pages you edit yourself
• a contact form
• an SEO foundation: headings, meta fields, a sitemap
• a 24-month warranty on the work

Most offers charge separately for the domain, hosting, paid licences, copywriting, photography and monthly maintenance. Ask for these to be listed as separate lines in the offer, not "as needed".

Hidden costs: domain, hosting, licences and maintenance

Hosting is often advertised at a low monthly price that applies only if you prepay several years, and the renewal costs several times more. Count the renewal price, not the promo one. A domain is a small but yearly fee.

Paid plugins are billed every year: e.g. ACF PRO $49, WP Rocket €49.95, WPML from €39. Without renewal they usually keep working but stop getting updates and security fixes. Maintenance that looks after all of this costs from €40/mo with us.

How to get an exact quote and not overpay

Before getting in touch, prepare:

• a list of pages
• languages
• the features you need
• the address of your old site, if there is one
• who will prepare texts and photos

Ask any developer: whether the price includes VAT, which licences are needed and who pays for them, whether the domain, hosting and licences will be in your name, what warranty you get and what the rate is after it. Get in touch.