How much a website costs in 2026 does not come down to one figure: a builder such as Squarespace starts at €12 a month, while a custom website from Oase Creative starts from €3,000.
How much does a website cost in 2026?
A website costs either a monthly fee or a one-off sum. Build it yourself with a website builder and you pay, for example, €12 a month for Squarespace's Basic plan when billed annually, or €17 when you pay monthly. Have an agency build a custom website and you pay for hours. With us, a custom website starts from €3,000, for design, build and launch.
There is no fixed price per website between those two routes, and that is exactly why the question is so hard to answer. A three-page site with a contact form is different work from a site in three languages with a menu of 145 dishes and its own database. Yet you call both of them "a website" when you ask for a quote.
What does make the price predictable is five things: how many different kinds of page you need, who writes the copy, in how many languages, which integrations have to run, and whether an existing site moves across. Those five set the hours, and the hours set the quote.
In this article we list the amounts you can check yourself: the prices platforms and hosting providers publish, and our own prices as they appear on our prices page. Then we show where the hours go on a custom website, using our own projects as examples, and how to put two quotes side by side fairly.
Why do website prices vary so much?
Because there is no independent research into what a website costs in the Netherlands. We looked for it while writing this article and did not find it. What you do find when you search for website costs are price guides written by web agencies. Their ranges run from a few hundred euros to tens of thousands, and every agency draws the line in a slightly different place.
Fair enough, but read such a guide with that in mind. An agency that builds sites from a few hundred euros writes a guide in which that amount sounds normal. An agency that only does large projects writes one in which anything under ten thousand sounds suspicious. This article comes from an agency too. That is why we only quote amounts you can check yourself: the published prices of platforms, and our own.
The real reason for the spread is the word "website". A digital business card with a phone number, a brand site with a story and a portfolio, and a site that handles bookings or sign-ups all fall under the same search. The difference in work between those three is bigger than the difference in price between two agencies.
There is a second layer underneath. Part of a quote has nothing to do with the website itself, but with what has to happen before it. If you have no visual identity, no copy and no imagery yet, you pay for those too, whatever the quote calls them. A quote that says nothing about them is not cheaper. It moves that work onto you.
How much does a website cost if you build it yourself?
Building it yourself with a website builder costs a fixed amount a month, and hosting is usually included. It is the cheapest route in money and the most expensive in time. You pay no agency, but you write, design and maintain everything yourself.
At Squarespace the Core plan costs €18 a month billed annually and €24 a month billed monthly; the Basic plan sits below it. Webflow, which agencies also build in, charges in dollars and bills annually: $15 a month for a site without a CMS and $25 for a site with a CMS. Choose WordPress on your own hosting and you pay for hosting separately. A standard plan at the Dutch provider TransIP costs, according to its own site, from €3.99 a month and can go up to €27.50.
| Route | What you pay | What is included | What you do yourself |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic | €12 to €17 a month | Builder, hosting, templates | Design, copy, imagery, upkeep |
| Squarespace Core | €18 to €24 a month | The same, with more features | The same |
| Webflow, site without CMS | $15 a month, billed annually | Builder and hosting | Design and build, or hire an agency |
| Webflow, site with CMS | $25 a month, billed annually | The same, plus a CMS | The same |
| WordPress on own hosting | Hosting from €3.99 a month | Just the server | Theme, plugins, updates, security |
What that table leaves out is your own hours. Count them honestly and a website builder is still often the best choice for a simple site. It tips the moment the site has to do something no template does, or the moment your brand can no longer look like everyone else's. A template is a design thousands of others use as well. For the bakery on the corner that is fine. For a brand that needs to stand out among competitors using the same templates, it is not.
Where do the hours go on a custom website?
On a custom website you pay for hours, and a large share of them sit outside the build itself. With us a website runs in five steps: strategy and planning, design, development, content and SEO, and launch. That is also how it is set out on our page about custom websites. Each of those steps can be small or large, and that sets the price.
Five things set most of the quote, and none of them is the design itself:
| What | Why it takes hours | What makes it cheaper |
|---|---|---|
| Number of page types | Each type (home, service, article, contact) is designed and built separately | Ten pages of the same type cost little more than one |
| Copy | Writing, approving and placing it is often the longest part of the project | Copy that is ready before design starts |
| Languages | Each language is its own set of copy, URLs and keywords | One language first, the rest later |
| Integrations and forms | A form that has to go somewhere, an events calendar, a newsletter, a database | Standard integrations instead of custom ones |
| Existing site | Every old page needs a new address, or you lose your rankings in Google | A small old site, or none at all |
Designing a single page type is rarely the expensive part. The expensive part is the decisions before it and the work after it. Who writes? What should a visitor do when they land on the site? Which old addresses have to keep working? How fast does the site need to be? That last one sounds technical, but Google simply measures it: a good value for how long the largest element on a page takes to load is, according to Google, 2.5 seconds or less. We take that into account during the build, not after it. Ask about accessibility too: how often it goes wrong in generated interfaces, we described in AI interfaces and accessibility.
Copy deserves its own warning, because it makes almost every timeline slip. A design can be finished while the copy is still waiting for approval from three people. If you have it written, we charge €75 an hour for copywriting. Writing it yourself is cheaper in money, but plan real time for it.
How much does a website from Oase Creative cost?
A custom website with us starts from €3,000. That covers design, build and launch, responsive on every screen and with basic SEO built in. An online store is a different project: a Shopify store in your brand style, with your range set up and payments and shipping configured, starts from €5,000. All amounts sit on one list on our prices page.
What the base includes is on our service page: a site that works on every screen, a CMS so you update copy and images yourself, technical SEO with correct metadata and structured data, and fast load times. We build in Next.js or Webflow, depending on what fits. The timeline is three to six weeks, depending on scope.
What is not included by default, and what pushes the price up:
| Item | Our price | When you need it |
|---|---|---|
| Custom website | From €3,000 | The base |
| Brand discovery | €750 | When you do not yet know what the brand stands for |
| Brandbook | From €4,750 | When there is no visual identity to build the site on |
| Copywriting | €75 an hour | When you do not write the copy yourself |
| SEO for a relaunch | From €950 | When you replace an existing site |
| Ongoing SEO | From €750 a month | When you want to grow in Google after launch |
The two lines people forget most are the brandbook and the relaunch. Building a website on a brand that does not exist yet produces a site that has to be redone within a year. That is why the visual identity always comes up in a first conversation. If it is there, we build on it. If it is not, we say so, and then branding is often the better first step. For a relaunch we use SEO for a relaunch from €950: every old URL mapped and the redirects tested before the new site goes live. Skip that and you start over in Google. More about that work is under SEO.
What went into the Pluis website?
The site for Familierestaurant Pluis shows where the hours on a custom website really go. Pluis is a family restaurant in Aarle-Rixtel, the Netherlands, open since January 2026. We made the brand, the mascot, the website, a web game and the systems behind the newsletter. The site has been live since August 2026.
Put that site next to the five items above and you see every one of them:
| Item | How it worked at Pluis |
|---|---|
| Kinds of content | Restaurant, menu, events and vacancies, each with structured data for search engines |
| Copy | A menu as real text: 145 dishes in 18 sections, instead of a PDF |
| Languages | Dutch, German and English |
| Integrations | Forms for contact, job applications and the newsletter, running through a dedicated database in the EU |
| Extra | A web game of its own with a monthly leaderboard |
Pluis has a site of its own instead of a subscription to a website builder. Take the menu. A PDF on a phone means zooming and scrolling. A menu as real text can be read, and search engines get structured data about the restaurant, the menu, the events and the vacancies. That kind of work fits badly into a template.
A second example shows the difference with an online store. For Hystride, a British sports eyewear brand, we designed and built a custom Shopify theme. There the work sat in product data and in a theme the team manages themselves, not in copy or languages. How those costs add up for a store is in what a Shopify store costs.
What both projects have in common: the brand was already there, or we made it in the same project. So the site did not have to invent anything. It only had to show what was already there.
What does a website cost after launch?
After launch you pay for three things: hosting, your domain name and the time changes take. With a website builder, hosting and updates are part of the plan. With a site of your own you pay for hosting separately, although a standard plan at TransIP starts from €3.99 a month. A domain name is a small yearly item on top.
The biggest item after launch is not an invoice but time. Who changes the opening hours, posts a new vacancy, swaps the photos when the season changes? That is why we build with a CMS in which you manage copy and images yourself. At Hystride it was a hard requirement: the team had to be able to change images and copy without us. For structural changes, such as a new page type or an extra integration, you come back to us.
WordPress on your own hosting adds one more item: updates. The theme and plugins need to be kept current, and a site left alone for a year gets slower and more vulnerable. That is no reason never to choose WordPress. It is a cost that belongs in a quote, even if it ends up with you.
If you want to grow in Google after launch, that is a separate project. Ongoing SEO with us costs from €750 a month, with a minimum of three months. Not every site needs it. A restaurant that people mostly find by name gets more from a good business profile than from monthly SEO.
How do you compare two website quotes?
Compare two quotes on what is in them, not on the total. A low quote that leaves out the copy, the redirects and changes after launch is not cheaper. It leaves that work with you.
Seven questions to ask about every quote:
| Question | Why |
|---|---|
| Is it a fixed price or an estimate in hours? | An estimate can overrun, a fixed price cannot |
| How many page types are included? | The number of pages says little, the number of types says a lot |
| Who writes the copy? | The biggest difference between two quotes often sits here |
| How many revision rounds do you get? | Unlimited does not exist, so ask for the number |
| Do the old addresses move across? | Without redirects you lose your rankings in Google |
| Who owns the domain, the code and the content? | You want to be able to switch without starting over |
| What does a change after launch cost? | That is where the second-year bill sits |
The last two questions are asked least and cost most later. A site only the agency can change makes you dependent. So does a domain registered in the agency's name. The Dutch government's business portal Ondernemersplein lists what goes into a business website, from registering your domain name to the company details that belong on your site, such as your Chamber of Commerce number. Go through that list before you sign.
Also look at what a quote does not say. If it says nothing about speed, nobody will watch it. If it says nothing about who keeps the site up to date after launch, that is you. And if there is not a word about your brand, the agency builds on whatever is there, even when that is not quite good enough.
When is a website builder enough, and when is it not?
A website builder is enough when your site mainly has to exist: your name, what you do, how to reach you. You pay a plan, pick a template and are online in a weekend. No agency needed, ours included.
A custom website becomes the better choice as soon as one of these applies. Your site has to do something no template does, such as a menu with hundreds of items, a form of its own that has to go somewhere, or several languages. Your brand has to stand apart from competitors using the same builder. Or you are replacing an existing site that already brings in visitors from Google, and you do not want to lose them.
With AI tools you can now get further on your own than a year ago. You can build something that looks good in an afternoon. What remains is the part you do not see on the first screen: speed, findability, accessibility and the integrations behind it. We wrote about that in building a webshop with AI: the last twenty percent. If you sell online, also read Shopify or WooCommerce, because a store is a different decision from a website.
The rule of thumb we use in a first conversation: start with what the site has to do, not with what it may cost. The budget follows from the five items that set the hours. Know those, and you know which route fits, and you can read a quote instead of just the number at the bottom.
Want to know what your site would cost? Tell us where you are stuck. The first conversation is free, and in it we work out together which route fits.
