"So, how much for a website?"
The question lands like it's a butcher's stand. The guy across the table — director of a 12-person metallurgy SME near Besançon — drops it in the first two minutes of the meeting. He's already received three quotes. Numbers range from €800 to €18,000. For the "same" site, he says.
There's no good price without context, and that's exactly why directors get suspicious. This article is what I wish I could have handed him that day. Real price ranges for 2026, by site type, with the typical traps and the checklist of what should appear on a serious quote. No invented numbers — these are what I charge, what my competitors charge, and what local agencies charge.
Why nobody answers the question directly
Imagine asking an architect: "how much for a house?". They'd ask about square footage, region, land, materials, foundation, finish level, decoration. You'd find that normal. For a website, it's exactly the same — but because it's intangible, people feel it should be guessable.
Five invisible factors swing the price by 10x:
- Number of pages. A 5-page site isn't 5x cheaper than a 25-page one — but it's still 2-3x cheaper.
- Content. Do you provide the copy and photos, or does the vendor produce them? A pro photographer is €600-1200 per day. A web copywriter is €80-150 per page.
- Visual customization. 100% custom design or adapted template? Custom costs 2-4x more, but stops your site looking like 200,000 others.
- Hidden features. Multilingual, GDPR, CRM integration, advanced quote forms, customer portal, price calculators… Each line item multiplies the cost.
- Post-delivery autonomy. Can you edit the site yourself? That comfort is paid for — a custom back-office is 30-50% of dev time.
When a vendor gives a "ballpark" price without asking these questions, either they're a salesperson throwing a number to hook you, or they have a product so standardized they already know what they'll deliver. Both cases warrant digging before signing.
Real ranges in 2026, by site type
Three main categories cover 95% of demand. Here are the real French market ranges, in 2026, excluding premium Paris agencies (who add 30-50% in brand premium).
Brochure site — €1,500 to €8,000
The classic: present your business, services, team, capture leads via a contact form. 5 to 15 pages. Mobile responsive mandatory. Basic SEO optimization.
- €1,500 – €3,000 — simple brochure site, clean design, 5-8 pages. For craftspeople, liberal professions, associations. This is my Starter SME package.
- €3,000 – €5,500 — site with animations, blog/news, basic multilingual, advanced SEO. For established SMEs, upscale restaurants, consulting firms.
- €5,500 – €8,000 — "brand image" site: 15-25 pages, 100% custom design, illustrations, integrated pro photography, member or candidate portal. For 20+ employee companies.
E-commerce site — €4,000 to €25,000
You sell online: product catalog, cart, payment, order management, invoices. Highly variable depending on product volume and business rule complexity (promotions, subscriptions, shipping, multi-country…).
- €4,000 – €7,000 — simple shop, 20-100 products, Stripe payment, France delivery. For craft makers, winemakers, small brands.
- €7,000 – €15,000 — wider catalog, multi-warehouse stock, accounting integration (Sage, EBP), B2B/B2C pricing, multilingual. For established brand, wholesale.
- €15,000 – €25,000 — marketplace, recurring subscriptions, complex product configurator, integrated ERP, multi-country with country-specific VAT. For scale-up or group.
Custom business app — €8,000 to €100,000+
Not a site, not really. An internal tool that solves a specific business problem: caregiver scheduling, construction site tracking, B2B customer portal with file access, automatic quote generator, integration between 4 systems that don't talk to each other.
- €8,000 – €20,000 — simple app solving a targeted problem. What I see most often in regional industrial SMEs.
- €20,000 – €50,000 — app with multiple user roles, approval workflows, accounting exports, mobile.
- €50,000+ — full system, several developers, design system, automated tests. That's software publishing, not "website" territory anymore.
Full detail and JSON-LD offers on the pricing page.
The 4 traps that blow up the budget
The initial quote is rarely the final cost. Four recurring traps deserve to be named explicitly before signing.
Trap 1 — The "little addition" mid-project
"Can we just add a page for our news?". "Can you add a calendar to book appointments?". Each "small addition" that wasn't in the initial quote is a renegotiation. Not an upward renegotiation because the vendor is dishonest — a renegotiation because they sell workdays, and those days were committed elsewhere.
Solution: make an exhaustive list of what you want before signing, distinguishing "must-have" from "nice-to-have". Anything requested post-delivery will be billed by the day.
Trap 2 — Content not delivered on time
You sign in January, delivery promised for March. The vendor starts design in February, needs your content (text, photos, HD logo, legal mentions) by the 15th. You provide it on March 30th because you had other priorities. The project slips by 6 weeks. The vendor takes another mission in the meantime. When they come back to your project, they need to reload context — billable time.
Solution: prepare the content before launching the project. Better: commission copywriting and pro photography at signing, in parallel with dev.
Trap 3 — "Free hosting first year"
Many vendors offer free hosting the first year — nice. But year 2, you discover this hosting costs €40/month (€480/year), or that migrating elsewhere costs €800 because the code is "optimized" for their infrastructure. Read the terms.
Solution: request standard hosting (OVH, Scaleway, Hetzner) that you pay directly to the host. Real cost: €5-20/month for 95% of sites. Zero lock-in.
Trap 4 — Maintenance that becomes a rent
A website needs regular security updates (CMS, plugins, language). Many vendors sell a maintenance contract at €100-300/month. Over 5 years, that's €6,000 to €18,000 — often as much as the site itself.
Solution: for a custom site without third-party plugins, real maintenance is near-zero. For a WordPress site, €30-50/month is plenty.
Freelance, agency, DIY: the honest comparison
For the same brief, the three main routes give different prices — and a different experience.
| Option | Range | When it's the right pick |
|---|---|---|
| DIY (Wix, Squarespace) | €0-50/month | Test site, no-budget association, you have time |
| Platform + template (Shopify, WordPress+Elementor) | €500-2,000 setup + €30-80/month | Simple e-commerce, you drive yourself |
| Senior freelancer | €1,500-25,000 | Custom, direct relationship, no lock-in |
| Local agency (5-15 people) | €4,000-50,000 | You want a structured contact, multi-disciplinary team (design + dev + SEO) |
| Premium Paris agency | €20,000-200,000 | Premium brand, international image |
My obvious bias: I'm a senior freelancer. But I honestly recommend DIY or Shopify to directors who don't have the budget — a bad custom site is worth less than a good Shopify. And I point toward agencies those who need design+SEO+marketing coordination bundled.
The ideal quote — what should appear in it
A serious quote runs 3-5 pages. A three-line email with "€4,200" is a trap. Here's what should appear mandatorily:
- Detailed functional scope — each page, each feature listed. If it's not in the quote, it's not delivered at the quoted price.
- Tech stack — PHP, WordPress, Vue.js, Symfony… You should be able to continue with another dev later.
- Milestone-based planning — not a single delivery date, but 3-5 intermediate stages (mockups validated, integration done, dev complete, UAT, go-live).
- Payment terms — typically 30% deposit / 40% mid-project / 30% at delivery.
- Post-delivery bug warranty — 30 to 90 days minimum.
- Code ownership and access — you get the source code, server access, domain accounts.
- Recurring side costs — hosting, domain, SSL certificate, third-party services (Stripe, Mailchimp).
- Off-quote modification terms — precise daily rate for additions.
If any of these is missing, ask for it in writing. The vendor's reaction to that request already tells you about the collaboration to come.
Key takeaway
The real cost of a website isn't the quote. It's the cost of the wrong choice: a site redone three years later, missing features that lose customers, a vendor who disappears with unrecoverable code.
An €1,800 site that lasts 8 years costs less than an €800 site redone three times in 8 years. The question isn't "how much do I spend today", it's "how much do I spend over 10 years, and what will this site earn me during that time".
To dig deeper based on your specific case, look at the available site formats, the SME packages, or the full pricing grid. And if you're based in French-speaking Switzerland or eastern France, we can meet physically before signing anything.