· 7 min read
What a website costs, and why
Why nobody will give you a price, what actually drives the number, and what €450, €1,200 and €3,000 buy.
The short answer
A single page starts around €450. A full multi-page site starts around €1,200. Something with a database behind it — bookings, accounts, records — starts around €3,000. Those are floors, not quotes, and the rest of this explains what moves them.
If you only came for the number, that was it. You can stop here.
Why nobody will tell you
Ask five studios what a website costs and you will get five versions of "it depends on your requirements". That answer is not a dodge, exactly. It is true that a restaurant menu page and a booking platform are different jobs, and quoting one price for both would mean overcharging half the people who ask.
But it is also convenient. A studio that names no number can price each client by what they seem able to pay, and the ones who do not know what things cost are the ones who pay most. I would rather lose the enquiries that were never going to fit than win them at a number neither of us is comfortable with.
What actually moves the number
How many pages, and how different they are
Ten pages that share one layout cost a fraction of three pages that each need their own. The work is in the distinct designs, not the page count — which is why "just add a few more pages" is sometimes free and sometimes the largest line on the quote.
Whether the content exists
This is the biggest hidden cost on almost every project, and the one nobody budgets for. If you have your text, your photographs and your service descriptions ready, the build is straightforward. If they need writing, that is real work, and it usually needs you in the room because nobody else knows your business.
Projects rarely run late because the code was hard. They run late waiting for the photographs.
Whether anything has to talk to anything else
A contact form that sends an email is simple. A form that creates a booking, checks availability, takes a deposit and appears in your calendar is four integrations, each with its own failure cases. Every system your site has to speak to adds cost, and adds it in the testing more than in the building.
Whether you need to edit it yourself
Being able to change your own opening hours without calling anyone is worth paying for, and it is not free — the editor has to be built, and built so that a mistake in it cannot break the page. Whether it is worth it depends honestly on how often your content changes. A restaurant menu, yes. An architecture practice's about page, probably not.
How fast you need it
A deadline you have already committed to publicly costs more than one that is flexible, because it removes my ability to schedule around other work. Say so early if you have one; it changes the plan more than it changes the price.
What is not a cost, and should never be sold as one
A site that loads quickly, works on a phone, and can be used by someone with a screen reader is not an upgrade. It is what a website is. If a quote lists "mobile responsive" or "speed optimisation" as extras, you are being charged twice for the same job — once to build it and once to build it properly.
The same goes for basic search setup: correct titles, descriptions, a sitemap, and pages that return the right status codes. That is an afternoon, it is part of the work, and it should be in the base price.
The running costs nobody mentions
The build is a one-off. The two things that recur are the domain name, which is roughly €10 to €15 a year depending on the ending you want, and hosting.
Hosting is where a lot of quotes quietly add a monthly fee. For a hand-coded site of the kind I build, the hosting genuinely is free — every site in the portfolio runs on a free tier, including the ones with databases behind them, and none of them are close to a limit. You should expect to pay for hosting when you have real traffic or real data volumes, not before.
If you want me to keep an eye on things afterwards, that is a separate arrangement and an honest one. If you do not, the site is yours and it keeps working.
What the three starting points buy
Around €450 — one page. A new business, an event, a practice that needs somewhere credible to point people. One page, written properly, that says who you are and makes it easy to make contact. Usually a week or two.
Around €1,200 — a full site. An established business whose current site is losing it work. Several pages with a real structure, forms that reach you, and the option of Serbian and English on the same site. Usually three to five weeks.
Around €3,000 — a web app. When a spreadsheet has stopped coping: bookings, member records, internal reporting. This is the range where scope has to be worked out together before either of us can commit to a figure, because the difference between the simplest useful version and the complete one is often double.
Every one of those includes two weeks of adjustments after launch, because the things you only notice once it is live are still my problem.
How to get a real number out of me
Tell me what the site is for, roughly how many pages you imagine, whether you have the text and pictures, and when you need it. That is enough for a fixed, itemised quote — usually within two working days, and before anyone has committed to anything.
If it turns out I am the wrong fit, I will say so, and where I can I will tell you who is not.
Prices on this page are in euros and were last reviewed in August 2026. They are starting figures for work done by one person in Belgrade, not an industry survey.