Website cost in 2026: how much does it really cost?

How much does a website cost in 2026? It all depends on what the site needs to do: a subscription to a tool like Wix is enough for a simple online presence, while a custom site with business features is a real project. This guide explains concretely what drives the price: site type, creation approach, hidden costs to anticipate, and when to choose which stack based on your context.

In summary: what drives the price of a website in 2026

- Brochure site : from a subscription to a mainstream tool (Wix, Squarespace) to a custom site built by an agency; the number of pages, the design and the integrations make the difference

- E-commerce site : the budget depends mainly on the catalogue, payment methods and connections to logistics or accounting

- SaaS / custom business web app : a real development project, whose budget follows the number of user roles, the business rules and the integrations

- AI prototype (Lovable, Bolt) : €20 to €200/month in subscription, plus a technical overhaul before production, whose cost depends on the prototype’s state

- Recurring costs : hosting, subscriptions and maintenance, to plan from the start in the annual budget

Each of these ranges covers very different realities. The rest of the article explains what pushes a project from one extreme to the other.

What kind of website are we really talking about?

Before discussing budget, let’s clarify the terminology. The same term can cover realities that may cost 10 times more depending on the case.

Brochure site

A website that showcases a business, a team, or services. Few pages (5 to 20), minimal business logic. The goal: gain visibility and convert visitors into contacts or quotes. This is the most common category for small and medium-sized businesses.

E-commerce site

A website that sells online. Product catalog, payments, cart, shipping, VAT, invoices. Costs increase with the number of references, inventory management, logistics, and accounting integrations.

SaaS / custom business web app

A platform offering interactive features: user account management, client portal, dashboard, automations, API integrations. See our dedicated article on web app costs for details.

Landing page

A single page dedicated to a campaign or offer. Controlled cost, short timeline, often integrated into an existing site rather than hosted standalone.

Portal or intranet

A site reserved for identified users (clients, employees). Requires authentication, role management, often enhanced compliance. Budget approaches that of a custom SaaS.

The 5 approaches to building your website in 2026

A website can be built in five very different ways, each with its own budget, timeline, and associated risks. Here’s what they concretely offer in 2026, with the budget ranges observed on the market.

1. DIY (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify Starter)

Budget: €150 to €500/year. Timeline: a few days to 2 weeks.

You build your site yourself using a visual editor. Public platforms have improved significantly; a simple brochure site can genuinely be launched in a weekend, with no technical skills required.

Limitations: you’re constrained by templates and platform options, SEO optimization remains average, and advanced customization quickly hits a wall. As soon as you want a strong identity or specific features, pure DIY reaches its limits.

2. Vibe coding (Lovable, Bolt, v0)

Budget: €20 to €200/month subscription. Timeline: a few hours to a few days.

Since 2024, tools like Lovable, Bolt, or v0 generate a web app (or site) from a natural language prompt. These tools are excellent for validating an idea, showcasing a prototype to investors, or building a rough version in a few days.

The real trap: an AI-generated prototype is not a production-ready application. Security, maintainability, error handling, and GDPR compliance are rarely up to standard. Public incidents in 2025 reminded us that apps generated without technical overhaul can expose sensitive data. Full budget if the project needs to go live: subscription + technical overhaul, whose cost depends on the prototype’s state.

This is exactly the scenario covered by our the AI project recovery offer service.

3. Professional no-code (Webflow, Bubble, FlutterFlow)

Budget: a project in its own right, varying mainly with the number of pages, the design and the features. Timeline: 3 to 8 weeks.

Professional no-code tools allow you to create production-quality, maintainable sites and apps without writing code. Webflow for brochure sites and e-commerce, Bubble for applications, FlutterFlow for native mobile apps. These tools have a real learning curve but deliver results that a team can maintain long-term.

This approach suits projects that need fast delivery, high visual quality and, when relevant, exportable code.

4. Freelancer

Budget: varies with the freelancer's experience and the scope, often lower than an agency, with a dependency on a single person. Timeline: 4 to 10 weeks.

A freelancer (developer or designer) takes your project from start to finish. It’s often cheaper than an agency and more flexible, but the main risk is dependency on one person: if the freelancer falls ill, is overloaded, or disappears, you’re stuck. Best for projects with a clear scope and when the relationship is established long-term.

5. Web agency (classic code or hybrid AI)

Budget: the highest of the five approaches, justified for ambitious projects (several profiles, a method, post-delivery guarantees). Timeline: 8 to 16 weeks.

An agency mobilizes multiple profiles (project manager, designer, front/back developers) and delivers a structured project with methodology, documentation, and guarantees. This is the approach to prioritize for high-business-value projects, custom needs, or when you want to fully delegate. Modern agencies now combine AI code (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot) to speed up development without compromising quality.

Price by site type: what drives the budget

Brochure site

DIY : €150-500/year (Wix, Squarespace subscription).
Freelancer : suited to a 5-10 page site; the budget depends mainly on their experience and the expected design.
No-code agency (Webflow) : a custom pro site with built-in SEO that your team updates itself.
Classic code agency : a higher budget, useful when advanced CMS needs or complex third-party integrations are required.

E-commerce site

DIY (Shopify, Wix Commerce) : €30/month subscription + transaction fees + €200 template.
Customized Shopify store by freelancer/agency : the budget depends mainly on the theme, the apps added and the catalogue migration.
Custom e-commerce (Webflow + Shopify, or custom Next.js) : a heavier project, justified when the shopping experience or the integrations go beyond the standard.
Multi-vendor marketplace : a full development project (vendor accounts, commissions, split payments).

SaaS / custom business web app

No-code MVP (Bubble, Webflow + backend) : the fastest way to launch a V1 and test the market.
Custom SaaS V1 : a complete development project, longer, justified once the product is validated.
Complex multi-role SaaS : the highest budget, driven by roles, business rules and integrations.

Details in our article on web app costs.

AI project taken over or stabilized

Scroll’s specific angle: taking over a Lovable, Bolt, or v0 prototype to transition it into a production-ready solution.

The budget depends on the prototype’s state: code quality, security, data model, deployment. A first 48-hour diagnosis is free; each takeover is then priced individually.

The real factors that drive price variations

Two brochure sites can differ in cost by a factor of ten for one simple reason: the factors below change everything.

Number of pages and architecture

5 pages vs. 50 pages isn’t just a ratio. Beyond 20-30 pages, you need to consider SEO architecture, navigation, breadcrumbs, sitemaps, everything that keeps a site readable as it grows.

Design: template vs. custom

A $79 Webflow template customized by a designer remains the most economical option. A fully custom design from scratch, with a reworked visual identity, is a budget in its own right, even before development.

Features

Each added feature represents a cost: authentication, payments, booking, multilingual support, client portal, advanced CMS, CRM integration. Full authentication with role management can account for a significant share of the budget on its own. Properly managed multilingual support, just as much.

SEO built in from the start

Integrating SEO from the design phase (URL structure, tags, schema, performance, internal linking) takes a little more work upfront but avoids a costly retrofit later. Redoing SEO for a poorly designed site systematically costs 2 to 3 times more than building it in from the start.

A useful clarification for weighing that line item: the genuinely structural part of SEO amounts to very little, and it is documented. Google sums it up in three families, making pages crawlable and indexable, writing titles and descriptions specific to each page, and organising content and internal links. The rest is editorial, and editorial can be fixed at any time. That distinction is exactly what justifies the cost gap: structure is hard to correct afterwards, content never is. Documentation: Google's SEO starter guide.

Digital accessibility (RGAA)

French digital accessibility regulations apply to public actors and large companies, and are becoming a quality signal for all. An RGAA audit and compliance work are priced according to the site's size and its starting point.

Two texts structure this subject, and it pays to know which one applies to you before budgeting. In France, the RGAA is the official reference framework: version 4 was adopted on 20 September 2019 and a version 5 is announced for the end of 2026, worth watching if you are scoping a two-year project. At European level, the Accessibility Act applies to products and services placed on the market since 28 June 2025, and it explicitly covers e-commerce, banking services, e-books and passenger transport services. An exemption exists for service businesses with fewer than ten employees and under €2 million in turnover. In short: a mid-sized online shop is covered, a micro-business brochure site is not. References: the RGAA and the European Accessibility Act.

Technical quality and maintainability

This factor is the most underestimated: it explains why one project can cost three times more than another for the same visible functionality. A well-built site costs more upfront but far less to evolve. Conversely, a technically rushed site relies on unchecked AI code, duplicated components, outdated dependencies, and the bill arrives with the first change.

Security

Encryption, robust authentication, access management, GDPR compliance. For sites handling personal or payment data, security is non-negotiable.

That line prices better when tied to a reference list rather than an intention. The OWASP Top 10 ranks the most frequent application risks, and its leading category is broken access control, the case where data is hidden in the interface but stays reachable through the API. Add a concrete regulatory deadline: where a data breach is likely to create a risk to individuals, notification to the supervisory authority must happen within 72 hours. Without usable logging that deadline is unmeetable, which makes observability a line item, not a comfort. References: the OWASP Top 10 and notifying a data breach.

Recurring costs: what your quote doesn’t mention

A website generates recurring costs. Anticipating them avoids unpleasant surprises.

- Domain name : €10 to €50/year.

- Hosting : €50 to €500/year depending on the stack (included in the subscription for Webflow, Shopify, Bubble).

- No-code platform subscription : €15 to €50/month for a Webflow site, €30 to €200/month for a Bubble app depending on usage.

- SSL certificate : often included, otherwise €50 to €150/year.

- Technical maintenance : a monthly package that depends on update frequency and the level of follow-up expected.

- Ongoing SEO : monthly support if you want active SEO follow-up (content, backlinks, monitoring).

- AI platform credits : if your project relies on a tool like Lovable or Bolt, credits can add up quickly. Budget €50 to €200/month for regular professional use.

- Product evolutions : each new feature after delivery has a cost, proportional to its scope.

How to budget intelligently

Three simple rules to avoid over- or under-investing.

Work in phases (MVP → V1 → V2)

Listing everything you want from the start inflates the initial bill and delays launch. Identifying the 5 to 10 essential features for V1 often cuts the initial budget in half. V2 is decided based on user feedback, not a plan written six months earlier.

Choose a stack that matches your real needs

You don’t need a custom SaaS to validate a concept. A €25/month Lovable prototype or a Bubble V1 often do the job perfectly. Custom development is justified when the product is validated and scalability becomes a real issue.

Know how to read a quote

A complete proposal should include:

• A scoping or discovery phase (5-15% of the budget)
• Concrete deliverables (not just "development")
• A timeline with milestones
• A testing and QA budget
• An SLA or post-delivery guarantee clause (what happens if a bug appears after delivery)
• A breakdown of recurring costs you’ll be responsible for

Red flags: a price far below market rates, no scoping phase, no SLA, or a provider who doesn’t ask any questions about your business.

Is your project stuck or does your AI prototype need to go live?

Scroll offers a dedicated service for taking over and securing AI-generated projects (Lovable, Bolt, v0) or stalled no-code projects: the AI project recovery offer. Technical audit, stabilization, transition to a maintainable production stack.

Three main scenarios covered:

- Audit only : we assess the project’s state and tell you concretely what needs to be done, with a budget range.

- Partial stabilization : we address critical points (security, performance, blocking bugs) without rebuilding everything.

- Full overhaul : migration to a target stack (Next.js + Supabase, or pro no-code depending on context).

Develop your site with Scroll agency

At Scroll, we’re a specialized agency in website and app creation using no-code and AI code. Brochure sites, e-commerce, SaaS, business back-offices: we deliver in weeks rather than months, with a stack chosen to fit your context, not the other way around.

Every project is priced individually, after a first conversation about your needs. Contact us and a project manager will get back to you with an initial estimate and a concrete phasing plan.

Beyond budget, you can have us build a custom-built website and CMS tailored to your needs.