How much does a website cost in 2026?

It is the first question asked on the phone and almost always the one answered least well. ‘It depends’ is true but unusable. Here are the actual French market price ranges in 2026, what changes them and what you will be charged later without it appearing in the quote.

The prices below are market ranges, not Klymax’s prices. Our pricing page sets out starting prices and service scopes; the quote confirms the deliverables and support for your project. A website for a tradesperson and one for a network of ten franchises do not involve the same work.

Price ranges by project type

The market falls into five categories. Contrary to what most quotes suggest, they differ not by page count but by the number of decisions to make and things to build. Two particularly distinct needs are a business website and an online shop.

• A DIY website using an online tool such as Wix, Squarespace or Shopify: €150 to €400 per year, plus your time. Allow thirty to fifty hours for a decent result if you have never done it before.
• A template business website with 4 to 8 pages, built by a freelancer: €800 to €3,000. Below €800, you are buying a theme installed and filled with your text, which is a real service but not an original creation.
• A bespoke business website with a design specific to your brand, built by an experienced freelancer or an agency: €3,000 to €12,000. This is where most businesses wanting a website unlike their neighbour’s sit.
• Ecommerce: €3,000 to €10,000 using a Shopify or WooCommerce template with a simple catalogue. From €15,000 to €60,000 once complex variants, a connection to management software or several countries are involved.
• Bespoke development, a customer portal or business application: from €20,000, with no real upper limit. This is no longer just a website but software with a public-facing interface.

These ranges overlap, and that is normal. A €12,000 business website can involve more work than an €8,000 online shop. Page count tells you almost nothing about price.

What really changes the price

When two quotes for the same project show €2,500 and €9,000, the difference is not the provider’s margin. It comes from six specific items, and comparing them line by line reveals what you are buying.

1. Design: template or bespoke

This is the first item and by far the biggest difference. A theme bought for €60 and adapted to your colours takes two days. An identity built for you, with its own layout choices, animations and variations for every page type, takes ten to twenty.

Neither approach is wrong. A well-chosen template with good content serves a tradesperson who wants to be found and contacted perfectly well. But if your selling point is a premium offer, a theme already used by three competitors works against you on every visit.

2. Content: who writes and who takes the photos

This is the most underestimated item and the leading cause of projects dragging on for six months. Many quotes say ‘delivery within three weeks’ with ‘content supplied by the client’ in small print. The website is ready, waiting for your text, and still waiting three months later.

Having a copywriter write your pages costs between €80 and €250 per page. Half a day of professional photography costs between €400 and €900. These lines rarely appear in a cheap quote because they are simply excluded from the scope.

Ask directly: who writes the text and who supplies the images? If the answer is ‘you’, mentally add the cost of your time or of another provider.

3. Features involving money or data

A contact form costs almost nothing. Appointment booking with live availability, online payment, a customer portal or a connection to your point-of-sale or management software: each component adds between €500 and €5,000 because each can fail and therefore needs serious testing.

The rule is simple. Anything that displays information is inexpensive. Anything that makes a decision, takes money or stores personal data is expensive, and should be.

4. The number of languages

A second language is more than a translation; it is a second website version. You need to translate, but also manage URLs, language tags, SEO for each version and updates to both whenever something changes. Allow 40 to 70 per cent of the first website’s price for another language, and be wary of a quote offering it for €300.

5. Whether SEO is included

Almost every quote mentions a ‘search-engine-optimised website’. In 90 per cent of cases, that means the website is technically sound: it loads quickly, is readable on phones and has properly structured headings. That is a basic requirement, not an SEO service.

Actual SEO, meaning researching what your customers really search for, structuring pages to answer those needs and producing content, is charged separately at between €500 and €3,000 per month depending on ambition. Ask which of the two the quote includes.

6. Who answers when something breaks

A website is permanently connected software. It goes down, gets attacked or has a module become incompatible. The difference between a provider who answers within an hour and one who replies within five days is not visible on the quote, but you pay for it when your form stops working for a week without anyone noticing.

Recurring costs: the ones people forget

The build price is not the website’s total cost. A website costs money every month, indefinitely. Here are the actual items.

• Domain name: €10 to €20 per year for .fr or .com. Enable automatic renewal; anyone can buy an expired domain.
• Hosting: €5 to €30 per month for a business website, €30 to €200 for an online shop with traffic.
• Security certificate: now free through Let’s Encrypt. If you are charged for it, ask why.
• Updates and maintenance: €50 to €300 per month. On WordPress this is not optional; outdated plugins are the main entry point for hacks.
• Content changes: either you make them yourself or they are charged at €60 to €120 per hour.
• Backups: sometimes included, often not. Check that they exist, are stored away from the server and have already been tested through a restoration.

Over three years, these costs often represent between 30 and 60 per cent of the build price. That explains why a ‘€500 website’ and a ‘€4,000 website’ can sometimes end up costing the same total, with very different results.

The very cheap website trap

A €300 or €500 website really exists, and it is not always a scam. But something has been removed to reach that price, and you need to know what.

In order of frequency: the domain and hosting are in the provider’s name, so you cannot leave without losing everything. Content is your problem, so the website stays empty. There is no maintenance, so the website deteriorates on its own. The design is a theme you will see elsewhere. Above all, nobody has thought about what the website should get visitors to do.

That last point is the one that really matters. A €500 website generating no calls is infinitely more expensive than a €5,000 website generating two a week. Price is judged by the relationship between what it costs and what it earns, not by the amount alone.

The one question to ask before requesting a quote

What is a customer worth to you? A landscaper whose average project is €4,000 faces a different calculation from a hair salon charging €45 per service.

If a customer is worth €4,000 in revenue, a €6,000 website pays for itself with two jobs. If a customer is worth €45, you need a hundred and thirty. Making that calculation before calling any provider tells you which price range to explore and avoids two opposite mistakes: paying €15,000 for a website that will never earn it back, or €500 in a trade where every customer is especially valuable.

How to compare two quotes fairly

Two quotes are almost never directly comparable. Bring them to the same scope by asking each provider these seven questions.

• Will the domain and hosting be in my name, and can I take them with me?
• Who writes the text and supplies the photos, and is that included in the price?
• What exactly happens if I want to change a page myself in six months?
• What does maintenance include, at what price and with what response time?
• Does the included SEO mean sound technical foundations or a visibility service?
• Can I see three live websites delivered more than a year ago and call those clients?
• What happens if we stop working together? What do I get back?

The last question is the most revealing. A provider whose model relies on your dependence finds it difficult to answer simply.

Warning signs to take seriously

Three signals deserve attention. A quote with no detail and one total for ‘website creation’: you cannot compare or negotiate. A promise of first place on Google: nobody can guarantee it, and claiming otherwise is a sales lie. A 36- or 48-month commitment with a monthly rental fee: legal and sometimes defensible, but read the total. It often exceeds three times the purchase price, and you generally own nothing at the end.

The order to spend in when the budget is tight

When the budget cannot cover everything, there is an order that delivers the most for each euro spent, and it is not intuitive.

• First, a complete Google Business Profile with recent photos and reviews. It is free and is what your customers see first.
• Then a fast three-page website that is readable on phones, with your tappable number at the top. Three pages that work beat fifteen pages nobody reads.
• Then real photos of your work. They convince more than any text.
• Only then bespoke design, animations and extra pages.
• Features come last. Online booking is useless while nobody can find the website.

Many businesses do the reverse: they pay for a beautiful, complete website, then discover it receives no visits. The website was not the problem; the first step was missing.

What the figures tell you

For a business wanting a serious website it owns, the useful range is €3,000 to €12,000 for the build, plus €50 to €300 per month to run it. Below that, something has been removed, and you need to know what. Above that, you are paying for bespoke work, which is justified as soon as the website does more than present the company.

The real measure is not the amount. It is the number of months needed to repay it through the customers it brings. Make that calculation before anything else, and the budget becomes clear.