Having a website built: costs, factors and pitfalls

What it costs to have a website built depends on seven factors, and the number of pages is the least important of them. On top of the one-off price come running costs that are missing from many proposals and distort the comparison. This article shows the factors, the follow-up costs, the usual pricing models and a sequence of steps that makes proposals comparable. We deliberately do not quote prices: a number without a scope does not help you. As of November 2026.

In short

• The price follows the scope, not the number of pages: design, content, features and integrations determine the effort.
• Running costs belong in every proposal: hosting, licences, maintenance, upkeep.
• Content is the most common time sink. If texts and images are missing, the project stalls.
• Comparison only works with the same goal and the same list of what is included.
• A website without measurement costs you more later, because nobody sees what it delivers.

The seven factors that determine the price

The last point is often forgotten. If you replace an existing site without redirecting old URLs properly, you lose rankings that have grown over years. How to prevent this is covered in the article Website relaunch without losing rankings.

Running costs: what comes after launch

A website is not finished after launch; it is in operation. These items come up regularly:

• Domain and hosting: yearly or monthly depending on the provider, often included in the subscription with site builders.
• Licences: site builder subscription, premium theme, plugins, fonts, image rights. Some expire every year.
• Technical maintenance: updates, security, backups. For self-hosted systems such as WordPress, this is a must, not an extra.
• Consent and tracking: a consent tool for the cookie banner and the upkeep of measurement. Why this is decisive for advertising is explained in the article Consent Mode v2.
• Keeping content up to date: new references, jobs, offers. If you want to do this yourself, you need a system that can be used without a developer.

Before placing the order, ask for a list of all follow-up costs per year, with provider and term. A cheap one-off price with expensive licences is often not a cheap offer when calculated over three years.

Three pricing models compared

With the subscription model, one question is especially worth asking: who owns domain, content and code if you cancel? Can you take the website with you, or do you start from scratch?

Making proposals comparable in 5 steps

1. Write down the goal. One sentence: what should the website achieve in twelve months? For example, qualified enquiries from Vienna and Zurich.
2. Define the page list and features. Which pages, which forms, which languages, which integrations.
3. Clarify the content. Who delivers texts, photos and videos, and by when? Missing content is the most common reason for delays.
4. The same list to all providers. That is the only way to compare prices instead of interpretations.
5. Ask about the time after launch. Maintenance, follow-up costs, ownership, measurement, contact person. A proposal without answers to these is incomplete.

If you want to know beforehand where your marketing stands overall, the free online marketing check with seven questions helps.

The most expensive mistakes in website projects

A website project rarely becomes expensive because of the quoted price, but because of these mistakes:

1. Starting without a goal. Without a sentence on the goal, decisions are made by taste, and every round of feedback costs time.
2. Content too late. Texts and images only arrive when the design is finished. Then things get rebuilt.
3. Too many decision-makers. If five people have to approve, every round takes longer. Name one person who decides.
4. Forgetting redirects. In a relaunch, old URLs disappear, and with them the visitors from Google.
5. A form without a destination. Enquiries land in an inbox that nobody reads daily, instead of in a CRM with source and status.

How to recognise a good provider

A good provider first asks about your goal and your customers, not about colours. They show you how visitors get from the ad or search to the enquiry and build in measurement from the start. They also tell you what you do not need. One landing page per campaign often brings more than twenty additional subpages. How a path from the first click to the enquiry is structured is described in the article How to build a sales funnel.

Be careful if the proposal only names a number of pages and a price, if it remains unclear who owns domain and code, or if maintenance and licences do not appear at all.

How we build websites at ad.boutique

At ad.boutique, we build websites and landing pages as a custom build, designed with the conversion in mind: one message, one goal, the same promise as the ad before it. Every enquiry lands with its source in the lead CRM in the live dashboard, and measurement only runs after consent. Planning, build and maintenance come from one team. Instead of hourly rates, there are fixed models, see Pricing and models. More on our approach on the page Web design agency in Vienna and Zurich.

ad.boutique is a marketing agency in Vienna and Zurich. If you want to have a website built and know beforehand which building blocks you really need, book an intro call.