This article gives you concrete numbers. No vague ranges, no marketing fluff — just an honest breakdown of what a website actually costs in 2026, what each price segment includes, and which hidden costs tend to get glossed over.
Why does the same website cost €500 once and €15,000 another time?
The price of a website is the price of human time. Not technology, not hosting, not design in the abstract — but hours invested by real people.
A simple landing page for €500 means: one experienced developer, one to two working days, a proven setup, clear requirements. A business website for €5,000 means: concept development, custom design, development, copywriting, SEO foundation, testing across all devices — a week of work from a small team.
The difference in price is not a markup for thin air. It is the difference in scope — which clients often don't see, because the end result can look similar at first glance.
Our experience at EvolaTec
Over the past few years, we at EvolaTec have built websites for businesses across Germany — from small local companies and service providers to e-commerce projects and corporate platforms. One of the most common questions we hear from clients:
"What does it actually cost — a website that really works?"
The honest answer: it depends on what "works" means for your business. But there are clear price segments — and within each segment, clear expectations of what is included and what is not.
The four price segments at a glance
Landing Page — from €500
A single, focused page. Clear message, one offer, one call to action. Responsive for all devices, contact form, SEO foundation — meta tags, loading speed, clean HTML semantics.
Who it's for: freelancers who need a professional first presence. Companies promoting a single product or service. Campaign pages. MVP launches.
A landing page is not a scalable business presence. If you anticipate needing multiple pages, a blog, or a shop down the line, it pays to invest in a scalable solution from the start.
Business Website — from €1,500
Multiple subpages: home, services, about us, contact, optional blog. Custom design — no off-the-shelf templates. Full mobile optimization. Basic SEO for all pages. CMS integration so content can be managed independently. Imprint and privacy policy compliant with German law.
Who it's for: local businesses, service providers, agencies, freelancers, mid-sized companies — anyone who needs a professional, lasting digital presence that builds trust and generates enquiries.
What makes the difference: a business website for €1,500 and one for €4,000 may look similar in a screenshot. The difference lies in depth — user flow design, quality of copy, technical cleanliness of the code, loading speed, SEO structure. A poorly conceived site brings no traffic and no leads. A well-built site works for the business while it sleeps.
Online Shop — from €3,000
A complete e-commerce system with product catalogue, shopping cart, checkout, payment integration (Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, etc.), order management, shipping options, and a legally compliant shop structure for the German market — terms and conditions, right of withdrawal, privacy policy.
Who it's for: businesses that want to sell physical or digital products online — from a small boutique to a niche shop with several hundred items.
An online shop is not a project you build once and leave alone. Stock levels, product maintenance, tax compliance, security updates — a shop is a live system. Anyone who doesn't plan for this ends up with an outdated, vulnerable setup within a year.
Premium E-Commerce — from €6,000
Everything from the standard shop package, plus: larger product catalogue, advanced filtering, custom customer accounts, interfaces to external systems such as inventory management or ERP, performance optimisation for higher traffic, and a comprehensive SEO architecture for categories and product pages.
Who it's for: businesses with serious e-commerce ambitions — several hundred to thousands of products, high demands on automation, scalability, and performance.
Additional services: realistic prices for what comes next
A website is rarely the only thing a business needs digitally. Building a website without SEO is like opening a shop with no sign above the door. Here are the most common add-ons with honest pricing:
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| SEO Audit | from €100 |
| SEO Optimisation | from €300 |
| Local SEO | from €400 |
| SEO Management | from €300 / mo |
| Google Ads Management | from €400 / mo |
| Meta Ads Management | from €300 / mo |
| Logo Design | from €200 |
| Corporate Design | from €1,000 |
| SEO Copywriting | €0.30 / word |
| Complete Website Content | from €700 |
The advertising budget for Google Ads or Meta Ads is billed separately and goes directly to the platform — it is not included in the management fee.
The hidden costs nobody mentions at the pitch
These line items rarely come up during the initial conversation — but they become very real within the first year.
Content: copy written by the business itself usually costs more than professionally produced content — not in money, but in missed conversions. "We are a young, dynamic company with a passion for..." — no visitor reads that to the end. Good copy starts at €0.15 per word, SEO-optimised copy at €0.30 per word.
Photography: stock photos are immediately recognisable and reduce trust. Professional photos of the team, office, or production cost from €500–1,500 for a shoot day — and pay off in the long run.
Technical maintenance: a website that isn't maintained becomes outdated. CMS updates, security patches, backup systems — ongoing support starts at around €100–300 per month. Anyone who doesn't plan for this ends up paying three times as much for emergency repairs down the line.
A website for €1,500 with €200/month maintenance and €300/month SEO adds up to around €7,500 in the first year. That is perfectly normal — but it's better to know before signing.
What we do differently at EvolaTec
We have tested various approaches — page builders, classic CMS, ready-made themes. In the end, we concluded that websites which actually perform need to be built as proper web applications — not as a collection of plugins on top of an outdated system.
That is why we work with Nuxt.js, Vue.js, Tailwind CSS, and TypeScript. This stack delivers ultra-fast websites with an SEO-first architecture, modern UX, and high scalability — without compromising on performance.
| What matters for a modern website | Template solution | Custom development |
|---|---|---|
| Loading speed | Average | Very high |
| Core Web Vitals | Often unstable | Excellent |
| SEO potential | Limited by plugins | Maximum flexibility |
| UX/UI possibilities | Restricted by CMS | Complete freedom |
| Scalability | Average | High |
Conclusion
A website in 2026 is not an expense — it is an investment with a clear return. Landing page to test a hypothesis: from €500. Professional business presence that builds trust and generates enquiries: from €1,500. Online shop with full e-commerce functionality: from €3,000. Premium e-commerce with scaling and automation: from €6,000.
Every euro above these starting prices corresponds to concrete hours of work — for better concept development, deeper SEO work, higher-quality copy, faster code. A cheaper website is not automatically worse. But one that doesn't convert is the most expensive option in the long run.
Final thought
A website today is no longer just a digital business card. It is a sales tool, an SEO asset, a marketing platform, and the first impression potential clients get of a business.
At EvolaTec, we don't build websites from templates. We develop them on the basis of individual concepts, modern technologies, and a clear focus on performance and SEO from day one.
Because in 2026, it's not the beautiful websites that win — it's the fast, technically sound, and SEO-optimised ones.
