How much does a website cost?

Why does nobody give you a clear price up front?

Because “a website” is not a single product, just as “a car” or “a renovation” aren't either. A presentation site for a plumber —four sections, a phone number and a form— has nothing to do with an online store of two hundred products with a payment gateway and stock. Asking “how much does a website cost” with no context is like walking into a dealership and asking “how much does a car cost?”: the right answer is “it depends which car”.

That's why any figure you see trumpeted loudly —“your website for X”— usually hides fine print: a repeated template design, a minimum number of pages, or a maintenance cost that shows up later. It's not that they're necessarily lying; it's that the real price can only be given by knowing your case. What we can do is show you, with no smoke and mirrors, what makes a website more expensive so you know how to read any quote put in front of you.

What factors make a website more expensive (or cheaper)?

These are the ones that genuinely move the price. If you understand this table, you already know more than most people who ask for quotes blindly:

Notice the last row, which almost nobody mentions: the price of “building the site” and the price of “maintaining and ranking it” are two different things. A cheap website that nobody then finds on Google or in AI (ChatGPT, Gemini) is expensive, because it brings you nobody. A website worked on every month so people find you has a recurring cost, but it's the one that genuinely does something for your business.

And how much do people pay “out there” on average?

Here we need to be very honest. You'll see ranges all over the internet —from “free” websites to projects costing several thousand euros— but those ranges vary so wildly depending on the country, the professional, what's included and what's hidden, that putting a concrete figure and selling it as “the market price” would be misleading you.

• A simple presentation site made by an individual can come out cheap… and stay a generic template that doesn't rank.
• A professional, tailored site with good design and content pushes the initial budget up considerably.
• An online store is almost always the most expensive step: we break it down in how much an online store costs.

Treat it as a general guide to the sector, which varies enormously, and not as a fixed fact: we don't have a study that puts an exact figure on it, so we're not going to invent one. The only sensible thing is for them to give you a number by looking at your specific case. So instead of fighting the market on the starting price, we change the rules of the game.

How does Zenith do it? The build, free

At Zenith we turn all of this around, and we call it The Deal in Reverse. Instead of charging you a hefty build up front and then disappearing, we do exactly the opposite:

1. Building your website is €0. You don't pay to create it. We build it for you up front —fast, with our own design and without you touching a thing— because we trust the work that comes afterwards.
2. You pay tailored monthly support. A fee designed for your business that includes the domain, the SSL and everything technical (we don't charge you for those separately). That's where the value is: every month we work on your ranking on Google and in AI and we show it to you.
3. It has an honest minimum of a few months (around three), because ranking is gradual. Depending on the case, the first months may be paid up front; we tell you clearly before we start, with no fine print.

That way you don't have to risk a heavy investment to find out whether the website works. The exact amount of the fee depends on your business and your area, and we explain it calmly on our pricing page.

And why don't you call it a “cheap website”?

Because “cheap” is a trap word, and we don't want to sell you smoke. A website can cost little and be genuinely expensive: if it's slow, if nobody finds it, if you have to wrestle with a dashboard or if in six months it's abandoned, you've thrown the money away even though you paid little. Cheap that doesn't work is the most expensive thing there is.

What we offer isn't “the cheapest”: it's a model where you don't pay for the build and in exchange you commit to support that does have value and is paid for. It's honest to put it that way. What we will never tell you is that we guarantee customers, sales or a spot on Google: nobody controls that and promising it would be lying. We sell you the work, and you see it every month.

What if I build it myself for free with Wix, WordPress or an AI?

It's a very reasonable question, and we'll answer it without spinning it in our favor: today you have editors like Wix, Squarespace or Google Sites, WordPress templates and even AI tools that put a page together in an afternoon. If what you want is a personal project, a wedding or to test a one-off idea, they can be more than enough and you don't need to pay anyone. For that, go ahead.

The nuance appears when it's for a business. The “free” of those editors almost always has a cost that shows up later: to remove their advertising and connect your own domain you have to move to a paid plan (which is why “a free website with your own domain” is rarely truly free); the templates are repeated across thousands of sites and aren't built to rank; and writing, building and maintaining it all falls on you, which is exactly the time you don't have. On top of this comes something new: more and more people no longer “search” for your business, they ask an AI about it, and there a generic template has a hard time showing up.

The cost almost nobody explains to you: maintenance

When you ask “how much does a website cost”, they almost always answer only for building it. But a website isn't a photo you hang up and you're done: the domain has to be renewed each year, the security certificate (SSL) maintained, the system updated so it doesn't break or get exposed, the loading speed watched and backups made. That's maintenance, and almost nobody breaks it down for you up front.

It's exactly where businesses get the nastiest surprises: they take on a “cheap” website and, months later, scattered charges start arriving —for the domain, for the hosting, for “the maintenance plan”, for every text change—. So before signing any quote (whoever puts it in front of you, not just us), always ask two things: what exactly the maintenance includes and what is billed separately.

• Renewing the domain each year (a .com usually runs around €10/year, as a market reference).
• SSL certificate and security updates for the system.
• Loading speed, backups and keeping the site from going down.
• Changes and small content improvements over time.
• In Zenith's model, all of this is included in the monthly fee; the only thing charged separately are extras you request yourself (e.g. professional email mailboxes), always flagged in advance.

What if I'm self-employed or just starting out?

If you've just got going, the underlying problem isn't only the price: it's the risk of handing over several hundred or thousand euros up front to find out afterwards whether the website is any use to you. It's the most typical situation for a freelancer or a freshly set-up local business, and having that fear is entirely logical.

This is where not paying for the build fits in: instead of betting everything on day one with a large upfront investment, you spread the cost across a monthly fee tailored to your business and your area. What we won't do is tell you it “pays for itself” or guarantee you customers or sales: nobody controls that. What we do control is the work each month, and that's what you pay for and what you see in a transparent report.