How Much Should a European Business Spend on a Website in 2026?
The question "how much does a website cost?" has no single answer because "a website" can mean anything from a five-page brochure site to a full SaaS platform. But the data gives us useful ranges. Here's what European businesses are actually paying in 2026, broken down by approach.
One-time project costs
According to a 2024 Clutch survey of European web development buyers, the median cost for a custom business website is 15,000 to 30,000 EUR. A basic brochure site with 5 to 10 pages runs 3,000 to 8,000 EUR. An e-commerce site with custom functionality runs 25,000 to 75,000 EUR. A web application or SaaS frontend runs 40,000 to 150,000 EUR depending on complexity.
These numbers represent the build cost only. They don't include hosting, maintenance, updates, or the inevitable redesign 18 to 24 months later when the site feels dated.
Ongoing costs most businesses forget
The build is 30 to 40% of your total web spend over three years. The rest goes to hosting (1,200 to 6,000 EUR/year), maintenance and updates (2,400 to 12,000 EUR/year), security patches and SSL (600 to 2,400 EUR/year), and performance monitoring (600 to 3,600 EUR/year). A Deloitte Digital 2024 survey found that businesses underestimate ongoing web costs by an average of 60%.
Add it up: a 20,000 EUR website project costs 35,000 to 50,000 EUR over three years when you include everything needed to keep it running and current. Many businesses discover this the hard way.
The subscription alternative
A web development subscription bundles development, hosting, and maintenance into a single monthly fee. At a mid-tier rate of 2,500 EUR per month, the three-year cost is 90,000 EUR. That's more than the project model on paper, but the output is dramatically different.
Over three years, a subscription delivers continuous improvements: new landing pages for campaigns, performance optimisation, feature additions, design refreshes, and infrastructure upgrades. The project model delivers a static artifact that slowly decays.
For businesses where the website is a revenue driver, not a digital business card, the subscription model delivers more value per euro spent. For businesses that genuinely need a simple static site and won't touch it for years, the project model is cheaper.
How to decide what's right for your budget
The decision framework is simple. If your website generates leads or revenue, treat it as a living product and budget for continuous development. If your website is purely informational and rarely changes, build it once and budget only for hosting and security patches.
Most businesses fall somewhere in between. They need occasional updates but not daily development. For these companies, a maintenance-tier subscription (500 to 1,000 EUR/month) that covers hosting, monitoring, and minor updates offers the best balance of cost and coverage.