What a Business Website Costs and Where You Can Save
The question of price can only be answered once you've clarified what the site actually needs to do. Here are realistic ballpark figures for the three usual options.
The cost of a business website in Germany varies widely depending on how it's built: website builders start at a low two-digit monthly amount, a solid WordPress site built by a provider is in the mid four figures, and custom-built sites start in the upper four figures. In all three cases, you'll also pay running costs for domain, hosting, maintenance and content updates.
The more interesting number, though, isn't the upfront price but the total over five years. And that's where the picture changes considerably.
The three options compared
Website builder
You rent a platform, choose a template and fill in text and images. Everything comes from one source: hosting, certificate, updates, templates.
Good for: businesses that need a simple online business card, want to maintain it themselves and don't need special features.
The catch: you're tied to the platform. Moving usually means rebuilding. Design freedom ends where the template ends, and website builders quickly hit their limits when it comes to loading speed and technical search engine optimization.
WordPress or another content management system
The most common route. A provider sets up a system, adapts a design and adds features through plugins. You can then maintain the content yourself.
Good for: most small and mid-sized businesses with content that needs regular updates, a blog or several service pages.
The catch: maintenance. The core system, plugins and theme need constant updates, not for tidiness' sake but because outdated plugins are the most common way websites get hacked. If you don't plan for this, you'll have a security problem within two years.
Custom-built
The site is built for your specific purpose, without a template framework and without plugins that consist of 90 percent unused features. The result is faster, more secure and tailored exactly to what you need.
Good for: businesses where the website actually brings in work, and any case with special requirements: calculators, booking flows, connections to your own systems, multiple languages.
The catch: a higher upfront investment and dependence on the provider, unless the handover is properly arranged. So before you commission the work, ask who owns the source code and what a handover would look like.
Do the math over five years: a website builder at €30 a month costs €1,800 over five years, plus your own time maintaining it. A site paid for once, with low running costs, can be cheaper over the same period, and faster and easier to find on top of that.
The running costs people tend to forget
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| Domain | Yearly, small amount; should be registered in your name, not the agency's |
| Hosting | Monthly; quality directly affects loading speed and therefore your Google ranking |
| SSL certificate | Usually included in hosting today; if it's billed separately, ask why |
| Maintenance and updates | Essential with WordPress; it costs either time or money |
| Content updates | The item most often underestimated |
| Legal adjustments | Legal notice, privacy policy and cookie notice change with the law |
What drives the price up
- Number of pages. Ten service pages are ten times the work of one.
- Copy. If you don't supply the content, someone has to write it. That's regularly a bigger item than the technology.
- Images. Your own photos cost money; stock photos look generic. Both come at a price.
- Multiple languages. Practically doubles everything: build, copy and upkeep.
- Features. Bookings, a customer area, a connection to your inventory system: every feature is a small project of its own.
- Rounds of feedback. The silent cost driver. Clarifying up front who makes the decisions saves the most.
Where it makes sense to save
Start small. Five good pages beat twenty half-finished ones. You can always expand later.
Write the copy yourself. You know your customers and their questions better than any copywriter. A provider can edit it and structure it for search engines, which is much cheaper than writing from scratch.
Take your own photos. A phone photo from your own workshop often feels more credible than the stock photo of a smiling team in an open-plan office.
Skip features nobody uses. Chat windows, elaborate image galleries, animated counters: nice to look at, rarely effective, always something to maintain.
Where you shouldn’t save
Loading speed. Google indexes the mobile version and evaluates loading times. A slow site loses visitors and rankings at the same time.
Legally required information. A missing or faulty legal notice or an inadequate privacy policy is a real risk of costly legal warnings in Germany.
Accessibility. Sufficient contrast, meaningful image descriptions, keyboard navigation. Adding these later costs far more than building them in from the start.
Access to your own accounts. Domain, hosting, content management system: everything should be registered to you and accessible to you. It sounds obvious, but in practice it often isn't.
Five questions for every provider
- Who owns the domain, source code and content once the project is finished?
- What exactly is included in ongoing support, and what costs extra?
- How fast does the site load on a phone, and how is that measured?
- Can I update the content myself, and will I get an introduction?
- What happens if I want to switch to a different provider in three years?
The answers to questions one and five tell you more about a provider than any list of references.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a business website cost?
Website builders start at a low two-digit monthly amount, a WordPress site built by a provider is usually in the mid four figures, and custom-built sites start in the upper four figures. On top of that come running costs for domain, hosting, maintenance and content updates.
Is a website builder or WordPress better for small businesses?
A website builder suits simple sites that you maintain yourself and that don't need special features. WordPress or a custom-built system pays off as soon as content is added regularly, the site is meant to win business or special features are needed.
What are the running costs of a website?
The domain each year, hosting each month, possibly an SSL certificate, plus maintenance and updates, content updates and occasional legal adjustments to the legal notice, privacy policy and cookie notice.
Who should own the domain of a business website?
Always the business itself, never the agency or provider. The same goes for hosting access and access to the content management system. That's the only way to switch providers later without rebuilding the site.
