Websites
What a website costs in 2026: real prices, hidden items and how to save
The real price of a website in Italy in 2026, item by item: design, development, content, maintenance and domain. What drives a quote, and what it hides.
Key points
- A 5–10 page showcase site in Italy costs roughly €1,500–4,000; a structured company site €4,000–10,000; an e-commerce €8,000–25,000.
- Features and content set the price, not the page count.
- Three items get forgotten: copy and photos, annual maintenance, and measurement plus fixes after launch.
- A «free» site is not free: you pay with a fee, technical limits and no way to export.
- The right question is not what it costs to build, but what it costs to keep running for three years.
«What does a website cost?» is the question everyone answers with a number and nobody answers with a rule. A €800 quote and a €12,000 quote can describe the same site, or two completely different things. This guide separates the real items, gives orders of magnitude for the Italian market and shows where the costs that never appear in the offer sit.
The prices, in one table
Indicative ranges for the Italian market, with basic content included. They help you tell whether a quote is out of scale, they do not replace an assessment of your own case.
| Type of site | What it includes | Indicative range |
|---|---|---|
| Single landing page | One page, one goal, contact form | €400 – 1,200 |
| Showcase site, 5–10 pages | Simple structure, custom or adapted design, basic SEO | €1,500 – 4,000 |
| Company site, 15–40 pages | Services, blog, forms, light multilingual, analytics | €4,000 – 10,000 |
| Mid-size catalogue e-commerce | Products, payments, shipping, invoicing, training | €8,000 – 25,000 |
| Custom web application | Users, roles, integrations, member area, testing | from €20,000 up |
Below €1,000 you almost always find one of three things: a template bought and filled in, unpaid work that will be recovered elsewhere, or a site the agency resells on a monthly fee while the client owns nothing. None of the three is necessarily wrong, but you should know which one you are buying.
What drives the price, and what does not
The variable that matters most is not the page count: it is the number of different features and the quality of the content. A 40-page site where every page looks the same costs less than a 12-page site with search, filters, a member area and payments.
| Item | Weight on price | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Custom features | High | Every new feature needs development, testing and maintenance |
| Content (copy, photos, translations) | High | Often 20–40% of the budget, almost always excluded |
| Custom design | Medium-high | A component system and prototypes cost project time |
| Page count | Low-medium | Pages of the same type are built once and filled in |
| Multilingual | Medium | It doubles the content and complicates URLs, SEO and review |
| External integrations | Medium-high | CRM, back office, payments: they depend on somebody else's system |
A practical rule: when two quotes differ a lot, ask which item is different. In most cases the difference is not the code, it is what is included: content, training, maintenance, fixes after launch.
The costs that never make it into the quote
Copy and photography
A site without content is an empty structure. If the copy does not exist, someone has to write it: a copywriter typically charges €40–120 per page, a photo shoot €300–1,500 for half a day. This is the number one reason projects slip, and in the end the reason the site ships with placeholder text.
Annual maintenance
If the site runs a CMS such as WordPress, maintenance is not optional: security updates, compatible plugins, verified backups. The typical cost is €300–1,200 a year for a small site, more with e-commerce or integrations. A static site removes almost all of that item, since there is no dashboard to update, but it still needs backups and monitoring.
Measurement and fixes after launch
Launch is the start: analytics and Search Console need setting up, the data needs reading, and pages that do not rank need fixing. A realistic budget for the first six months is 10–20% of the initial cost. Whoever skips it ends up calling the site «broken» without ever looking at a number.
Domain, hosting and certificate
A domain costs €10–20 a year, shared hosting €5–20 a month, a server or managed platform €20–100 a month. The HTTPS certificate is free almost everywhere by now: if a supplier bills it as a significant line item, ask why.
Does the «free» site exist?
Free tools exist to get started, and for some projects they are fine: a portfolio, a personal project, a test. But «free» almost always means one of three things: a subdomain owned by the provider, a fee that arrives later, or a site you cannot export.
- Subdomain. The address is
yourname.provider.com: the brand is theirs, the trust is theirs. - Mandatory fee. Stop paying and the site disappears: you are not buying an asset, you are renting a service.
- No export. The content stays inside the platform: moving it means rebuilding everything.
- Limited customisation. When you need a different feature, the answer is «it cannot be done».
A free site is a good way to start and a bad way to stay: after two years of content, the exit cost is always higher than the cost of doing it properly at the start.
How to save without ruining the result
- Cut features, not quality: five well-made pages beat twenty with generic copy.
- Start from a component system instead of a unique design for every page: reuse costs less than customisation.
- Write the content yourself with an editorial guide: it is the most expensive item and the easiest to bring in-house.
- Pick a static site when you do not need a dashboard: it removes CMS maintenance.
- Plan the launch in two phases: first the part that brings customers, then the rest. A useful site today beats a perfect site in eight months.
The five questions to ask about every quote
- What exactly is included? A list of pages, features, content, training.
- Who owns domain, hosting and code at the end of the project? Do the accounts move to the client?
- What does annual maintenance cost, and what does it cover?
- How many revisions are included, and what happens after the third?
- What happens if a form or an integration breaks after delivery? Is there support, and how fast?
If the answers are written down, you have a quote. If they are spoken, you have a promise. The difference shows up exactly when something goes wrong.
Frequently asked questions
What does a website cost in 2026?
In Italy: a landing page €400–1,200, a 5–10 page showcase site €1,500–4,000, a structured company site €4,000–10,000, a mid-size catalogue e-commerce €8,000–25,000, a custom web application from €20,000 up. Content is often excluded.
Why do some sites cost €500 and others €10,000?
Because they describe different things: a filled template versus a custom project, content excluded versus content included, no maintenance versus maintenance and support. The difference is almost never the code, it is the scope.
How much does it cost to maintain a website each year?
For a small site on a CMS: €300–1,200 a year across updates, backups and monitoring. A static site cuts software maintenance to almost zero but still needs backups and checks; e-commerce and integrations cost more.
Are the domain and hosting included in the price?
Rarely. A domain costs €10–20 a year and hosting €5–100 a month depending on the type of site. Always check that domain, hosting and code are registered to you: it is the guarantee that you can change supplier without losing the site.
What does an e-commerce site cost?
A mid-size catalogue with payments, shipping and invoicing costs roughly €8,000–25,000. The price grows with the number of product variants, integrations with stock and ERP, and the tax requirements of the market you sell in.
Is a free site better than a paid one?
Free is fine to start a personal project, but it brings a subdomain, a fee or no export. If the site has to bring customers and content that matters, the exit cost after two years exceeds the initial saving.
How long does it take to pay off a website?
It depends on the value of a customer. If a customer is worth €1,000 of margin and the site costs €6,000, you need six customers, and with a site that converts that is often a few months. So the useful question is how many extra customers it brings.
Can I ask for just part of the site to start?
Yes, and it is often the best choice: the part that brings customers first (home, services, contact, one strong content page), the rest in a second phase. The base still has to be built properly, because rebuilding the structure later costs more.
What does a website cost per month?
From a few euro for a static site to a few tens for a CMS with services. The fee does not include content and maintenance unless agreed.
How much does it cost to maintain a website per year?
Between a few tens of euro for a static site and a few hundred for a CMS. The main item is the management time.
How much does it cost to build a website yourself?
The cost is domain and hosting plus your time. A minimal showcase site can stay under €150 a year.