What determines the price of a website or application
Search for what a website or application costs and you'll find figures that are miles apart. That is not the market being vague: the price follows from a handful of choices, and you make most of those choices yourself.
Scope: screens, flows and edge cases
The word website says little about scope. It covers a site with five pages, but also a portal with accounts, payments and an admin area. The price follows the amount of work, and you can read that amount off what has to go in.
So count screens and flows rather than pages. A flow is something a visitor has to be able to do from start to finish: submit a request, place an order, manage an account. Every flow has a series of edge cases next to the normal route, and those edge cases are often more work than the route itself.
These are the questions that set the scope.
- How many screens need their own design, and how many follow a fixed pattern
- How many flows are there, and how many steps and exceptions do they contain
- Do visitors need to log in, and are there roles with different permissions
- Does anything need managing: content, products, requests, users
Custom work or a template
A template is a ready-made design your own content goes into. If your needs fit inside that template, it is the cheaper route and often the faster one too. For a site that mainly tells people who you are and what you do, a template is a reasonable choice.
Custom work starts where the template falls short: a process that does not fit into it, an integration the package does not know, a design that has to leave the pattern. Everything that does not exist yet has to be designed and built, and that is where the price comes from.
The tipping point sits in the cost of bending it. A template that has to be reworked in many places is regularly more expensive than building the same thing from the ground up, because you are working against the template the whole way.
Integrations and content
An integration connects your site or application to another system: the accounting package, a payment provider, an inventory system, a planning tool. Every integration is building work and testing work, and its size depends heavily on the other side. A system with a well-documented API connects far faster than a system that only knows an export.
When you ask for a quote, ask not only whether an integration is possible, but also what the builder already knows about the system being connected. Unknown territory is no objection, as long as it shows up in the price and the planning.
Content is the item that often gets forgotten. Someone has to write the copy, supply the images and enter the products or services. If you do that yourself, it does not weigh on the price but it does weigh on the planning: a finished site without content cannot go live. If you leave it to the builder, it is part of the work and therefore part of the price.
Legal requirements and the recurring part
For part of the business world the accessibility requirements have been law since 28 June 2025, among others for online shops; micro-enterprises providing a service are exempt. Building accessibly costs little extra at the start. Making a site accessible afterwards does, because then you are rebuilding.
After delivery, part of the cost keeps running. The server has to run, backups have to be made and tested, and the software the site rests on gets security updates that someone has to install. A quote without this recurring part looks cheaper, but it is not complete. So ask about it.
When you compare providers, look at what the maintenance includes: just the server, or also the updates, the backups and someone who takes a look when something breaks.
Who carries the risk: three pricing models
Building is estimating, and an estimate can be off. The pricing model decides who pays for that.
With an hourly rate, that risk sits with you. If it takes longer than expected, the invoice grows with it, while you are exactly the person who finds it hard to judge up front how long something should take. That estimating is the builder's trade.
With a fixed price up front, the risk sits with the builder. They do need to know first what is being built: a serious fixed price comes after a conversation and a defined description.
A subscription spreads the payment. Do read the terms, because there is often a minimum term attached and the site is not yours if you stop.
| Model | Who carries the risk | What you know up front |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly billing | You: if it overruns, you pay the extra hours | The hourly rate, not the final figure |
| Fixed price up front | The builder: if it overruns, that is their cost | The final figure and what you get for it |
| Subscription | Shared: a low entry, but often a minimum term and no ownership | The monthly figure, rarely what exactly is included |
What the market charges
We do not put our own prices on this site, because a figure without a scope cannot be compared. What can be compared is what the market charges. Those ranges are below with the source next to them, so you can check where a proposal sits.
The figures come from Dutch agencies and freelancers publishing their own rates, collected in August 2026. So they say what is being charged, not what something is worth.
| What | What the market charges | What that rests on |
|---|---|---|
| A simple site of a few pages | €750 to €2,000 | entry packages and freelance rates |
| A company site for a smaller business | €2,000 to €5,000 | the most frequently quoted range |
| An extensive site with integrations | €5,000 to €25,000 | rises with the number of flows |
| Custom software for a smaller business | €2,000 to €10,000 | where most such projects land |
| Hourly rate of an agency or freelancer | €75 to €125 | average for 2026 |
| Maintenance per month | €25 to €150 | from a simple site to a serious company site |
Why the figures have come down
One development turns up in almost every source: prices sit below the level of a few years ago, and the reason given is AI in the build process. One source puts that at 50 to 70 percent below 2023. That is a supplier talking about its own market rather than a measured figure, so read it as a direction and not as a number.
What it does mean when you compare proposals: an hourly rate says something different than it did a few years ago, because the number of hours the same work takes has changed. Two agencies on the same hourly rate can therefore differ a lot in what they deliver for it. So ask for the total price and for what is finished at that price, not only for the rate.
How it works with us
We work with one fixed price. It is in the proposal you receive after a free introduction, together with the description of what will be built and a delivery date that is fixed.
Maintenance and hosting are then a fixed monthly amount, with what it includes described up front. If you would rather place that elsewhere, you can: the site is yours.
If your question fits a template or an off-the-shelf package better, we say so in the introduction.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
Why are there no prices on your site?
Because a figure without scope says nothing. Two projects that both go by the word website can differ by a multiple. We name a price once we know what has to be built, and that price is then fixed.
What makes a project more expensive than expected?
Usually something that only surfaces during the build: an integration that is harder than it looked, content that arrives late, an edge case nobody had mentioned. With a fixed price, overruns are the builder's problem; what you supply yourself, such as content, does stay your part of the planning.
Isn't a template simply cheaper?
Often, yes, as long as your needs fit inside it. Once the template starts to pinch, the cost of bending it quickly passes the cost of custom work. The test is how much has to be reworked to make it fit.
What does maintenance cost after delivery?
That depends on what runs and what is included: server, updates, backups and whether someone keeps an eye on it. With us it is a fixed monthly amount that is in the proposal, so you can weigh it before you commit to anything.
Can you work within a budget we name?
Yes. Tell us what you want to spend and we will tell you what that buys and what we would keep for a next round. A smaller first version that is live is worth more than a big plan on a shelf.
Why don't you bill by the hour?
Because we can estimate how long something takes better than you can, and the risk should sit with whoever can carry it. If a project overruns on our side, the price does not change.
What do I need to know before I get in touch?
An idea of what the site or application should do and for whom, nothing more. We cover the rest in the introduction, and that is free.