The most honest question we get every week: "How much does a website cost?" And the most honest answer starts with "it depends" — because a 5-page marketing site and a SaaS platform with accounts, payments and a dashboard are two completely different animals.
In this article we explain exactly what drives the price up, what can be simplified and how to avoid paying for things you'll never use.
What influences the price
- Feature complexity — a contact form is cheap; an online booking system with payments and automated invoicing isn't.
- Design — a custom theme on your brand costs more than a standard template, but conveys a different level.
- Integrations — Stripe, e-Invoice, Google Maps, external CRMs — each adds development and testing time.
- Content and technical SEO — schema.org, dynamic sitemap, image optimization, sub-1.5s mobile speed.
- Maintenance — a "set and forget" site goes stale in 2 years. One with active support stays competitive.
3 real project tiers
1. Marketing website (from ~500 €)
For a young company or freelancer. Static content, contact form, clean design, fast on mobile. Useful to show you exist, what you do and how someone can reach you.
2. Site with features (from ~1,500 €)
Quote calculator, blog, custom admin panel, newsletter, transactional email integration, GA4 + GTM. Starts becoming a business tool, not just an online business card.
3. Web app / SaaS (from ~5,000 €)
User accounts, dashboards, automations, recurring payments, custom reports. Here you're not buying a site anymore — you're building a platform.
The right question isn't "how much does it cost". It's "how much does it bring back in the first 12 months?".
What you should not pay for
- Features you saw at competitors but won't use yourself.
- "Trendy" technologies that don't solve a real problem of yours.
- Fixed monthly maintenance for a site that never changes.
How we estimate a project
Before we give you a price, we want to understand 5 things:
- Who is your customer and what action do you want them to take on the site?
- What internal processes already exist (Excel, CRM, manual email)?
- What needs to happen automatically?
- What's a reasonable budget for you?
- How quickly do you want visible results?
Based on the answers, we propose one or two variants — minimum viable and optimal — with clear prices and what each includes.
Want a quick estimate for what you have in mind? Use the GateHex price calculator — it shows you a realistic range in 60 seconds and emails you the estimate.