How much does a website cost in 2026?

The short answer

An informational or multi-page website starts at €300 + VAT. An online shop starts at €1,000 + VAT. An AI automation build starts at €500 + VAT. Those are starting prices, not fixed packages. Every project is quoted individually, because a five-page site for a plumber and a five-page site for a clinic with online booking are not the same job.

To put that in context, here is what agencies actually publish. The first two rows come from thirteen competitor pricing pages we read in our home market on 30 July 2026. One of those pages is a Lithuanian freelance marketplace rather than a studio, so its figures are kept out of the agency ranges and shown separately in the third row, because they explain why some quotes come in absurdly low. Quotes from studios in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium or Ireland for the same scope typically land at or above the top of these ranges.

The Lithuanian price pages those ranges come from

The ranges above are not our estimates, so here are the pages behind them. Almost every figure below comes from a Lithuanian web studio's own published pricing page; the paslaugos.lt row is a freelance marketplace rather than a studio, which is explained under the table, and the last row is our own price. These are Lithuanian market prices, not European averages. Every figure other than ours was read on its source's own page on 30 July 2026, and prices move, so treat the date as part of the data.

What actually drives the price

Two quotes for "a website" can differ by a factor of ten and both be honest. The difference is almost always in these things.

• Scope. One page is not five pages, and five pages are not fifteen. Page count is the crudest driver but still the biggest one.
• Design. A bought template dressed in your colours is cheap and fast. A design drawn for your business, your photos and your actual services takes real hours.
• Content. Someone has to write the text. If it is not you, it is a paid writer, and published copywriting rates start around €200. Translations multiply this by the number of languages.
• Functions. Contact forms and maps are trivial. Bookings, logins, payments, stock, invoicing, CRM or ERP connections are not. Each integration is a small project of its own.
• E-commerce specifics. Payment providers, shipping options, tax handling, product data and abandoned-cart flows are where shop budgets quietly double.
• Findability. Technical SEO, structured data and being readable by AI search engines are either built in from the start or bolted on later at higher cost.
• Revisions and support. "One revision" and "unlimited revisions" are very different products at the same headline price.

When you compare quotes, compare these seven lines, not the total.

What the price usually does not include

The build is a one-off. Running the site is not. These costs sit outside almost every quote you will see, and they are the reason a cheap build sometimes ends up as the expensive option.

Over three years that adds up. One agency publishes its own three-year figures openly: €360 for hosting and €537 to €897 for technical maintenance. So a €900 build can easily be a €2,000 decision. Ask for the three-year total, not the launch price.

With us, the domain and hosting are handled for you, and maintenance is optional rather than a condition of the deal. If you would rather not pay everything at once, there is a one-off payment or a small monthly plan you can cancel at any time.

Why a Lithuanian studio costs less without cutting quality

SOSWebs is run from Lithuania by MB Variantai, company code 306133252, and you can look us up in the public company registry. Salaries, office costs and overheads here are lower than in Western Europe. That is the whole trick. The same number of build hours simply costs less to sell. It does not mean fewer hours, junior staff or a stripped-down result.

You do not have to take that on trust, because website quality is one of the few things in this industry that is genuinely measurable. Open Google's PageSpeed Insights, paste in soswebs.com, and run it. This site scores 100/100/100/100 for performance, SEO, accessibility and best practices, on both mobile and desktop. Run the same test on the site of whoever else is quoting you. It takes thirty seconds and it tells you more than any portfolio page.

Everything we build is mobile-first, accessible to WCAG standards, and shipped with structured data so both search engines and AI assistants can read it properly. This site itself is published in nine languages, including a Lithuanian version, so multilingual is a normal request rather than an exotic one.

Sites we have built and still maintain: variantai.lt, sosposting.com, domenuok.lt, pelninga.lt, naudotasauto.lt and puranode.com. Some of those are our own products rather than client commissions, and we would rather say so than pad a portfolio. We are a young studio with few clients. That is exactly why we work the way we do.

You only pay if you love it

Here is our offer, in full. You tell us what your business does. We design and build the website. Not a mockup, not a slide, not a picture of a website. The real thing, working, on a real address you can open on your phone and click through.

Then you look at it and decide. If you love it, you pay. If you do not, you walk away and there is no invoice. Nothing up front, no deposit, no obligation.

This is not a discount tactic. It removes the part of buying a website that most small businesses find frightening, which is paying several thousand euros for something they cannot see yet, described in a document they are not qualified to check. It also keeps us honest, because we carry the risk of getting it wrong.

There is also a referral programme. Introduce us to a business and you get 10% of the deal, and they get 10% off.

How to sanity-check any quote you receive

Whether or not you talk to us, run every proposal through these questions. They take five minutes and they surface almost every unpleasant surprise in this industry.

1. Is VAT included? If the answer is vague, the real price could be a fifth higher than the one on the page.
2. Is it a fixed price or a starting price? "From €500" and "€500" are different promises. Ask what would take it above the number.
3. What does the three-year total look like? Build plus domain, hosting and maintenance. Get it in writing.
4. Who owns the domain, the hosting account and the site itself? It should be you. If leaving means losing your website, that is not a website, it is a rental.
5. Is the text included? Many quotes assume you supply every word. That is often the single biggest hidden cost.
6. How many revisions, and what counts as one? Ask for the number before you sign, not after.
7. Can you edit it yourself afterwards? Ask to be shown the editing screen, not told about it.
8. What does their own site score? Run PageSpeed Insights on the agency's homepage. If a studio selling you speed and SEO cannot pass its own test, that is the answer.

If a quote survives all eight questions, it is probably a fair one, whoever it is from.

Questions people actually ask about website cost

How much does a small-business website cost in 2026?

With SOSWebs, an informational or multi-page website starts at €300 + VAT, an online shop starts at €1,000 + VAT and an AI automation build starts at €500 + VAT. These are starting prices and every project is quoted individually. For comparison, thirteen published agency price pages checked on 30 July 2026 put a multi-page business website at €400 to €8,000, with most prices clustering between €1,200 and €2,000, and an online shop at €700 to €20,000, clustering between €1,500 and €4,000. Western European quotes for the same scope typically sit at or above the top of those ranges.

Why is a Lithuanian web studio cheaper than a Western European one?

Because salaries, office costs and overheads in Lithuania are lower than in Germany, France, the Netherlands or Ireland. The same build hours therefore cost less to sell. It does not mean fewer hours or a lower standard. SOSWebs is run from Lithuania by MB Variantai, company code 306133252, and works with clients across the EU in nine languages. The quality claim is checkable rather than asserted: soswebs.com scores 100/100/100/100 in Google Lighthouse for performance, SEO, accessibility and best practices, on both mobile and desktop.

Do I have to pay anything before the website is built?

No. SOSWebs designs and builds the website first. Not a mockup, not a picture, but a real working site you can click through. You pay only if you love it. If you decide against it, there is no invoice and no obligation. There is nothing to pay up front and no deposit.

What is not included in a website price?

Most quotes cover design and build only. The recurring costs sit outside that: a domain name at roughly €8 to €30 per year depending on the extension, hosting from around €9 per month up to €300 per year, and maintenance, which published rates put at €20 to €300 per month or €16 to €35 per hour. Text, translations, photography and any paid plugins or third-party services are also commonly excluded unless the quote says otherwise. SOSWebs handles the domain and hosting for you, and maintenance is optional.

Is VAT included in the prices?

No. All SOSWebs prices are quoted excluding VAT and VAT is added separately. Lithuanian VAT is 21%. SOSWebs is VAT registered under LT100016340412. Not one of the thirteen competitor price pages checked on 30 July 2026 stated whether its published figures included tax, so it is worth asking every studio you compare, because a 21% difference can invert a comparison.

How long does it take to build a website?

For a first build, a few days is realistic for a straightforward informational site. Online shops and anything with integrations take longer, because payment providers, shipping options and product data all have to be set up and tested. The honest answer is that the timeline depends on how quickly the content, photos and decisions come back from your side, which is usually the slowest part of any project.

Can I pay monthly instead of one lump sum?

Yes. SOSWebs offers either a one-off payment or a small monthly plan that can be cancelled at any time. The monthly option exists so a new business does not have to find the whole amount at once. Ongoing maintenance covering updates, backups, security and improvements is available separately and is optional.