Costs and pricingFree tools and plans7 min reading time8,181 characters1,283 words
Website cost — the two halves of the bill and where yours sits
Build and upkeep are two separate bills. The middle of the Polish market, our own starting rates in PLN, and eight articles — one per question.
Website cost spreads further than almost anything else a company buys — and almost never because someone is overcharging. This section is about where that spread comes from and how to work out where your case sits.
It is not a guide to read end to end. It is a switchboard: eight questions about money that companies actually ask, one article for each. Below is what is worth knowing before you open any of them.
The bill has two halves, and that is the whole difficulty
Most misunderstandings about what a website costs start in one place: the conversation covers two separate bills and is held as though there were one.
The build is the one-off: design, content, construction, launch. It ends on handover day and it is the figure in the quote.
Upkeep starts the day after. Domain, hosting, updates, backups, technical care — charged every month whether or not anybody visits. It rarely appears in a quote, and after three years it can exceed the entire build.
So "how much does a website cost" has no answer until someone says which of the two bills they mean. The working rule for the rest of this section: judge every quote over three years, not over one invoice. Only then can two proposals be laid side by side.
What it costs — the market, and us
Two reference points beat one. The first is the middle of the market, so you know whether the quote in front of you is normal. The second is an actual price list, so you know where a conversation starts.
The middle of the market
Medians from our own study of 112 offers on the Polish market, May 2026:
Project type | Market median | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
Simple business-card site | approx. PLN 2,500 | basic presence and contact |
Dedicated company website | approx. PLN 5,900 | enquiries and credibility |
Extended site or portal | PLN 15,000 and up | integrations, processes, scaling |
The full breakdown — methodology, quartiles, and the split by contractor type, region and technology — is in the report on website costs in Poland. This section draws on it and does not repeat it.
The median tells you what is normal. To see where your own case sits against it, it takes an afternoon:
- Send the same brief to three suppliers. Same pages, same features, same content split. Quotes on different briefs cannot be compared; quotes on one brief show the spread of your market directly.
- Read the published price lists of suppliers on your market, and note what each tier includes. A list that starts cheaper usually sells as extras what another includes in the base.
- Compare by tier, not by total. A one-pager, a business site of 5–15 pages and a larger site with integrations are different products; the step between them is structure, not appearance.
The median is the middle of the market, not a price. Half of the offers were cheaper and half dearer, and scope decides, not category, so your case can sit anywhere in the band. Treat it as an order of magnitude — enough to tell a normal quote from a strange one, not enough to negotiate against.
Our own starting rates
If we write about prices on our own site, we should publish ours. These are the base figures from our calculator — public, so you can check each one and price your own variant. All amounts net.
Site type | Base price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
Landing page / one-pager | PLN 3,500 | one page built around a single conversion |
Business site | PLN 7,000 | 5–15 pages: services, team, contact |
Larger site | PLN 15,000 | 15–30 pages, several content types |
Portal / content platform | from PLN 35,000 | high content volume, several editors |
On top of that sit the items marked separately, because not everyone needs them: a CMS (WordPress +PLN 2,500, a custom build +PLN 6,000), a Figma prototype +PLN 1,500, a blog +PLN 1,200, a second language +PLN 3,500, user accounts +PLN 3,500, and forms, gallery and search at +PLN 800 each.
Two things are worth taking from that table. For a business-card site and a company website our starting rate sits above the market median, and for an extended site it equals it — deliberately, because it includes scope that the cheaper segment sells as extras, so compare it item by item, not against a headline number. And: the step from a one-pager to a business site is a doubling (PLN 3,500 to PLN 7,000), and what that doubling buys is structure, not appearance.
The second half of the bill, monthly
Upkeep is counted separately, and here too it starts from a specific number:
Site type | Care plan, monthly |
|---|---|
Landing page / one-pager | PLN 50 |
Business site (5–15 pages) | PLN 100 |
Blog or content site (20+ pages) | PLN 150 |
Online shop | PLN 400 |
Portal / marketplace | PLN 500 |
Web app / SaaS | PLN 600 |
Then infrastructure, depending on what the site stands on: shared hosting PLN 30 a month, cloud PLN 80, VPS PLN 120, dedicated server PLN 500. Mail on your own domain PLN 25, CDN PLN 30.
Reading those two tables together is the right way to read any quote: a PLN 7,000 business site is about PLN 11,700 over three years, once you add the care plan (PLN 100) and shared hosting (PLN 30) across thirty-six months. That is the number to compare — not the first one.
What appears in no price list
Three items never show up in a quote, ours or anyone else's — and they decide whether the project works and what it costs.
Your time. Brief, decisions, sign-off, gathering material. On a business site that is usually a dozen hours or more on your side, spread over several weeks. Not on the invoice, but in the calendar — and the item that most often moves the deadline.
Content, if you write it yourself. Copywriting is a separate line precisely because it is real work. Writing it yourself makes sense — nobody knows the offer better — but it is a choice to pay in time rather than by invoice, not a saving.
Photographs. Stock images are free and it shows. Your own, even on a phone in good light, do more for credibility than any template — and cost an afternoon.
The rule that ties this together and carries across the section: a quote prices the supplier's work, not the cost of the project. The difference sits on your side, and is worth calculating before you sign rather than in week three.
Which article answers your question
Eight articles, ordered by where you are in the decision.
Which article on website costs — by stage of the decision
Digital Vantage, own diagram
Before you buy
You have two quotes and cannot see the difference. Six factors move a quote further than page count does, and the strongest is settled before anybody negotiates: website design cost.
You have a quote and do not know what is missing. How a quote is built, how the three billing models differ, where the contingency goes and what can be negotiated: website quote.
The quote looks suspiciously cheap. Three price tiers, the real bill after twelve months, and four signs of a price with no scope behind it: cheap website design.
When the budget is near zero
You want to know whether it can be done for nothing. It can, by three routes — with a precise limit that falls in the same place for all three: create a website for free.
You are considering a free server. What you actually get for nothing, what to check in any such offer, and what happens when the provider announces a shutdown: free web hosting.
After launch
The site is live and the invoices have started. Four layers of the recurring bill, what happens when you stop paying, and which charges can safely wait: website maintenance cost.
You are not sure what you pay for each year. The two smallest items in the project and the two most often mis-planned, because the price you buy at is not the price you renew at: web hosting cost.
You are choosing between paying once and paying monthly. The five-year arithmetic, the crossover in the twenty-sixth month, and what is left when the contract ends: pay monthly website design.
Price your own case
Three quotes on one brief tell you where you stand against your market — not what your project costs. Price the build in the website cost calculator, and what accrues after launch in the maintenance cost calculator. Both update with our price list, so they will not go stale with this text.
If a quote is already on the table, the fastest route runs through two articles in order: website design cost, to see where the difference comes from, then website quote, to know what to ask.
Have a quote you would like to read with someone?
Fifteen minutes, no obligation. We will say plainly which items will arrive after you sign — including when the answer is "this quote is fine".
Related Posts
- Website cost — the two halves of the bill and where yours sits
Build and upkeep are two separate bills. The middle of the Polish market, our own starting rates in PLN, and eight articles — one per question.
- 1.Website design cost — why two quotes for the same site differ sixfold
The same brochure site gets quoted at both ends of the range, and both prices can be honest. Six factors that decide which end you are quoted at.
- 2.Cheap website design — what the lowest quote actually costs you
The lowest quote is not the price of a website, only the smallest part of the bill. Three price tiers, the real cost after a year, four warning signs.
- 3.Create a website for free — three routes and where each one ends
A free site is a real option with a precise limit. Three routes, what each one gives you, what it withholds, and what it costs once a year has passed.
- 4.Website maintenance cost — four layers of the bill, two of which nobody quotes
The upkeep bill has four layers of differing predictability. Two you can price before you sign, two you cannot. With renewal prices from published lists.
- 5.Website quote — how to read one and which billing model to take
A quote is a scope description dressed as a number. Three billing models, what milestone payments should be tied to, and where the contingency really goes.
- 6.Pay monthly website design — the five-year total and the month it crosses over
A subscription is cheaper on day one and dearer from month 24. Where the two models cross, the five-year total for each, and what you own at the end.
- 7.Free web hosting — what you get for nothing and what leaves with the provider
What a free plan actually gives you, and what happens when the provider switches off. With 000webhost and Freenom as the worked examples.
- 8.Web hosting cost — what a domain costs, what hosting costs, and what year two adds
Registration is the advert, renewal is the price. What a domain and business hosting really cost across twelve months, with a source for every figure.
- 1.
