How much does a website really cost?

For a small business, you usually need a company website with 5-10 sub-pages, a simple CMS and a responsive design. In Poland, the market median for that scope (a business site) is PLN 5,900, and half of all offers fall between PLN 3,600 and PLN 10,000 (our Website costs in Poland 2026 report). In our calculator, a corporate website starts from a base of PLN 7,000, with the CMS, design level and features added on top. Very cheap offers usually mean a template with no expandability or a subscription platform that is difficult to exit. An unusually high price for a simple company website needs to be justified - ask what exactly is in the scope.

No - a higher price is necessary, but not sufficient. An expensive implementation may be technically overkill for the needs of the project. Adequacy is more important: whether the agency understands your business goal, proposes technology appropriate to scale, and clearly explains what you are paying for. Price should be a consequence of scope, not a starting point.

Three things make the biggest difference: (1) Level of design - in our calculator, a custom design instead of a template adds PLN 3,500 for a corporate website and PLN 8,500 for an extended one. (2) Content management system - WordPress is cheaper to implement, Headless CMS more expensive, but cheaper to maintain. (3) Number of custom features - each integration, form with conditional logic or multilingualism is additional hours of work.

Three things make the biggest difference: (1) Level of design - in our calculator, a custom design instead of a template adds PLN 3,500 for a corporate website and PLN 8,500 for an extended one. (2) Content management system - WordPress is cheaper to implement, Headless CMS more expensive, but cheaper to maintain. (3) Number of custom features - each integration, form with conditional logic or multilingualism is additional hours of work.

Simple company website with finished design: 3-5 weeks. Website with custom design and CMS: 6-10 weeks. The most common reason for delays is late delivery of content by the client - not the work of the developer. Before the project starts, prepare texts, photos and logos in appropriate quality.

WordPress makes sense when you care about the lowest possible startup cost, have a team that knows it and don't plan on a lot of traffic. Next.js with headless CMS (like Payload) is 30-50% more expensive to implement, but gives you better performance, full code control and zero dependency on plugin ecosystem. For a business that plans to grow - the investment in a modern stack pays for itself in 2-3 years with lower maintenance costs.

A classic CMS (like WordPress) combines content editing with site code. Headless CMS (like Payload, Contentful, Strapi) separates these two layers - you manage the content in one place and the display on the other side. It's more flexible, faster and more secure, but requires more implementation work. It's a solution for companies that want to publish content on the website, mobile app and other channels simultaneously.

Costs that no one gives in the offer: (1) Domain and SSL - about PLN 100 a year for a standard .pl domain in our calculator. (2) Hosting - from PLN 30 to PLN 500 per month in our calculator, from shared hosting to a dedicated server, depending on technology and traffic. (3) SSL certificate - often included, check. (4) Maintenance - updates, backups, monitoring - PLN 200-1,200 per month in our calculator, depending on the size of the site. (5) Renewable licenses for premium plugins on WordPress. Add a full year of these running costs to your budget, not just the build.

Ask for a breakdown - what specifically goes into each budget item. A good agency can tell you how many hours a UX project takes, how much front-end implementation and how much testing. Red flags: no list of deliverables, resistance to questions about technology, guarantee of Google position as part of the bid, price significantly below market without explanation.

No - and on purpose. The calculator gives a guideline range with an accuracy of ±20-30%. Final pricing depends on details that can only be discussed in conversation: number of sub-page templates, animation requirements, industry specifics, existing hosting system. Use the calculator as a starting point for a conversation with an agency - not as a basis for signing a contract.

Facebook is a platform whose rules change without warning and which limits organic reach every year. The website is yours - no one is going to shut it down for you, limit your reach or change the algorithm. From an SEO perspective: Google doesn't index Facebook profiles the way it indexes websites. If you want to appear in search results - you need your own page.

Technical support is not just - something breaks, we fix it. It's: regular updates of the system and plugins, daily backups with the possibility of restoring, availability monitoring (alert when the site does not work), SSL certificates, performance optimization. In our calculator it costs PLN 200-1,200 per month, depending on the size of the site. Lack of technical support is a saving that can cost you the loss of your site or a hacking attack.