What (Really) Makes a Website More Expensive in 2026: Our Calculator's Line-by-Line Breakdown

Quick answer: in 2026, according to our real service catalog — the same one that powers this website's quote calculator — a corporate website starts at €1,200, a custom one at €3,500 and a premium portal at €9,000. An online store runs from €1,875 to €11,250 depending on the tier. And what really drives the price up isn't "the design": it's the tier jump (each jump multiplies the price by 2.3 to 3.6), the project type (a store costs 25% to 56% more than the equivalent website) and the recurring services almost nobody budgets for (from €60 to €1,200 per month). Below is the full line-by-line breakdown with the exact numbers from our calculator. You can verify every figure yourself in two clicks: the calculator is live in production and uses these very amounts.

Why we publish our prices (and why almost nobody does)

The industry norm is well known: you ask how much a website costs and the answer is "it depends, book a call". There's some truth to it — every project is different — but "it depends" is also a comfortable way of never committing to a number.

We decided to go the other way: we built a public calculator that computes the quote live using the prices from our real service catalog, the same one we use in commercial proposals. This article is that catalog put in writing: the same services, the same amounts.

Two honest disclaimers before we start:

The base price, line by line

Every quote in the calculator starts from a base line item depending on project type and tier. These are the exact amounts:

So that "tier" isn't hot air, this is what separates each level for a corporate website:

Two quick reads of the table that surprise almost everyone: an MVP app (€9,000) costs exactly the same as a premium website, and an AI chatbot (€1,125) costs less than an essential corporate website.

The honest range: why the calculator doesn't give one round number

When you configure a project, the calculator doesn't return a single figure: it returns a range that goes from the catalog price to that same price +15%, rounded to the nearest €50. That's exactly how it's written in the code.

Example with the custom website: €3,500 starting point → a range of €3,500 to €4,050 (3,500 × 1.15 = 4,025, rounded to 4,050).

Why +15% and not a fixed number? Because the catalog itself manages every project as a ±15% range: it's the realistic margin for what surfaces in the kickoff call — an integration nobody mentioned, content that needs migrating, one more section. We'd rather show you that margin from minute one than hand you a pretty number that later grows in the fine print.

The extras, with their exact price

On top of the base line item, the calculator lets you add extras. Each one has its price and is added as-is to the breakdown:

Three behaviors that are also deliberate decisions:

The 3 factors that move the price the most

With the table in front of you, the three real multipliers are evident:

1. The tier jump. It's the most powerful lever. Each jump multiplies the price by 2.3 to 3.6 depending on the project type: for websites, going from essential to custom multiplies by 2.9 (€1,200 → €3,500) and from custom to premium by 2.6 (€3,500 → €9,000). Between extremes the distance is huge: from the essential website to the premium portal there's a ×7.5, and from the AI chatbot to the custom agent, a ×12. The right question isn't "how much does a website cost?" but "which tier does my business actually need?".

2. The project type. At the same tier, an online store costs more than a corporate website: +56% at the essential tier (€1,875 vs €1,200), +39% at the mid tier (€4,875 vs €3,500) and +25% at the high tier (€11,250 vs €9,000). And software and apps play in another league: the mid tier of custom software (€13,500) is almost four times the custom website.

3. AI extras weigh more the smaller the project is. Adding an AI chatbot (+€1,125) to a €1,200 essential website nearly doubles the budget (the project moves to €2,325 – €2,650); that same chatbot on a €9,000 premium portal barely moves it 12.5%. If your project is small, every extra deserves a second thought; if it's large, the extras are almost noise.

The recurring costs almost nobody budgets for

The classic mistake when budgeting a website is looking only at the project and forgetting the monthly fee. The calculator separates them on purpose: the project range on one side and, below it, "+ €X/mo in recurring services". Put on a yearly horizon, the amounts change scale:

None of this is fine print if it's shown from the start. The problem is when the initial quote stays silent about these lines and they show up at the first renewal.

A complete example, number by number

Let's configure the most common case for a services SME: custom website + AI chatbot + local SEO + basic maintenance. This is exactly what the calculator returns:

The top of the range comes from the +15% rule: 4,625 × 1.15 = 5,318.75, rounded to €5,300. And now the read almost nobody does: the first full year of this project costs between €12,545 and €13,220 (project + 12 monthly payments of €660). In other words, more than 60% of the first-year cost is recurring, not project. That's why we insist so much on budgeting the monthly fee from day one.

Check it yourself (and cite it if it's useful)

Everything above is live in production: open the quote calculator, configure your project and you'll see these same amounts, line by line and with their range. If you write about industry pricing, you're welcome to cite these figures linking to the source — the calculator page even lets you embed it on your own website.

For more market context, we've published the guides on how much a website costs in Spain and how much an online store costs. And if what you want is a number for your specific case, with nuance and without ranges: request a quote and we'll reply within 24 hours.

Frequently asked questions

We answer the most common questions about the calculator's prices and how to read them.