The answers you find online to “how much does a website cost?” contradict each other. Two sources looking at the same question give completely different ranges — and neither is wrong.
The reason is simple: “website” is one word for kinds of work that have nothing in common. A five-page brochure site and a booking system running in three languages end up in the same sentence. So in this article we won’t give you a price list; instead we’ll explain what drives the cost — so that whoever you get a quote from, you’ll understand why the number is what it is.
1. It’s not the number of pages — it’s the variety of screens
The most common wrong unit of measure is page count. When someone says “a 10-page site”, the work involved depends on how many different types of screen those 10 pages contain.
Forty product pages that use the same template are a single design job. Six pages that each have their own layout, on the other hand, are six separate design jobs. What drives cost isn’t the number of repeated pages; it’s the number of unique layouts.
2. Who will produce the content?
This is the most underestimated line item in projects. Who will provide the copy, product descriptions, photos and translations?
On a large share of projects where the client says “we’ll provide the content”, the content doesn’t arrive on time and the project waits. Having the agency produce the content increases the cost but makes the schedule predictable. Whichever you choose, settling it at the start reduces both delays and cost.
Especially in sectors where visuals persuade — food, textiles, furniture — professional product photography is a separate line item. And as we wrote about food brands, photography there isn’t spending to “make it look nice”; it’s a direct conversion line item.
3. Is the business logic standard or not?
This is the biggest source of cost differences. There’s a many-fold difference between a site made up of pages, a blog and a contact form, and a site with its own logic.
Examples of non-standard business logic: filtering products by vehicle brand, switching currency by country, a multi-step booking flow, a dealer portal, approval workflows, custom calculators.
We explained in detail which of these can be handled with an off-the-shelf platform and which require custom development in our article WordPress or custom software.
4. The number of languages has a multiplier effect
A multilingual site isn’t “building the same site again”, but it isn’t far from it either. Every language means translation, a content layout specific to that language, a separate URL structure and, technically, an hreflang setup.
The effect compounds: on the Hasdağ project, the site ran in five languages, and baton simit alone came in five varieties. Once the number of product variants is multiplied by the number of languages, the volume of work is in a different league from a single-language project.
So when you ask for a quote, rather than saying “we’ll add another language later”, state your language needs from the start. A language added later always costs more than one planned from the beginning.
5. Integrations
If the site needs to talk to another system — accounting software, an ERP, a shipping carrier, a payment provider, a booking engine, a CRM — that’s a separate line item.
The cost of an integration mostly depends on the quality of the other system: working with a well-documented system that offers a proper API is predictable; working with an undocumented or legacy system requires effort that’s hard to estimate.
6. Launch isn’t the end of the project
Price comparisons almost always cover only the build cost. But a site’s life starts at launch: hosting and domain, security updates, backups, content updates, analytics and fixing issues that come up over time.
When comparing two quotes, check whether these items are included. A quote that looks low may be low because it excludes maintenance.
7. The timeline is a cost item too
Urgent projects cost more — that isn’t a pricing game, it’s a resource reality: a tight schedule means the team postponing other work or working in parallel.
Working to a realistic timeline, on the other hand, doesn’t just lower the cost; it also improves the result, because there’s enough time for gathering content and reviewing work.
What should you tell an agency to get an accurate quote?
The most common reason quotes differ wildly is that the providers didn’t understand the job the same way. If you give the following information when asking for a quote, you’ll get more accurate numbers and be able to compare quotes properly:
- What do you sell, and to whom? Consumers, wholesalers, overseas buyers?
- How many different screen types are there? Not the number of products — the number of distinct page layouts.
- How many languages and currencies?
- Is there any non-standard flow? Booking, a dealer portal, custom filtering, calculations.
- Which systems will it connect to?
- Who will produce the content? Including copy, photos and translation.
- Who will manage it after launch?
- Is there a target date?
Once these eight points are clear, you can see whether the difference between the quotes you receive really comes from scope or just from pricing.
Why don’t we publish a price list?
Because it wouldn’t be honest. Each of the seven factors above changes the cost significantly, and a number given without knowing them would either mislead you or commit us to something unrealistic.
Instead, here’s what we do: we define the scope together, then give you a clear quote that matches that scope. You can see how we work step by step on our process page.
Tell us about your project — let’s go through the eight points above together, define the scope and give you a realistic number.