How much does it cost to create a website?

Domain and hosting: the fixed annual costs

Every website has two fixed costs: the domain and the hosting. The domain, i.e. the site address (www.yourcompany.com), typically costs between €10 and €30 per year depending on the extension. Hosting, the space on the servers where the site "lives", ranges from €30-50 per year of a shared solution for small sites to €200-500 of more powerful hosting (VPS or managed), needed for e-commerce or high-traffic sites.

On top of these often come professional email mailboxes on your domain (€2-6 per month per user) and, in some cases, a CDN to speed the site up internationally (from €20 per year). The SSL certificate, which makes the site secure (the https padlock), is almost always included with hosting today.

Maintenance: the cost that makes the site last

A website is not a one-off purchase: like a car, it needs maintenance. Platform and plugin updates, regular backups, security monitoring and small content changes are what keep the site working and protected. For a business website, a maintenance package typically costs €50-150 per month.

Those who decide not to pay for maintenance pay in another currency: time to dedicate, or the risk of ending up with an outdated, slow or compromised site. A website taken down by a cyberattack costs far more than a year of maintenance.

Content: copy, photos and translations

Content is the most underestimated item. If texts and photos are not provided, they have to be produced: professional copywriting runs €50-150 per page, a professional photo shoot starts at €300-500, while quality stock photos cost €20-50 each. For a multilingual site, translation also needs budgeting: professional translation averages €10-15 per 100 words. Translating with AI is a possible and much cheaper option, but there should always be someone who knows the language well enough to review and correct the result: a badly translated text is noticed immediately and costs more in credibility than it saves.

Content is what makes the difference between a site that converts and one that stays empty: it is the last thing to cut.

SEO: the cost of being found on Google

SEO can be partly included in the build (structure, speed, technical foundations), but to rank for real it is an ongoing service. For a small business, monthly SEO services generally start at €300-400 per month and grow with the competitiveness of the industry: audits, keyword research, content, link building and monitoring.

With a smaller budget you can start with a one-off initial intervention, €500-2,000, which puts the technical base and main pages in order, then scale up in stages as you grow.

GEO: being found by AI engines too

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the optimization work needed to be cited in the answers of ChatGPT, Gemini and the other generative engines: the new frontier of online visibility. It sits alongside SEO, sharing many of its foundations.

Costs are similar to SEO ones, and providers often offer it bundled, adding an amount to the monthly SEO service fee. To understand whether and when to invest in it, our GEO guide is worth a read.

Extra features that affect the quote

Beyond the base structure, some features weigh significantly: a full e-commerce (payments, order and shipping management) starts at €2,500; booking systems or member areas start at €500-1,000; a multilingual site generally adds 20-30% per language; integrations with CRM, management systems or newsletters need case-by-case evaluation, starting from €300.

Taxes and compliance: how much they really weigh

Site costs come with tax costs, which depend on where you are. With an Italian VAT number, supplier invoices carry 22% VAT: under the standard regime you recover it as a deduction; under the flat-rate regime (5% or 15% substitute tax) you cannot deduct it, so it stays a full cost. For VAT holders under the standard regime, website costs are generally deductible or depreciable as a business expense.

If you are a private individual without a VAT number, VAT is simply an extra cost. In every case, the advice is to always ask for an invoice and evaluate the real impact with your accountant: it changes a lot between standard regime, flat-rate regime and company type.

A practical example: the year-one budget

Small local business (shop, craftsperson): build €800-1,200 + domain €15 + hosting €60-100 + essential maintenance €600 per year. Year one closes at roughly €1,500-2,000; from year two, €700-800 per year.

Company aiming at online growth: build €1,500-2,500 + domain and hosting €150-300 + maintenance €1,200 per year + SEO €400 per month. Year one reaches about €8,000-9,000, with SEO as the heaviest item but also the one that generates the return.

These are orders of magnitude, not quotes: every project has its own shape. What matters is looking at the cost of the website over 12 months, not just at the build invoice.