How much does a website cost in 2026?

Prices by type: it matters what you are having built

The landing page / one-page introduction is the entry level: a single, well-targeted page - an introduction, one service or one campaign offer. In Hungary it typically runs around 150–280 thousand forints (a seriously optimized, conversion-focused campaign page can cost more), and it is ready in days to weeks. For a small service business or a fresh start, it is often perfectly enough.

The classic business website (5–10 subpages: services, prices, gallery, contact) is the biggest category - and the one with the widest spread. The Hungarian market's median prices are telling: simpler sites hover around 200 thousand forints, while more complex ones go above 600 thousand. The dividing line is usually the design: with a quality template/module base you are at the bottom of the range, while a custom identity designed from scratch starts the story above 500 thousand.

With a webshop, there are two things to know. Building one in Hungary typically costs 400–850 thousand forints (WooCommerce-based builds sit at the top of the range, Shopify builds come with a lower build fee)… but the webshop is the only type that keeps spending afterwards too: platform monthly fees and/or payment commissions apply - with card payments, roughly 2.5–3% of sales. This has to be priced into the business plan.

The custom system / web application - booking system, client portal, calculator with its own logic, API integrations - is no longer a “website” but software. There are no list prices here: hourly rate times scope, and the order of magnitude is in the millions. As an international reference, a basic booking system is built from the equivalent of 1.5–7 million forints, and a more serious client portal from a multiple of that. If this is what you are planning, the first step is a thorough needs assessment, not a fixed price.

Template, custom development or AI? - the three routes

The same site can be built in three different ways, and this alone explains most of the price differences. The WordPress template/module-based route is the proven middle ground: it builds on mature foundations, so it is fast and affordable, yet you still get a fully fledged, editable, portable website. Custom design and development builds everything from scratch - its freedom is total, but as a rule of thumb expect 2–3 times the price for the same site and months instead of weeks. It pays off when brand differentiation or a unique piece of functionality is at stake.

The third route is a development of recent years: do-it-yourself and AI-based site builders (with subscriptions equivalent to a few thousand forints a month). They look cheap, but two things are worth knowing: the monthly fee lasts forever - over three years even a “cheap” builder subscription adds up to hundreds of thousands - and the work (copy, images, structure, maintenance) is still yours to do. With subscription models, always calculate the cost projected over several years, never the monthly price tag.

And a 2026 market curiosity: although AI has pushed the entry level down, agency prices have not fallen - according to one industry analysis, AI-assisted development became 22–34% faster, but studios reinvested the freed-up time into quality, not into the price. This is why the market is opening up more and more room for AI-based, fixed-price solutions between subscription builders and manual agency work.

Why do two quotes for the same job differ tenfold?

When you ask for three quotes and get 90 thousand, 350 thousand and 1.9 million forints, it is not that someone is lying - it is that they are not pricing the same thing. The difference comes from six factors: template or custom design (a 2–3× multiplier), the contractor's hourly rate (in Hungary the spread is twelvefold, between a beginner freelancer's ~5 thousand and a large agency's ~60 thousand forints per hour), the features (a payment or invoicing integration alone is an item around 40–60 thousand forints), the content (copywriting, photos - in the cheap quote this is always “your job”), the depth of the process (needs assessment, SEO foundations, testing - 40–50% of an agency budget, simply missing from the cheap one), and post-handover support.

The quick test you can run on any quote: a proper business website takes 100+ working hours. Divide the price by a hundred - if the resulting “hourly rate” is a few hundred forints, those hours are simply not in the quote: either the content is missing, or the process, or both. It is not a scam - you are just not getting what another, more expensive quote includes.

The running costs the quote stays silent about

A website is not a one-off purchase. Fortunately, the basic annual costs in Hungary are modest: renewing a .hu domain typically costs 3–6 thousand forints a year (with the promotional “first year for a few hundred forints” offers, always check the renewal price - that is what you will be paying for years), shared hosting runs 14–25 thousand forints a year, and the SSL certificate (for HTTPS) is by now practically free everywhere. Maintenance (updates, backups, small fixes), on the other hand, is priced very individually: it depends on what and how much you outsource - it is worth asking for a specific quote and clarifying exactly what it covers. With a webshop, platform fees and payment commissions come on top.

The industry rule of thumb worth keeping in mind before any decision: over three years, a website's total cost is 2–3.4 times the initial build price. So never compare quotes on the initial price alone - ask what will cost how much each year, and who will do the work.

And one item many people mentally fold into the website's price, although it is a separate discipline: traffic. A finished site does not bring visitors on its own - that is the job of SEO (time) or advertising (money). It is wise to set aside a separate budget for this right from the start.

To sum it up, item by item - these are the six lines to count with when planning a website budget:

1. Development cost (one-off): the biggest item - landing page ~150–280 thousand, business site ~200–600 thousand, webshop ~400–850 thousand Ft, custom system in the millions.
2. Domain (yearly): .hu renewal typically 3–6 thousand Ft/year, international endings (.com and friends) cost more. Watch out: if the name you want is held by a reseller, buying it is a one-off extra that can run into the hundreds of thousands or even millions. And always have it registered in your own name!
3. Hosting (yearly): shared hosting ~14–25 thousand Ft/year; it is often included in a maintenance package, in which case you do not even pay for it separately.
4. SEO (ongoing): if you do it yourself (content, Business Profile, measurement), you pay in time - in money it is free; from a professional it is a monthly service, typically a pricier item than maintenance. To get started, the basics can be handled in-house.
5. Advertising budget (optional): Google Ads / Meta - a budget you control, start and stop any time, while your SEO matures or whenever you need traffic fast.

The three classic pricing traps

The cheap website you buy twice. What is typically missing from the 30–100 thousand forint quotes is exactly what makes a site work: mobile optimization, basic SEO, security, measurement. The typical story: a year later it turns out Google cannot find it and it falls apart on mobile - and then comes the rebuild, this time at the proper price. That is how the cheap one turned out to be the most expensive.

The subscription trap. A “cheap” monthly subscription is often more expensive by the third year than a one-off build fee - and the moment you stop paying, your website disappears. Before choosing one, do not look at the monthly price: multiply it out over three years and ask - what happens if one day I do not pay?

The ownership trap. The domain and the hosting should be registered in YOUR name, not the contractor's - otherwise your web address depends on their goodwill. We covered this in detail in our article on choosing a domain. And why is a proper website worth paying for at all? We have known since the classic Stanford research: three quarters of visitors judge a company's credibility by its website - your site is your first impression, before anyone ever talks to you.

And our prices? - deliberately not here

This article is market research from start to finish, and we wanted to keep it that way: the ranges above are about the market, not about us. Our own itemized price list - introductory site, business site, webshop, maintenance, domain - lives in the Pricing section of our homepage, with upfront, one-off prices, so you can compare it with anyone: with us, with the market ranges, with the quotes landing in your inbox.

If there is one thing to take away from this article for your comparisons, it is this: do not compare the price tags, compare what is behind them - what is included, what is not, and what it will cost each year. That is what the itemized list above and the five questions in the tip are for.

Frequently asked questions