Two websites can both have five pages and cost very different amounts.
So what are you actually paying for?
One might need to explain a business clearly that already gets clients through word of mouth.
The other might need research into how people search, pages built for different searches, three languages and forms connected to other tools.
The number of pages tells you very little on its own.
The useful question is:
what work sits behind those pages?
First: what the website needs to achieve
This is what changes a project the most.
Building a website to do these things isn't the same:
- present a business clearly;
- reach people who don't know the brand yet;
- sell products online;
- or handle a process that needs its own logic.
They're different needs.
That's why it wouldn't make sense to quote for them just by multiplying:
number of pages × price per page.
One service page might need research, structure, copy and SEO.
Another might use a structure that's already defined and only need its content adapted.
Visually, both might look like "one page".
The work isn't the same.
Content is part of the budget too
A website isn't built from design and code alone.
Someone has to decide what we say, in what order, with which arguments, what we leave out and how we explain it so that someone who doesn't know the business understands it.
If the client already has copy, photos and structure well worked out, there's work that doesn't need repeating.
If we start with scattered information and have to turn it into a website that makes sense, that's part of the project too.
That's why I'd always ask:
who's taking care of the content?
I wouldn't assume it's included, or that the client necessarily has to supply it.
A website built to attract clients needs work before design
Every website should launch technically ready for search engines to crawl and index it properly.
But that isn't the same as building an SEO strategy.
If the website needs to capture demand from Google, before designing anything you need to understand:
- what people search for;
- which services are in demand;
- which locations matter;
- which pages we need;
- and which questions are worth answering.
That changes the project's architecture.
That's why at Roke we separate a Brand Website from Web + SEO.
Not because one has "SEO" and the other is technically badly built.
The difference is how much search, architecture and content work the project needs.
Ecommerce adds an operation, not just a cart
An online shop needs more than product pages.
You have to sort out:
- the catalogue;
- variants;
- payments;
- shipping;
- emails;
- policies;
- order management;
- and the purchase journey.
It also matters which system the person running the shop will use afterwards.
A shop with twenty well-prepared products can be simpler than one with five products full of variants, rules or integrations.
Once again, counting pages doesn't settle the budget.
Once custom logic appears, we're getting into software
Bookings. Private areas. Calculators. Automations. Internal dashboards. Connections to a CRM or other tools.
At some point the question stops being "how much does this website cost?" and becomes:
"what does this system need to do?"
At that point the scope is defined by behaviour, data, users and integrations.
Not by screens.
Who will edit the website afterwards matters too
Before building, it's worth knowing what will happen after launch.
The client might need to edit:
- articles;
- projects;
- products;
- services;
- photos.
In that case, you need to set up a comfortable way to do it.
In other projects almost nothing changes for months, and it makes no sense to build a complex editing system just in case.
The level of autonomy needed is part of the technical architecture too.
How I'd compare two quotes
I wouldn't just compare the final price.
I'd check:
- What problem each proposal is solving.
- Which pages and features it includes.
- Who takes care of copy and content.
- What SEO work it really includes.
- How many revisions are planned.
- What you'll be able to edit afterwards.
- What happens after launch.
Two quotes can use the same words —"corporate website"— and be pricing completely different jobs.
If you want to go deeper into that comparison, we have a specific list of what to ask before hiring someone to build your website.
What our projects cost
These aren't market prices.
They're our current starting points.
| Service | Investment |
|---|---|
| Website Audit | €350 + VAT |
| Brand Website | from €1,500 + VAT |
| Web + SEO | from €2,200 + VAT |
| Online Store | from €2,500 + VAT |
| Custom Software | from €3,000 + VAT |
"From" means that's the starting point when the scope fits the most contained version of that service.
Before we start, we define the real scope and the matching budget.
A different invoice shouldn't turn up at the end because we decided internally, partway through, that something took more work than expected.
If the scope changes, we talk about it before doing that work.
Where I'd start
If you mainly need to present a business well, I'd start with a Brand Website.
If the website also needs to be built around searches and organic acquisition, have a look at Web + SEO.
For a shop, Online Store.
And when the important part is processes, data or custom logic, Custom Software.
If you'd first like to understand how long the project might take, we also explain what affects a website's timeline.
We write about decisions that come up in real projects: how to structure a website, how to capture demand and when technology can simplify a business.