"It depends" is the honest answer to "how much does a website cost," and it's also the least useful one if you're trying to budget a project. Here's what actually moves the number, so a quote makes sense once you get one — and check our pricing page for concrete starting points.
The type of project sets the floor
A brochure/marketing site (a handful of pages, no login, no transactions) is the least expensive category, because most of the cost in any project is engineering complexity, not page count. An ecommerce store adds cost for the transaction layer, product catalog structure and payment integration. A web app — logins, personalized data, custom business logic — costs the most, because it's genuinely the most engineering work, not just more design.
If you only remember one thing from this article: the type of project matters more than the number of pages. A 5-screen web app costs more than a 15-page brochure site, every time.
What actually adds cost within a category
Custom design vs. a defined system. A fully bespoke design for every page takes longer than working within a consistent design system applied across the site. Neither is "wrong" — it's a tradeoff between uniqueness and budget/timeline. Integrations. Connecting to accounting software, a CRM, a booking system, a shipping carrier, a marketplace — each integration is real engineering work, even when it looks like a checkbox in a proposal. Content migration. Moving an existing site's content (especially from WordPress, with years of posts and pages) takes time proportional to how much there is and how messy the source is. Multiple languages. Each additional language isn't just translation — it's routing, SEO metadata, and content structure duplicated and maintained per locale. Ongoing maintenance and updates. A one-time build cost and an ongoing relationship (fixes, small updates, monitoring) are two different line items — make sure a quote is clear about which one you're looking at.
What doesn't move the price as much as people assume
Page count alone is a weak predictor once you're past the first handful — a 10-page and a 15-page brochure site are usually close in cost, because the setup work (design system, navigation, core components) is largely fixed regardless of exact count. What actually scales cost is the type of page: a static "About" page and a filterable product catalog aren't comparable, even if they're both "one page."
A rough shape, not a quote
Without knowing your specifics, real ranges vary a lot by market and scope — but the relative order holds: a focused brochure site is the entry point, ecommerce sits above it once you add catalog and payments, and a custom web app is the largest investment because it's the most engineering-intensive by nature. Anyone quoting a web app at brochure-site prices is either underscoping the work or leaving something out.
How to get an estimate that's actually useful
The fastest way to a realistic number is to be specific about what you need before asking for a quote: what type of project (brochure, ecommerce, webapp), roughly how many distinct page/screen types, what integrations are non-negotiable, and whether multiple languages are in scope. A vague brief gets a vague — usually inflated, to cover the unknowns — estimate back.
Want an actual number for your project instead of a range? Tell us what you need and we'll give you a real estimate, or check our pricing for a sense of where things typically start.