How much does a website really cost in the Netherlands?

"How much does a website cost?" doesn't have one answer, because the three options on the market aren't really the same product. A €300 template, a €1,500 freelancer quote and an €8,000 agency proposal aren't three prices for one thing, they're three different things wearing the same name. Here's what each one actually gets you, and where the honest number lands.

The three price tiers you'll actually see

Agencies typically start around €8,000 and go up from there. You're paying for a project manager, a design team, and often a developer who never speaks to you directly, plus their overhead. Template builders (Wix, Squarespace, a WordPress theme) are cheap or free upfront, but you're doing the building yourself, and a drag-and-drop layout rarely converts as well as a site designed around how your specific visitors decide. Freelancers sit in between on price, but the range in skill and reliability is wide, and there's no team behind them if they get busy or disappear mid-project.

FluoSite's own projects are €2,000-€4,000, fixed and agreed before work starts, custom-built and conversion-focused, in-house, no outsourcing. That's not the cheapest option on the market, and it's not meant to be, it's what a properly built, converting site costs when you cut agency overhead rather than cutting the work.

What actually drives the number, whoever builds it

• Scope and pages: a focused redesign costs less than a full custom build with many pages and flows.
• Custom vs template: building a real design and structure is work; assembling a template is mostly configuration.
• Automation and integrations: forms, quizzes, booking, payments and CRM connections all add build time.
• Strategy and MVP work: a startup MVP needs product and UX thinking upfront, which is where a price climbs toward the top of any range.

Hidden costs almost nobody budgets for

• Stock photography and licensing: a cheap quote often excludes imagery; licensed photos can add €200-€1,000, and unlicensed images risk a copyright claim.
• Ongoing hosting and maintenance: a one-time build fee rarely includes hosting, domain renewal or security updates, ask what happens after launch and what it costs.
• Revision rounds: many agencies cap revisions at one or two rounds and bill hourly after that.
• Content and copywriting: if a quote doesn't include writing your page copy, budget separately for it, or be ready to write it yourself on a deadline.

So what should you actually budget?

For a straightforward business site with a handful of pages and no unusual integrations, €2,000-€4,000 fixed is a realistic, honest number for custom, in-house work, and it's what we quote before any work starts, not after. If your project genuinely needs more (a startup MVP with real product strategy, heavy automation, many locales), expect the number to move toward the top of that range, and ask any studio to explain exactly why before you sign.