What does a website cost in 2026? Real prices for smaller businesses

What does a website cost in 2026?

A professional website for a smaller business in the Netherlands in 2026 costs roughly one of three things, depending on where you buy it: a template subscription of €30 to €90 a month, a custom agency build from €2,500 to well past €10,000 one-off, or a rental model like ours — from €0 setup and then from €89 a month, everything included.

Those are three completely different products that happen to share the word "website". This article puts them side by side, with real numbers, so you know what you're comparing.

The three flavours in the market

Template factories (€30–90 a month, or €495–1,099 one-off plus hosting) deliver a filled-in template: your logo in, your copy in, done. Fine as an online business card. The problem is what's not in it: no conversion structure, no structured data, slow themes, and the moment you want something changed you're locked into their editor.

Custom agencies (from €2,500, typically €5,000–10,000 for a serious SME site) genuinely build for you, but you pay the whole risk up front. Maintenance is a separate contract, SEO is a separate contract, and after delivery the meter starts running for every change.

The empty middle band is where most smaller businesses actually sit: too serious for a template, no €7,500 lying around for an agency. That's exactly what our rental model exists for.

What does a website cost at Van Borg Agency?

Every price is public on the pricing page with calculator. Two lines, no page tiers:

| Package | Setup | Rent per month | | --- | --- | --- | | Website (trade template) | €0 | €89 | | Custom website (no template) | from €250 | from €99 | | Findability optimisation (optional, one-off) | €395 | — | | Findability retainer (optional) | €0 | €249 |

Every monthly rent includes hosting, SSL, maintenance, monitoring and one change per month. The site is technically sound from day one: fast, semantic HTML, clean meta tags, schema markup, llms.txt, indexable by Google and readable by ChatGPT. The website carries a twelve-month minimum, because the setup doesn't cover the build, so the build rides along in the rent.

Why two lines instead of packages?

Because you don't know up front how many pages you need, and it's nonsense to have to choose — that stayed true when we dropped four page tiers (4–7, 8–12, 13+, Complete) in August 2026. What's new: nine trades now have a proven page structure ready, not a theme but a content framework that speeds up the build. Pick your trade and get that structure filled with your services, service area and photos for €0 setup. Doesn't your situation fit that? Then we build custom from €250 setup — same build quality, no template as a starting point.

So no page tiers, either way. Six content pages are included, plus Home, Contact, terms and privacy policy which don't count towards it. Want more? You tick them yourself in the picker at €15 per month per page — never a new setup, and never a package you have to fit into. That holds during the rent too: add a service or a location and the site simply grows with it.

The technology to get found is standard in every site. Want the ongoing work on top — SEO, AEO and GEO — that's two steps: Findability optimisation sets your site up once (keyword structure, AI-friendly content, structured data, Search Console and your Google Business Profile) for €395, and the Findability retainer then keeps it going — new blog posts, photo updates and a monthly report — for €249 a month.

Making "getting found" separate from the website is a deliberate choice: the technical base is the same on every line, and you only pay for work you actually take.

Where's the catch with cheap providers?

With one-off prices under €1,000 the catch almost always sits in what happens after delivery: hosting as a surprise on top, no maintenance, and an hourly rate for every change. With template subscriptions it sits in the exit — your site lives in their system, so cancelling means starting over.

With us there's no catch, but there is one condition you should know: the rent is the engine of the model. We don't earn on the build but on the months after it, so it's in our interest that the site keeps working and keeps improving. If you stop renting, you get a clean export and your domain and Google connections stay yours. How that model works in detail is in the conversion-website story.

How fast is a website live?

The template line is live in 1 to 2 weeks, because we don't start from a blank page. Custom website takes 2 to 3 weeks, including your brand style, copy and photos either way. Compare that with the average agency lead time of two to four months — the difference isn't haste, it's that we build on our own mature stack instead of starting from scratch per project.

Want to know what your own mix costs? The calculator follows along live, and in a free 30–45 minute scan we'll look at which tier fits you.