Ask five German providers what a website costs and you get five numbers between EUR1,500 and EUR50,000, all sincerely meant. The confusion is structural: unlike app development, where everyone at least agrees a backend exists, a "website" can mean a themed WordPress install finished in a week or a custom platform with integrations that takes a quarter. This guide puts sourced 2026 numbers on each tier, explains why quotes spread so far, and names the line items buyers forget to budget.
What each website tier costs in Germany
Start with the market picture. The ihp media Website-Kosten 2026 survey asked German providers directly: a small company site of five to ten pages realistically costs EUR1,500 to EUR4,000 from an experienced freelancer and EUR5,000 to EUR12,000 from an agency. A Frankfurt market guide updated for 2026 puts basic informational sites at EUR3,000-5,000, ecommerce and custom builds at EUR5,000-20,000, and complex platforms at EUR10,000-35,000 and up.
Consolidated into planning tiers:
| Tier | Typical scope | Freelancer | Agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small business site | 5-10 pages, CMS, contact form, stock or client imagery | EUR1,500-4,000 | EUR5,000-12,000 |
| Corporate site | 10-30 pages, blog, forms, SEO setup, custom design, DE/EN | EUR4,000-10,000 | EUR8,000-25,000 |
| Template shop | Shopify or WooCommerce setup, theme adaptation, payments | EUR2,000-6,000 | EUR5,000-15,000 |
| Custom shop | Custom storefront, catalog logic, checkout, ERP or DATEV links | EUR10,000-25,000 | EUR15,000-50,000 |
The hourly math behind the agency column is the same DACH band our app cost guide documents: senior agency hours at roughly EUR95-160, senior freelancers at EUR80-120. A small site is 50-100 hours of real work; a corporate site is 120-220. Multiply honestly and the tiers above are what falls out.
Software cost calculator 2026
German market data, no vendor pricing
Estimated effort
50-100h
German agency
€4,800-€16,000
EUR95-160/h. PM, QA, and German contract partner included.
Senior freelancer
€4,000-€12,000
EUR80-120/h. You carry PM, QA, and coordination yourself.
Yearly upkeep after launch
€700-€3,200 / year
Hosting, updates, small fixes: 15-20% of build cost per year.
Where these numbers come from
Hours come from scope archetypes calibrated against published project totals (ihp media Website-Kosten 2026, Frankfurt and Berlin market guides). Rates are DACH market bands: agencies EUR95-160/h, senior freelancers EUR80-120/h (freelancermap Kompass 2026, agency listings). Planning-grade ranges, not quotes.
Independent market estimate for orientation only. Lean fixed-price builds can land below these bands; regulated or multi-market products land above.
Hourly rates: Agency EUR95-160/h · Freelancer EUR80-120/h · Maintenance 15-20% /yr
Why the same brief gets quotes from EUR2,000 to EUR12,000
Every quote gap we have ever investigated traces back to one of four hidden differences. Vendors rarely lie; they just count different things.
First, template versus custom. An adapted premium theme with your logo and colors is a week of work. A custom design with its own layout system, typography, and motion is four to eight weeks of designer plus frontend time. Both are legitimately "a new website" and they differ by a factor of five. Always ask: what exactly is template here?
Second, who writes and migrates content. Texts, product descriptions, image selection, and migrating forty old blog posts take longer than the build itself on content-heavy sites. Cheap quotes assume you deliver finished texts on time. Expensive quotes include a copywriter and a migration plan. If your texts are not written, the cheap quote is fiction.
Third, the CMS your team can actually operate. A developer-friendly setup you cannot edit without breaking the layout is cheaper to build than an editor-proof CMS with training and documentation. For teams that publish weekly, the second pays for itself in months. Ask for a demo of the editing experience before you sign, not after.
Fourth, SEO and performance as scope versus afterthought. Technical SEO setup, redirect maps from the old site, Core Web Vitals budgets, and analytics cost real hours. A quote that never mentions your existing rankings is not cheaper; it is planning to lose them quietly.
The line items German buyers forget
Three items show up on nearly every German website project and almost never in the buyer's first budget.
German-language QA and legal pages. Selling in Germany means correct Impressum and Datenschutzerklärung, cookie consent that actually blocks before consent, German date, tax, and address formats, and testers who notice when an umlaut breaks a PDF or a form validation message. Budget a day or two; skipping it costs more in Abmahnungen and support tickets.
E-invoicing and accessibility for shops. Since January 1, 2025, German businesses must be able to receive structured B2B e-invoices, with issuing obligations phasing in through 2028 per the XRechnung coordination office. Consumer-facing shops additionally face the accessibility requirements of the BFSG, in force since June 28, 2025. A shop quote that mentions neither is incomplete, not cheap.
Content operations after launch. Someone has to publish the news post, swap the hero image, and update the team page. Either budget a small monthly retainer or confirm the CMS is genuinely usable by non-developers. The most expensive website is the one nobody updates because updating it requires a developer.
Freelancer or agency for a website
For websites, the freelancer case is stronger than for apps: the coordination surface is smaller, the deployment is simpler, and a good solo developer with a designer contact covers most small-site builds well. The agency case starts where reliability and continuity matter: shops with revenue attached, sites with integrations, and anything where a sick freelancer in week three becomes your launch delay. The full decision framework, including the in-house option and the honest math on coordination cost, is in agency vs freelancer vs in-house.
Wherever you land, get comparable quotes the same way: one brief, one page list, one statement of who writes the texts, and the same question to every vendor about template versus custom. Our guide to comparing software quotes shows how to normalize them line by line.
If you have a page list or an old sitemap, send it. We will tell you which tier your project falls into and what a fair quote looks like, whether or not you build with us: talk to us.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a small business website cost in Germany?
A 5-10 page business site with a CMS and contact form costs EUR1,500 to EUR4,000 from an experienced freelancer and EUR5,000 to EUR12,000 from an agency, according to the ihp media Website-Kosten 2026 survey of German providers. Template-based shops and page builders land below that; custom design and integrations push above it.
Why do website quotes for the same brief vary so much?
Because the same brief hides different builds. A EUR2,000 quote usually means an adapted theme, stock imagery, and your own texts; a EUR12,000 quote for the same page count means custom design, a CMS your team can operate, SEO setup, performance budgets, and German-language QA. Ask each vendor what is template, what is custom, and who writes the texts.
What does a custom online shop cost in Germany?
A custom-built shop with catalog, cart, checkout, and payment integration typically runs EUR15,000 to EUR40,000 from a German agency. Frankfurt market data puts ecommerce and custom builds at EUR5,000 to EUR20,000, with the lower end covering Shopify or WooCommerce setups rather than custom builds. Add e-invoicing reception scope and BFSG accessibility for consumer shops.
What are the yearly running costs of a website?
Plan 15-20% of the build cost per year: hosting (EUR10-100/month for typical sites), updates, backups, small content and design fixes, and SSL and domain renewals. Shops with payment integrations and high traffic sit above that; a static marketing site sits below it.