Cheap website: what you get and what you pay for later

The short answer, based on offers published in Romania and verified on October 12, 2026: a cheap website costs between $0 (a free builder, on the platform’s subdomain) and about $435 (offers explicitly marketed as a “cheap website”). The lowest price found for a site built by someone else is $65 in labor, plus $22 - $33 per year for domain and hosting. Subscription options start at $20 per month.

Our position first, so you know where we stand: we are not the cheap option and we do not compete with a $65 site. A presentation website built by Digital U starts at $650, with a design made for you, copy written by us if you don’t have it, the PageSpeed score before launch and the domain in your name. The details are on the pricing page. If your budget is below that, in a free 30-minute call we tell you honestly which of the options below fits you. The rest of this article is the market, with sources.

A cheap website is not a trap in itself. The problem starts when you compare the day-one price while the real cost arrives in the following months: from the subscription, from copy you have to write yourself, or from who updates your site after the support period ends.

The four kinds of cheap website in Romania

A cheap website is sold in Romania in four forms, each with a different cost model. Our position first, then the published offers, verified in October 2026:

Source	Published price	What you pay separately	What you get
Digital U (us)	from $650	domain and hosting, in your name	own design, copy written by us, on-page SEO, PageSpeed score before launch (pricing)
Wix, free plan	$0	your own domain requires a paid plan	address like siteprefix.wixsite.com, Wix ads on every page, 500 MB storage
Webnode, free plan	$0	own domain, store and multiple languages require a paid plan	site on a Webnode subdomain, you build it yourself
IeftinSite	$65 labor	domain and hosting, $22 - $33 per year	WordPress site, payment after delivery, 30 days of technical support
Web Designers Alley	from $140; $425 + VAT for the 4-5 page package	extra features, at extra cost	site on a predefined template, up to 5 pages at the starting price
Novaweb	$390	pages beyond 5	adapted premium template, WordPress and Elementor Pro, 1 revision round, you send the copy in final form
Identitate Brand	$435	not specified in the offer	a single page (landing page), delivered in 7-10 working days
SiteLa90Lei	$20 per month + VAT	domain and hosting are included	.ro domain, hosting and site, ready in at most 5 days
Rent a Site	$150 per year + VAT	”no other costs”, according to the offer	3, 5 or 7 page site, domain, hosting, email, SSL, management while it is active

Prices published in Romanian lei are converted to US dollars at the October 2026 exchange rate and rounded, so the whole article reads in one currency.

The table shows that “cheap” actually covers four different products: a tool you use to build the site yourself, a rented site, a template site you buy, and a single page. The fair comparison is not between prices, but between what stays yours and what you keep paying after day one.

Free website: what it really means

A free website on Wix or Webnode is free because it stays on the platform’s address, not on your domain. According to Wix’s support page, the free plan gets an address like siteprefix.wixsite.com/siteaddress, shows Wix ads on every page, has up to 500 MB of storage and does not include online payments. Connecting your own domain requires a paid plan. Webnode works the same way: the site is free for as long as you like, but your own domain, an online store and multilingual versions are paid features.

A free website is a good option for testing an idea, or for having a page with your hours and phone number until you build something serious. For a business that wants to be taken seriously, an address carrying the platform’s name and someone else’s ads on the page tell the customer exactly what you don’t want them to hear. There is also a hidden cost: your time. A site builder saves you the labor bill, not the work.

Subscription website: the three-year math

A subscription website is cheap in the first month and expensive in the third year. The math, using the published prices:

Option	First year	After 3 years
SiteLa90Lei, $20 per month + VAT	$240 + VAT	$720 + VAT
Rent a Site, $150 per year + VAT	$150 + VAT	$450 + VAT
IeftinSite, $65 once + $22 - $33 per year	$87 - $98	$131 - $164
Digital U (us), from $650 once	$650 + domain and hosting	$650 + domain and hosting

The subscription has a real advantage: Rent a Site states that it handles domain purchase, hosting, design, launch and management for the whole period the site is active, so you have nothing to do. The downside is in the same sentence: “while the site is active”. Before you sign, ask whose name the domain is registered in and what happens to the site and the address if you stop paying. The domain is the thing your customers remember, and you do not want to rent it.

The $65 website: what fits into a price that low

Low prices in the market are possible because part of the work is either done on a template, left to you, or stops shortly after launch. The published offers say so openly, and it is good that they do:

• You bring the copy. Novaweb states explicitly, for the $390 package, that you send the copy in final form. Copy is the part of a website that convinces a customer to call you, and it is usually the slowest part of a project.
• The design is a template. Web Designers Alley starts at $140 for up to 5 pages “on a predefined template”. A template is not a problem; it is only a problem if you expected something else.
• Few revisions. One revision round on the Novaweb base package.
• Short-term support. IeftinSite includes 30 days of technical support. After that, someone has to update WordPress and the plugins.

The last point is the one that costs the most later. Patchstack’s State of WordPress Security in 2026 report shows that 91% of the WordPress vulnerabilities found in 2025 were in plugins, and the most heavily targeted ones were mass-exploited within a median of 5 hours. A WordPress site nobody updates anymore does not stay “cheap”, it stays unmaintained. We collected market maintenance prices in website maintenance: what it includes and what it costs.

Have a fixed budget and want to know what it can buy? Tell us the amount and what you want the site to do, in a free 30-minute call. If you already have a cheap site and don’t know what state it is in, ask for a free audit: you find out what is outdated and what it costs you, even if you don’t work with us.

What you don’t get with a cheap website

A cheap website usually gives you an online presence: an address, a few pages, a contact form. What is almost always missing from the price are the things that make a site bring in customers:

Copy written around real searches. A site that doesn’t use the words your customers search for doesn’t show up in Google, however good it looks. Keyword research does not fit into $65 of labor.

Speed on mobile. A template loaded with plugins is often slow. That costs measurable money: in the A/B test Google published on web.dev, Vodafone improved LCP by 31% and got 8% more sales. We explained how speed turns into lost customers in why a slow site loses customers.

Someone who answers after launch. With 30 days of support, the first problem in month two is yours.

A design that sets you apart. A popular template looks like hundreds of other sites in the same industry. For some businesses that doesn’t matter. For others, where the customer compares three offers open in three tabs, it does.

When a cheap website is the right choice

A cheap website is the right choice in a few clear situations, and it is worth saying so directly:

1. You are testing an idea and don’t yet know whether the business will exist in six months. A free site or a $65 one is enough.
2. Customers come from referrals, not from Google, and the site only confirms that you exist. A simple site, on your own domain, does the job.
3. You already have the copy written and know exactly what you want. Then you only pay for the build, and template offers are fair.
4. You don’t want to deal with anything technical and accept paying monthly. A subscription makes sense, as long as you know who owns the domain.

If you want the site to bring in requests from Google, though, the difference between $65 and a few hundred dollars goes precisely into the things from the previous section. We showed what goes into a complete business website in business website: what it includes and what it costs.

Five questions before you pay for a cheap website

1. Whose name is the domain registered in? The right answer is yours, as IeftinSite states explicitly: the accounts stay in your name.
2. Who writes the copy, and how many revision rounds do I get?
3. What happens after the support period, who updates the plugins and what does it cost?
4. If it is a subscription, what stays with me if I stop paying?
5. What is the mobile PageSpeed score of a site you have already delivered? A real example is worth more than an “SEO optimized” promise.

The answers to these five tell you the real price of a cheap website better than the figure in the offer.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a cheap website cost? $65 in labor is the lowest published price for a site built by someone else, at IeftinSite, plus $22 - $33 per year for domain and hosting, according to the offer verified in October 2026. Offers marketed as a “cheap website” go up to about $435 (Identitate Brand, for a single page), and subscription options start at $20 per month plus VAT.

Can I create a website for free? Yes, $0 on Wix or Webnode, but the site stays on the platform’s address (for example siteprefix.wixsite.com), and the free Wix plan shows Wix ads on every page and has 500 MB of storage, according to Wix’s official support page. Your own domain, online payments and a store require a paid plan.

How much does a cheap business website cost? Between $65 and $435 in labor, according to offers published in Romania and verified in October 2026: $65 at IeftinSite, from $140 at Web Designers Alley (up to 5 pages on a template), $390 at Novaweb (adapted premium template, up to 5 pages). Domain and hosting come on top in all of them.

How much does hosting cost for a cheap website? $22 - $33 per year for domain and hosting together, based on the estimate IeftinSite published in October 2026. Subscription options include them in the price: SiteLa90Lei charges $20 per month plus VAT with a .ro domain and hosting included, and Rent a Site $150 per year plus VAT.

Is a monthly subscription website worth it? A $20-per-month subscription website costs $720 plus VAT over three years, more than many sites bought once, based on the price SiteLa90Lei published in October 2026. It is worth it if you don’t want to deal with anything technical, provided you find out beforehand whose name the domain is in and what happens to the site if you stop paying.

How much does a WordPress website cost? A WordPress business website costs between $65 (IeftinSite, WordPress included) and $390 (Novaweb, WordPress and Elementor Pro, up to 5 pages) in the cheap offers verified in October 2026, excluding domain and hosting. A WordPress site also needs a maintenance budget, because 91% of the WordPress vulnerabilities found in 2025 were in plugins, according to Patchstack’s 2026 report.

What don’t you get with a cheap website? With a cheap website you usually don’t get keyword research, your own design or long-term support: Novaweb asks for the copy in final form on its $390 package, and IeftinSite includes 30 days of technical support, according to the offers verified in October 2026. You get an online presence: an address, a few template pages and a contact form.

Want a website that brings in customers, not just one that exists? See what a site from us includes on the pricing page, ask for a free audit of the site you already have, or book a 30-minute call directly.