How much does a website cost in 2026? Real prices in Romania

The short answer, based on offers published on the Romanian market in 2026: a presentation website starts at a few hundred euros, an online store at a thousand and something, and a custom web application can easily pass tens of thousands. The range is huge because “a website” can mean completely different things.

Let’s put the numbers on the table, with sources, then look at what actually moves the price up or down.

Market prices, by type of website

The ranges below come from offers and analyses published by Romanian agencies and developers, checked in August 2026:

Type of website	Typical range in public offers
Landing page (single page)	€200 – €600
Presentation website (4-10 pages)	€500 – €1,500
Online store	€1,000 – €5,000+
Custom web application	€3,000 – €50,000+

A few concrete market references:

• Perfect Pixel (Nov 2025): simple 4-5 page presentation site from €500 – €1,000; complex 10-20 page site from €800.
• Layouth (Jan 2025): presentation site from €500, online store that can pass €2,000.
• Necesit.ro: a “standard” website at 1,500 – 2,900 RON for the simplest builds.

The important observation: two quotes for a “presentation website” can differ by 3-4x. The difference isn’t (just) the agency’s margin, it’s what’s actually included in the price.

One more thing about the numbers above: they describe the bottom of the market. These are entry prices, calculated on an adapted theme, with you writing the copy and SEO left for another day. Above them sits an entire category that rarely shows up in public price lists: projects with design built from scratch, copywriting included, integrations with the tools you already use, and speed that is measured rather than promised. That tier starts at a few thousand euros. It isn’t “more expensive for the same thing”, it’s a different thing. The question that matters isn’t which quote is cheaper, it’s which one brings you customers.

What actually drives the price

1. Custom design vs. ready-made theme. An adapted theme is fast and cheap. A design built for your business takes days or weeks of work, and it shows in the price.
2. Who writes the copy. Many cheap offers assume you bring the texts. Copywriting done by the agency is real work and gets billed.
3. Functionality. A contact form is one thing. Online bookings, payments, customer accounts, invoicing or CRM integrations are something else entirely.
4. Technical SEO and speed. A site that loads slowly on mobile loses customers, we wrote about it in why a slow site loses customers. This optimization is included in some offers and completely missing from others.
5. Compliance. GDPR, privacy policy, a cookie banner done right. Mandatory in the EU, often missing from the very cheap offers.

The recurring costs you only find out about later

A website is not a one-time expense. Separate from the build, you pay yearly:

• The .ro domain: €12 + VAT per year, the official ROTLD fee.
• Hosting: Layouth estimated 10 – 50 RON per month for a small site in January 2025, while cyberFolks puts hosting and domain together at €50 – €500 per year.
• Maintenance: optional but recommended. WebsitExpo puts it at €50 – €200 per month on the Romanian market, depending on what it covers (updates, backups, security, content changes).

With subscription models, all of this is included in the monthly fee. One detail to always check though: who owns the domain and the website if you stop paying. If the answer is “we do”, that’s not rent, that’s dependency.

Agency, freelancer, or DIY platform?

• DIY platforms (Wix, Squarespace and the rest) are the cheapest at first sight. The real cost is your time and a result that looks like a template. Fine for testing an idea. Rarely fine for a business that wants customers from Google.
• A freelancer is usually cheaper than an agency and can deliver excellent work. The risk is long-term availability: what do you do in a year when you need changes?
• An agency costs more and offers, in theory, process, guarantees and continuity. In practice, the difference is made by whoever actually works on your project.

Where we sit. Digital U is a small team where you talk directly to the person building the thing, with no middleman between whoever sells and whoever delivers. We aren’t the cheapest option and we don’t try to be: we build sites meant to bring traffic and enquiries, and the domain, hosting and code are yours from day one. What that looks like in numbers: on a project of our own we went from zero to 3,270 monthly visitors from Google in six months, with no link building and no ad budget, and we wrote up exactly what we did in the case study.

Our recommendation, no hedging. If the website is a formality and you aren’t expecting customers from it, get a DIY platform and keep the money. We’ll tell you that honestly, even when it means we don’t work together.

But if you are expecting customers from Google, you need three things platforms don’t give you: real speed on a phone, technical SEO built in from the start, and a design that doesn’t look like your competitor’s. There the choice is between a freelancer and a team, and one question decides it: who is responsible for this website 12 months from now? With a freelancer, the answer depends on how full their calendar is at that point. With us, the answer is in the contract.

How to compare two quotes, concretely

Ask each provider to answer these in writing:

1. What exactly is included: design, copy, how many pages, how many revision rounds?
2. Will the site be optimized for mobile and speed? Measured how?
3. Is basic on-page SEO (titles, meta, sitemap, indexing) included?
4. Are GDPR and the cookie banner included?
5. Who owns the domain, hosting and code at the end?
6. How much do changes cost after launch?

If one quote is far cheaper than the rest, the answers to 3, 4 and 6 usually show you why.

Our answers to those same six questions

It would be hypocritical to hand you the list and then make you apply it to us over the phone. So here are our answers, written down, ready to be put side by side with anyone else’s:

The question	Our answer
1. What’s included?	Design made for you, not a bought theme. We write the copy if you don’t have it. The page count is fixed in the brief before we start, and the price includes 2 rounds of revisions.
2. Mobile and speed?	Yes, and it’s measured. You get the mobile PageSpeed Insights score before launch, not a promise that it “will be fast”.
3. On-page SEO included?	Included, not an add-on: titles, meta, heading structure, sitemap, indexing, structured data.
4. GDPR and cookie banner?	Included. We don’t bill separately for something that’s mandatory in the EU anyway.
5. Who owns everything at the end?	You do. Domain, hosting and code are in your name from day one. If you leave tomorrow, you leave with all of it.
6. Changes after launch?	The first 2 minor changes are free (copy edits, simple layout tweaks). Beyond those, the rate depends on complexity and you hear it upfront, not afterwards. And you’re never locked in: you have the code, so anyone can do the work.

Compare them. If someone else answers all six just as clearly, that’s a serious quote and worth considering. If they dodge 5 or 6, you already know why they’re cheaper.

Our prices, and why they say “from”

They’re all on the pricing page: presentation site from €600, Premium from €1,200, online store from €2,000, custom project from €4,500. Each package spells out what’s included, and underneath them sit the things we commit to whichever package you pick: who owns the code, how many revision rounds are in, how speed is measured.

They say “from” for the same reason the ranges above are so wide: until we know how many pages you need, who writes the copy and what the site actually has to do, an exact number is a guess. And those guesses are exactly what infuriates you when three quotes come back looking nothing alike.

The floor, though, is firm: we don’t take projects under €600. Not out of snobbery. Below that we couldn’t deliver something we’d be proud of, and you’d be paying for a site that brings you nothing. We write it down so you know straight away whether we’re in your range, without spending a call to find out.

Your number comes out of a 30-minute conversation, free and with no strings attached, where we go through the six questions above for your project. You leave with a range, the list of what’s inside it, and what would push it up or down.

And if you pick someone else afterwards, you still leave with the answers. Put them on the table with the next quote and you’ll see within five minutes who is selling you work and who is selling you a template.

Don’t feel like comparing quotes forever? We answer the six questions above for your project, in a free 30-minute call. If you’d rather have it in writing, drop us two lines and get the estimate within 48h. Already have a site and want to know what’s broken on it? Ask for a free audit.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a presentation website cost in 2026? In offers published in Romania, between €500 and €1,500, with simple builds below that range and custom-designed projects above it.

How much does it cost to keep a website running per year? The .ro domain costs €12 + VAT per year, hosting for a small site is in the hundreds of RON per year, and maintenance, if you want it, is usually quoted monthly.

Is a subscription website worth it? It can be an accessible entry point if you have no upfront budget. But check who owns the domain and what happens to the site if you cancel.

Can I build my own website for free? Yes, and for a hobby that’s enough. For a business, also count the hidden cost: your time, plus the customers lost if the site doesn’t show up on Google or loads slowly.

Can you give me a price without talking at all? Yes, the floors are public on the pricing page, starting at €600 for a presentation site. An exact number, no, and honestly nobody else should give you one without knowing what you want. That’s what the free half hour is for: you leave with your number, not the market average.

Why do I get such different quotes for the same project? Because “the same project” doesn’t exist yet. Without a clear brief (pages, functionality, who writes the copy), every provider assumes something different. Write the requirements list first, then ask for quotes.

Want an exact number for your situation instead of a range? Tell us what you need: we look at what you have now and tell you what would actually bring results and what it would cost, no strings attached.