Costs
What a business website costs in Spain in 2026
The short answer is “it depends”. This is the long one. A website's price splits into two costs: what you pay once for it to exist and what you pay every year to keep it running. Nearly every surprise comes from looking only at the first. This guide gives you indicative ranges for the Spanish market, the list of costs that rarely appear in a quote and a way to compare offers over three years.
What you pay once: design and build
There are three routes to getting the site built, and each moves the starting price by an order of magnitude. The ranges below are indicative, excluding VAT, and come from what is publicly advertised in the Spanish market for small-business sites: a restaurant, a hair salon, a clinic, a garage, a tutoring academy.
None of the three is right in the abstract. The useful question is what your time is worth, how much you need the site to do and who will look after it afterwards.
| Route | Indicative starting cost (excl. VAT) | What you put in |
|---|---|---|
| Site builder, done by you | €0–100 | 20–40 hours, copy, photos and legal pages |
| Freelancer, single page | €250–600 | Business information, photos, reviews |
| Freelancer, five-page site | €600–1,500 | Business information, photos, reviews |
| Freelancer, with bookings or a shop | €1,000–3,000 or more | Catalogue, opening hours, policies, reviews |
| Agency, five-page site | €2,000–5,000 or more | Meetings, approvals, content |
Build it yourself with a site builder
Wix, Squarespace, Hostinger Website Builder, or Shopify if you sell online. Starting is almost free: the tool gives you templates and you fill them in. What you put in is time: learning the editor, writing the copy, taking or choosing the photos, setting up the contact form, the cookie banner and the legal pages.
For a four- or five-page site, someone who has never used these tools usually needs twenty to forty hours spread over several weeks. If that doesn't eat into billable work, it's the cheapest option. If it does, multiply those hours by what you bill per hour and add it to the cost.
Hire a freelancer
This is the widest range because there's everything out there. As a guide, in Spain you see prices of roughly €250–600 for a single page (a landing page with the essentials), €600–1,500 for a five-page site and €1,000–3,000 or more with bookings, payments or a shop.
The gap between the low and the high end isn't just design: it's usually whether they write the copy with you, optimise images and speed, set up your Google profile and analytics, and answer when something breaks six months later.
Hire an agency
The same work usually costs two to four times as much, because there are more people in between: sales, account management, design and development as separate roles. In return you get a team, more formal processes and someone who's still there if one person leaves.
For a five-page local-business site, agency prices in Spain typically start around €2,000–3,000 and climb easily. It makes sense when the project is large, when you need several specialities at once or when the site is the centrepiece of a campaign.
What you pay every year
This is the part that decides whether the site is cheap or expensive after three years. Each item is small on its own; added together they can exceed the build price.
- Domain: a .es or .com costs around €10–20 a year. Many registrars discount the first year and charge double on renewal: always check the second-year price. How to choose it and whose name to register it in is covered in the domain and professional email guide.
- Hosting: a shared plan runs from about €3 to €10 a month. Offers at €1–3 a month usually require paying two or three years upfront and renew at full price. Site builders include hosting in their fee, which for a business plan is usually €15–40 a month.
- Email on your domain: Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 charge per mailbox. In October 2026 Google Workspace's entry plan in Spain costs €6.80 per user per month on flexible monthly billing, excluding tax, a little less with an annual commitment; Microsoft sits in a similar band. Some registrars include simple mailboxes with the domain.
- Maintenance: security updates, backups, certificate renewal and small changes. Billed separately by the hour or inside a monthly fee. The website maintenance guide explains what it should include.
- Licences: on WordPress, many “premium” plugins and themes are yearly subscriptions of around €30–100 each. If your site depends on five, that's five renewals, and if you stop paying for one, it stops getting security updates.
- External tools: a booking system, a payment gateway or a newsletter service charge their own fee or a per-transaction commission. They aren't part of the site, but without them the site doesn't do what it promised.
The prices in this section are indicative and change often, especially first-year promotions. Before signing up, always check the renewal price on the provider's own website.
What rarely shows up in the quote
Before signing, ask about these, because they're what ends up on a separate invoice or as hours of yours nobody had counted:
Copy and photos
A site without clear copy and real photos of the business doesn't work, however good the template. If you provide them, count the hours. If you commission them, a copywriter charges around €50–150 per page, and a half-day professional photo shoot for a small premises costs, as a guide, €150–400.
Free stock photos work as a background, not to show your premises, your team or your product. Paid ones come with a licence: ask who buys it and whose name it's in.
Changes, rounds and deadlines
Many quotes include two or three rounds of revisions before launch. After that, every change is billed. Ask how many rounds are included and what a change costs after launch: updating opening hours, adding a service, uploading the new menu.
Legal requirements
The legal notice, the privacy policy and, if the site uses analytics, maps or embedded videos, the cookie banner are mandatory in Spain. Ask whether the quote covers them and whether they use a paid tool for the cookie banner. The guide to the legal requirements for a business website goes into detail.
Ownership and exit
Whose name the domain is registered in, who holds the hosting account and what happens if you want to leave: whether you get the files and logins, or the site only exists inside a platform that won't let you export it. This costs nothing at the start, but it can cost you a whole website at the end.
A worked three-year example
To compare routes you have to put them over the same period. This example is a five-page local-business site with one mailbox on its own domain. Figures are indicative and exclude VAT; scenario D is hypothetical and shows how hidden costs pile up.
A. Site builder, done by you: business plan at €25 a month (€900 over three years), domain free the first year and about €15 for each of the next two (€30), email at €7 a month (€252).
B. Freelancer with a fixed price: for example, AMG Design's business website costs €690 and maintenance with hosting €25 a month (€900 over three years), plus domain (€45) and email (€252).
C. Agency: €2,500 to build and a €60-a-month maintenance plan (€2,160), plus domain (€45) and email (€252).
D. Cheap WordPress offer with no maintenance: €400 to build, promotional hosting at €3 a month the first year and €9 a month after (€252), three paid plugins at €60 a year (€540), domain (€45), email (€252) and a repair after a hack in year two (€300).
| Scenario | Starting cost | Years 1–3 (running costs) | Three-year total, excl. VAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. Site builder, done by you | €0 | €1,182 | €1,182 + your hours |
| B. Freelancer, fixed price | €690 | €1,197 | €1,887 |
| C. Agency | €2,500 | €2,457 | €4,957 |
| D. Cheap offer, no maintenance | €400 | €1,389 | €1,789 |
With Spain's standard 21% VAT, multiply each total by 1.21. If you're self-employed or a company and the site is for your business, ask your accountant (gestoría) how to reclaim the VAT and how to book the expense.
What that example tells you
Three things. First: the gap between routes narrows over three years. The site builder looks free and ends up above a thousand euros, because the fee never stops. Second: the cheap offer without maintenance ends up costing almost the same as a fixed-price one with maintenance, with more risk and more work for you. Third: with an agency you mostly pay for structure, which is fine if you need it.
What the example doesn't measure is time and risk. In A you put in the hours and you fix whatever breaks. In B and C you pay someone else to. In D nobody is responsible until something breaks, and then you pay for the repair in a hurry.
How to compare two quotes
A €400 quote and a €1,200 quote may not be describing the same thing. Before comparing the figure, make them say the same thing. Here's a four-step method:
- Ask for the breakdown: pages, features (form, bookings, map, languages), copy, photos, legal pages and Google profile setup, each marked as included or not.
- Put it over three years: add the starting cost and three times the yearly cost of each offer, including domain, hosting, email, licences and maintenance.
- Fill the gaps: if one offer doesn't include copy and the other does, add to the first what it would cost you to get it (in money or hours).
- Compare the terms, not just the price: delivery date, rounds of changes, who holds each account and what you get if you leave.
Questions to ask in writing
Having the answers in writing, in the quote or an email, avoids misunderstandings six months later. If any answer is evasive, make a note of it.
- Exactly which pages and features does the price include?
- What do I pay every year from the second, and for what?
- Will the domain and hosting account be in my name, with access for me?
- What tool is the site built with, and can I take it to another provider?
- How many rounds of changes are included before launch, and what does a change cost afterwards?
- Who writes the copy and who provides the photos?
- Does it include the legal notice, privacy policy and cookies?
- When will it be delivered, and what happens if it's late?
- What does maintenance cover, and how quickly do you respond if the site goes down?
- Does the price include VAT?
When spending more makes sense (and when it doesn't)
Spending more makes sense when the site does work for you: if it takes bookings or orders, if the phone rings because of it, if it replaces calls asking about hours or prices. There, a site that's fast on mobile, clear and well linked to your Google profile pays for itself.
It doesn't make sense to pay for things a local business rarely needs: complex animations, a blog nobody will write, ten pages when five will do, or monthly “SEO” with no statement of what gets done each month. What actually moves a neighbourhood business is in the local SEO guide and the guide to what a local business website should have.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a simple website for a small business cost?
As a guide in Spain, a single page built by a freelancer costs around €250–600 excluding VAT, and a five-page site €600–1,500. On top of that, every year you pay for the domain, hosting, email and maintenance.
Is it cheaper to build the site with Wix or a similar builder?
In money, at first, yes: you pay nothing to build. But the monthly fee never ends, and over three years a business plan adds up to roughly €550–1,450. You also put in the hours for design, copy and upkeep.
How much does it cost to maintain a website per year?
Adding domain, hosting and basic maintenance, a small site typically costs from about €150 to about €700 a year, depending on who does it and what's included. Email on your own domain is extra if you get it from Google or Microsoft.
Do website prices include VAT?
It depends on how each provider advertises them; many freelancers quote excluding VAT. Always ask and get the quote to state it. In Spain the standard rate is 21%.
Why are two quotes for the same website so different?
Almost always because they don't include the same things: one writes the copy, sets up your Google profile and maintains the site, the other just installs a template. Ask for the breakdown and compare them over three years.
What happens to my website if I stop paying the designer?
It depends on whose name the domain and hosting are in and whether the site can be exported. If everything is in your name and you have the files, you switch provider; if not, you can end up without a website. That's why it pays to settle it before starting.