How much does a website cost in Italy: real prices and rates 2026

How much does a website cost in Italy in 2026? The real answer is "it depends", but not in the vague way other agencies have told you. It depends on specific, measurable things that can be put on a spreadsheet and compared line by line. The problem is that most quotes that land on our clients' desks lack that transparency. They have a final total, a payment deadline and three lines of description.

In this guide we give you real market prices in Italy, with concrete ranges and the reason they exist. It's the same framework we apply when preparing a quote for clients of +Click Web & AI, with the difference that here we're not selling you anything: we're giving you the numbers.

#Why quotes vary from 300€ to 30,000€

It happens often: you ask three quotes for the same project and receive proposals at 600€, 4,500€ and 18,000€. It seems impossible they're for the same work. They're not for the same work. What changes is not the "website" as an abstract object, but five variables that often go undeclared.

• Who actually does the work: a first-year freelancer costs a third of a ten-year agency, but on complex projects that saving turns into wasted time and production bugs.
• The technology chosen: WordPress with a bought template is very different from a custom Next.js build. Each has pros and cons, but the final price is three or four times different.
• The number of revisions included: some proposals include two rounds of changes, others unlimited, others none at all. The "revisions" line alone can change the price by 30%.
• Copywriting and photography included or not: writing 8 pages of corporate website is real work. If the agency doesn't do it, you do (or an external copywriter, 600-2,500€ extra).
• Level of technical SEO: schema markup, hreflang for multilingual sites, dynamic sitemap, Core Web Vitals above 90. Invisible details that decide if the site ranks or not.

When you compare three quotes without asking these five things, you're comparing apples with peanuts. That's why the lowest price almost always wins, and almost always the client ends up redoing the website from scratch after two years. The story repeats so often that in audits of new clients we see the same pattern: first traumatic experience with a low-cost site, second attempt with a serious agency, final total cost double what doing it right the first time would have cost.

#Real price ranges for each website type

Here are the ranges we see in the Italian market in 2026. These are real numbers, not official rate cards. They include work from an agency or a structured team of two-three people (designer, developer, project manager), not a freelancer on their first project. If you see prices well below the minimum, you're buying something different from what you expect.

Corporate brochure site (5-10 pages)

• Entry-level with customised template: 1,500-2,500€. WordPress or lightweight framework, design adapted from template, minimal copy, basic SEO.
• Mid-tier custom: 2,800-5,000€. Original design, custom development, light animations, Core Web Vitals optimisation, content written from brief.
• Premium custom: 5,500-9,000€. Complete design system, Next.js or equivalent development, multilingual, CRM integrations, professional copywriting included.

To understand the difference between these three tiers, look at the detail. A 1,800€ site typically has a template bought on ThemeForest for 60€, adapted in colours and logo, filled with text you sent via WhatsApp. A 4,500€ site has a Figma design from scratch, no theme dependency, text written starting from a one-hour client interview. A 7,500€ site adds proper multilingual support (hreflang, dedicated sitemaps, real copy translations not Google Translate) and real integrations with your management system.

Single landing page

• Quick template-based landing: 400-700€. One page, standard layout, basic contact form, zero conversion optimisation.
• Professional landing: 800-1,800€. Persuasive copy, custom design, CRM integration, Meta and Google tracking pixels, A/B test ready.
• Landing for high-budget paid campaigns: 2,000-3,500€. Multiple variants for A/B testing, integrated videos, micro-animations, heatmap setup.

The low tier exists and makes sense in only one case: zero budget, testing an idea for two weeks. Outside that scenario, a 500€ landing page is a bad investment because it almost always needs rewriting. We covered conversion and the elements that drive it in the guide on how to optimise a landing page for conversion.

Ecommerce

• Shopify basic (up to 50 products): 2,500-4,500€. Premium customised theme, full configuration, payment integration, shipping, electronic invoicing.
• Advanced Shopify or WooCommerce (50-500 products): 4,500-9,000€. Custom theme, catalogue import, optional B2B, basic warehouse management, multilingual.
• Custom Next.js or headless ecommerce (large catalogue, complex integrations): 12,000-30,000€. Full-stack development, real-time warehouse sync, ERP integration, obsessive SEO optimisation.

The choice between Shopify and WooCommerce isn't just about price. It's about business model, future scalability and how much you want to pay in monthly fees. We dedicated a full guide to the comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce for Italian ecommerce, going into the details of three-year total cost.

Specialty sites (portals, booking engines, SaaS)

Here the ranges become wide because every project is different. A booking site for holiday rentals with a custom booking engine costs between 8,000€ and 20,000€. A community portal with user login, dashboard and editor-managed content starts at 15,000€. A B2B SaaS with auth, dashboard and API integrations is another planet: 25,000€ minimum, up to six figures.

#What actually drives the cost of a website

Now the part agencies don't love explaining: the final price is decided by five factors, everything else is cosmetic. Understanding them lets you read a quote and tell if it's honest.

Actual hours of work

A 6-page brochure website typically requires 50-80 hours across design, development, content and revisions. A freelancer invoices between 30€ and 60€/hour, a mid-tier agency between 60€ and 90€/hour, a top agency between 90€ and 150€/hour. Multiply and you get the range. If a quote sits well below it, they've cut hours (the site will be poorer) or they're using a template that compresses hours.

Technology stack chosen

WordPress with bought template remains the cheapest option (typical 1,500-3,000€) but brings technical debt: plugins that update, security vulnerabilities, worse performance. A modern stack like Next.js, Astro or Remix costs more upfront (3,500-8,000€ for equivalent scope) but drastically reduces maintenance cost and improves Core Web Vitals, which Google rewards in rankings.

Content: who writes it and produces it

Website copy is real work. Writing well 8 pages of a corporate site takes 15-25 hours of copywriter time. Professional studio or on-site photos cost 400-1,500€, presentation videos start at 800€. If the quote is low, check whether all this is included. Often the site gets "delivered empty" and then it's up to you to write it, with the result that the site stays in draft for months.

Level of technical SEO integrated

Proper technical SEO is the difference between a site that ranks and one Google doesn't see. Line items that should be there: XML sitemap, hreflang for multilingual, schema markup (JSON-LD), Open Graph and Twitter Card for social, configured robots.txt, correct canonicals, Core Web Vitals above 90 on mobile. If these aren't in the quote, don't expect them in the site. We analysed them in detail in the guide on professional website creation.

Number of revisions included

A line that shifts the final price by 20-30%. Two included revision rounds is the market standard. Unlimited revisions are rare and expensive. Zero revisions means every small change after delivery becomes an extra invoice at 80-120€/hour. Always read this line and clarify what counts as a "revision".

#Hidden costs nobody puts in the quote

Here we enter the part where the unpleasant surprises happen. The quote says 2,800€ total. The site is delivered. Three months later invoices arrive the client didn't expect. Let's see what they are and how much they actually weigh.

1. Domain: 12-30€/year (for .it, .com, .eu). Often not included in the initial quote.
2. Hosting: 60-300€/year for small-medium sites, 600-2,400€/year for performant hosting with CDN for ecommerce or high-traffic sites.
3. SSL certificate: free with Let's Encrypt in most cases, but some hosts charge 30-150€/year for EV or wildcard certificates.
4. Automated backups: 60-200€/year for serious services like BlogVault, UpdraftPlus Premium or server-side backups.
5. Paid WordPress plugins: advanced forms (Gravity Forms 60€/year), SEO (Yoast Premium 99€/year), e-commerce extensions (50-300€/year each), security (Wordfence 119€/year). Can add up to 400-800€/year.
6. Maintenance and updates: 30-100€/month for a basic plan, 150-400€/month for ecommerce or business-critical sites.
7. Professional emails (info@yourdomain.com): 60-180€/year for 5-10 mailboxes on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
8. GDPR-compliant cookie banner: Iubenda starts at 35€/year, Cookiebot from 192€/year, Usercentrics has plans from 500€/year for structured projects.

Adding it all up, recurring annual cost of a corporate brochure site is between 200€ and 1,200€/year. For an ecommerce it rises to 600-3,000€/year. These figures should be written in the initial quote as "year 1, year 2, year 3 costs", not as asterisks at the bottom of the page.

#When a 500€ quote ends up costing 5,000€

Very low quotes aren't fake marketing. They're legitimate business models, but different from what you think. Let's see how they work and why you end up spending more.

Case one: the loss leader. The 500€ site is the entry door. The agency or freelancer counts on the fact that within 2-3 months you'll come back for changes, integrations, extra plugins, and each request is billed at 80-150€/hour. Six months later you've spent 3,500€ and have a mediocre site. The classic "we do it for free and you only pay for what you add" is the same logic.

Case two: the wild template. The site is built in 4 hours buying a theme on ThemeForest, dropping in your logo and changing colours. It works, but it's not really customised and load times are slow (premium themes ship with 30+ default plugins). The first issue arrives when you want a custom feature: impossible without rewriting half the theme.

Case three: the site without SEO. The site gets delivered without meta descriptions, without schema markup, without hreflang, without dynamic sitemap. Technically it works, but Google struggles to index it and six months later you realise your marketing spend on Google Ads and local SEO is less effective because the site underneath can't hold up.

Case four: the agency that abandons the site. Site delivered, invoice paid, developer disappears. Six months later a plugin breaks and you don't know where to put your hands. You find another agency that asks 600€ for "understanding how it's built" before being able to help. The price of abandonment is around 30-50% of the original cost.

#Annual maintenance: the forgotten line item

A website isn't a statue. It's software that lives, must be updated, has vulnerabilities discovered over time, has content that changes. Ignoring maintenance is the fastest way to turn a 4,000€ investment into 8,000€ after two years, because you'll have to redo it from scratch.

Basic maintenance plan (30-80€/month)

Includes monthly core CMS and plugin updates, uptime monitoring, weekly off-site backups, basic security checks. The bare minimum for a corporate brochure site. Below this you're taking risks (security, malware, downtime) to save 360€ a year.

Full maintenance plan (150-400€/month)

Includes everything in basic, plus: monthly small changes included (text, images, mini-pages), quarterly speed optimisation, quarterly SEO audit, Core Web Vitals monitoring, fast recovery in case of issues. What we recommend for ecommerce or business-critical sites.

Dedicated ecommerce plan (300-800€/month)

Ecommerce needs more: inventory sync, seasonal promotions management, payments and shipping updates, returns and cart abandonment handling. Below 300€/month on a live ecommerce there's real risk that something breaks at critical moments (Black Friday, Christmas).

#Three real cases with real numbers

To stop reasoning abstractly, here are three real projects we delivered. Real numbers, real scope, real decisions.

F&F Autoservice: multi-service automotive brochure

The F&F Autoservice case is illustrative. Multi-brand dealership plus mechanic shop plus inspection centre plus car wash in one structure in Poggio Nativo. Custom HTML website built on ffautoservice.com, integrated with the lead generation system for Meta Ads campaigns. Result: 199 qualified leads generated with parallel ad campaigns at CPL €1.07 (BMW), €5.25 (Jaecoo), €12.92 (Omoda). The site isn't just "pretty", it's a conversion machine that directly feeds the advertising campaigns.

Appartamenti Mare Sardegna: bilingual proprietary booking site

The Appartamenti Mare Sardegna project is one of the most technical. Site appartamentimaresardegna.com built in custom Next.js, bilingual IT/EN with hreflang, proprietary booking engine, SMTP contact form with automated notifications, zero dependencies on external CMS or booking engines. Impeccable technical SEO from day-1, Lighthouse 95+ on mobile. Initial investment higher than a standard Shopify, but the client pays no OTA commissions (Booking, Airbnb) and has full code ownership. Break-even typically arrives within 12 months of direct bookings.

Hotel Don Diego: integrated luxury communication

The Hotel Don Diego case on the Costa Dorata in Sardinia is different: the hotel already had a website but needed to raise its luxury positioning. We produced professional drone videos of the structure, coast and Tavolara and Molara islands, plus interior shoots of sea-view Junior Suites, restaurant, pools and private beach. Investment concentrated in video production and shoots (8,000-15,000€ of visual assets), then distributed via social with a luxury travel editorial plan. Strategy focused on direct bookings for the May 24 - October 12 season, without paying high portal commissions.

The price of a website isn't "high" or "low" in absolute terms. It's adequate or inadequate relative to the business goals it needs to serve. A 1,500€ site can be perfect to validate an idea. A 1,500€ site for an ecommerce with 500 products is a disaster waiting to happen.

— Niccolò Giuseppetti, founder +Click

#How to read a quote line by line

A serious quote should contain these line items, explicit and quantified. If they're missing, ask before signing.

1. Project scope: number of pages, number of templates, custom features, third-party integrations listed.
2. Technology chosen: CMS or framework, reasoning behind the pick, recommended hosting.
3. Copywriting and photography inclusions: who writes the text, who produces images, whether the cost is inside the quote.
4. Number of revisions included: typically 2-3 rounds per phase (design, development, content).
5. Technical SEO: schema markup, sitemap, robots, Core Web Vitals target, multilingual if needed.
6. GDPR compliance: cookie banner, privacy policy, processing register, consent mode.
7. Delivery timeline: start date, intermediate milestones, realistic go-live date.
8. Post-launch warranty: how many days of free fixes after go-live (standard is 15-30 days).
9. Recurring annual costs: hosting, domain, plugins, maintenance, broken out for year 1 and after.
10. Payment terms: percentages per milestone (typical 30% start, 40% design approved, 30% go-live).

If the quote in front of you is missing more than three items from this list, stop. It's not necessarily a dishonest agency, but it's an agency that hasn't put in writing things that will become problems. And problems put in writing after go-live always cost more than problems put in writing before.

Checklist before signing the quote

1. You've received at least 2 comparable quotes on the same scope.
2. You know the technology they'll use and why.
3. You know who will write the text and take the photos.
4. You have a schedule with milestone dates and penalties for delays.
5. Recurring annual costs are transparently declared.
6. You've seen at least 3 previous projects from the agency, similar to yours in size.
7. Code and content ownership clauses are clear.
8. There's an optional maintenance plan with published prices.

#FAQ website pricing