How much does a website cost? What really drives the price

A single-page site presenting one service is not the same as a site with a catalogue, bookings or an online shop. Every feature adds design, development and testing.

Before asking for a quote, define what the site must achieve: phone calls, form enquiries, bookings or direct sales. The goal sets the scope, and the scope sets the price.

A template is faster and cheaper, but your site will look like others and will limit you when you want to change something. A custom design costs more and reflects your brand and the way you sell.

Neither option is bad in itself: templates make sense when you need a presence quickly, custom design when the website is your main acquisition channel.

This is the line most quotes underestimate. If you provide the text and images, the project is cheaper; if the agency has to create them, add copywriting, photography or stock licensing.

Also watch out for projects that stall for months because content never arrives — the real cost ends up higher.

In Mallorca it's common to need Spanish and English, sometimes German or Catalan too. Each language adds translation, review and technical setup (hreflang tags, menus, forms).

It's worth it when a real share of your customers search in that language — not as a "just in case".

A website can look beautiful and never appear on Google. Always ask whether the quote includes a search-oriented structure, unique titles and descriptions, speed, structured data and content written to rank.

That's the difference between a digital brochure and a channel that brings customers.

A website doesn't end on launch day. Recurring costs to clarify up front:

A good quote answers all of these plainly:

A small business in Mallorca rarely needs everything on day one. The cheapest project is not the one with the lowest quote, it's the one that launches with the pages that generate enquiries and grows from there with the money the website itself brings in.

In practice that means starting with the service you sell most, one page per service you actually want to be found for, a booking or enquiry form that works on a phone, and your own photos instead of stock. A catalogue, a shop, a customer area or a blog can wait until the first version is paying for itself.

One more piece of advice: agree in writing how many review rounds are included and what a change of scope costs. Most budget overruns in small projects don't come from the design — they come from decisions taken halfway through that nobody had priced.