How much does it cost to develop a website in 2025?

Companies often face the problem of choosing a contractor, as the cost of website development varies greatly. Some agencies offer to create a website for a few thousand, while others quote a cost that exceeds several tens of thousands of lei. What does the price depend on, what factors affect its formation and how to choose the right solution for your business? Let's understand in this article.

The main factors affecting the price of the site

1. The main factor is the working time of specialists

Unlike building a house or assembling a car, where the bulk of the cost is spent on materials, in website development the bulk of the cost is the work of specialists. In this area, a much larger share of the costs are the services of programmers, designers, layout designers and other professionals. Working time of these specialists is about 80% of the total budget.

Why it is so. Unlike physical goods, website development is not just a set of components, but the result of intellectual labour involving creativity, experience and technical skills. A website requires human involvement at every stage, from planning and designing to building and customising all the features. Even in the age of artificial intelligence, only a human being can accurately understand the needs of a business and create a website that effectively fulfils its objectives.

Site work is priced in hours, like a taxi ride or labour costs for a project. The more hours required, the higher the cost. Therefore, when asking the question ‘How much does a website cost?’ it is impossible to get a universal answer, as the complexity of project implementation can vary significantly.

How are time and price estimates formed depending on the performer?

To create a website, you can turn to different performers: freelancers, agencies or form your own team of developers. The cost per hour for each of them can vary greatly, and it is important to understand where this price comes from.

Freelancers

Freelancers are independent professionals who work for themselves. Their rate is usually lower than that of agencies. This approach can be more budget-friendly because the freelancer does not incur the cost of office rent, taxes and other related expenses. However, the low cost can hide risks such as low accountability, quality of work, or communication difficulties. There is also the possibility that the work will not be completed on time or is of poor quality, which will end up costing more money.

Agencies and studios

Agencies and studios working with a team of specialists may offer a higher price for their work. The cost depends on the company's reputation, expertise and region. Agencies specialising in website development for big brands or specific industries (e.g. financial technology or healthcare) will cost more than studios creating lendings for small businesses.

The advantages of working with agencies lie in the availability of specialists in different areas (designers, programmers, managers, testers). This allows you to get a ready-made solution with maximum expertise. Also, such companies work officially, under contracts, which guarantees transparency and responsibility for the result. However, the disadvantage may be longer communication, as you will have to communicate with the project manager, not directly with the executors.

Inhouse developers

Creating your own development team is another option. In this case, your specialists will work on the project exclusively for your company. This gives you more control and flexibility, but also more responsibility for organising work, purchasing software and equipment. This option is suitable for companies that have a large project and a constant need for website development and support.

2. Level of specialists

An important factor is the qualification of specialists working on the project. The cost of work depends on the experience and reputation of the team: the more experienced developers, designers and managers are, the higher the price.

Professional studios provide not only quality execution, but also project management, testing, support and responsibility for the result. In turn, working with freelancers may be cheaper but more risky.

3. Number of hours of work

The cost of website development largely depends on how much time specialists will need to complete the tasks. This includes analysis and planning, design creation, layout, programming, testing and other stages.

What affects the number of specialist hours?

The cost of the project depends on the complexity and scope of work. Important factors that can affect the number of hours include:

• Site type and structure: creating a lending, corporate website or online shop will require different amounts of time.
• Design: creating a unique design is always extra time, unlike using a template.
• Functionality: the more complex the functional requirements (e.g. registration system, online payment, integration with external services), the more time will be required.
• Testing: testing the site on different devices, fixing bugs, checking security - all this adds extra hours.

The more pages, features, and integrations, the more time it will take to develop. This also affects the price.

4. specification and design

The Terms of Reference (ToR) is the foundation of the project that defines its requirements and objectives. The more detailed the TOR, the easier and faster the team will work. If you define functionality, structure and design in advance, the project will be more predictable and cheaper.

5. Complexity of design

Developing a unique design requires more time and effort than working with ready-made templates. In addition, it is important to take into account that in the development of design you need to consider not only the visual component, but also user friendliness (UX/UI), which also affects the cost.

6. Additional costs

In addition to development, there may be additional costs such as:

• Purchase of domain and hosting
• Miscellaneous integrations with external services
• Licences for used plugins or components

These additional elements also affect the final cost.

How the cost of website development is calculated

At Meta-Sistem, we always form the cost of a project based on the real needs of the business. We divide the project into several stages, each of which requires a certain amount of effort:

1. Analysis and consultations: Understanding of business needs, audit of current solutions, drafting of terms of reference.
2. Design and prototyping: Creation of unique layouts, interface development, adaptive layout.
3. Programming and integrations: Development of necessary functionality, integration with external services.
4. Testing and revisions: Checking the performance of the site, making changes based on the results of tests.
5. Launch and support: Placing the site on the server, configuring hosting, technical support.

Each of these steps takes time and effort, which affects the cost of the project.

Price differences: what to do if the price seems too high or too low?

You calculated the prices for the creation of a turnkey site in several companies, and you received completely different figures? The best way to find out what the difference is - compare estimates, what exactly offer both organisations.

Start by looking at the composition of the proposal. If the composition of the proposal is roughly similar, but the total cost differs, it means that one of the companies has either added extra work or, on the contrary, left out important stages. In any case, this is a signal - study the estimates carefully and ask clarifying questions before signing the contract.

If you see a rate per hour that is too low, be wary. The contractor may have poor qualifications, lack experience, or the work may not be of the right quality. This can lead to rework and additional costs.

From practice: a company approached us with a request to participate in a tender for website redesign. We sent a commercial proposal, which turned out to be one of the most expensive among the five bidders.

We asked the client for competitors' KPIs to compare the content and find out the reason for the difference. It turned out that three of the four proposals only included design work, without layout and programming. This explained the low price.

However, in reality, the client would still have to pay for layout and revision separately, which is an additional cost. The final sum would most likely exceed the cost of a complete turnkey development from the very beginning.

How to save money on website development

The first thing that is important to say is that you should not skimp on the professionalism of developers. Yes, private contractors or young studios have lower prices, but if you are counting on a high-quality site that will really benefit the business, such ‘budget’ options can turn out to be additional costs and redesigns.

A freelancer may well be able to design a simple lending on a constructor, but if you need a full-fledged site with a well-thought-out architecture, integrations and convenient admin - it is better to trust a team with expertise and experience in your field.

However, you can still save money - and here's how:

1. Design.
   If you are working in a niche with low competition and do not need a unique visual, it is reasonable to use ready-made templates. This can reduce your budget by 20-30%. In our practice, we help to find suitable solutions - whether it is a template on WordPress CMS.
2. Programming modules.
   Not always the functionality you want ‘at the start’ is really necessary. For example, many people ask to implement a personal account, but then almost no one uses it. In such cases, it makes sense to postpone the implementation of the module or replace it with a simpler solution. Our experts will always advise you what is worth implementing at once, and what can be postponed.
3. Content.
   You can independently prepare texts, photos, description of services. This will save time of specialists and your budget. Connect a copywriter, order a photo shoot for employees and office, collect information about the company in advance - all this really reduces the final estimate.

CMS or framework - what is the cost difference?

WordPress is a great solution for sites with a typical structure: corporate sites, blogs, lendings. Development on WordPress is cheaper, but requires proper security settings, speed optimisation and adaptation of the template to business tasks. Our company helps to select and refine the template for specific needs, so that you do not have to overpay for excessive custom development.

Framework (e.g. Laravel, Symfony, Next.js) is an approach for complex, non-standard solutions where flexibility, scalability and high performance are important. Development on the framework requires more time and resources, but gives almost unlimited opportunities to customise the logic of the site for unique business processes.

Drawing conclusions

The cost of website development depends on many factors: type of website, complexity of functionality, number of hours of work, level of specialists and additional costs. At Meta-Sistem we always carefully calculate the cost based on the real needs and objectives of the client. It is important to remember that too low a price may hide a lack of quality, and a high price may include unnecessary features. Proper prioritisation and a clear understanding of your business needs will help you find the best solution.