who can build my website: four routes, with costs and trade-offs

business · 2026-11-01 · 5 min

someone types "who can build my website" and gets three kinds of answer: a tool that promises five minutes, a directory of freelancers, and agencies with a contact form. all three are plausible, none is right for every case.

the useful question is not "who", it is "what does this site have to do, and who can be accountable when it does not". four routes, with what each one really costs.

route 1: an ai builder

you describe the business, a template is generated, you edit it. costs 0-30 euros a month, live in an hour.

it is the right answer when the site only has to exist: a one-page presence, a menu, opening hours, a phone number. it is the wrong answer when the site has to be found, convert, integrate a booking or carry a brand that competes on trust.

the bill arrives later: the design looks like every other generated site, the domain and the content live inside a platform, and moving means starting again. export is a zip of files, not a business.

route 2: do it yourself

wordpress plus a theme, or a site builder. costs 100-500 euros a year, plus your evenings.

reasonable if you enjoy learning, have one simple offer, and can tell when a page is bad. expensive if your hourly rate is high: forty hours of learning is a week of your work, and the result still needs an editor.

the usual failure is not the tool. it is the decision fatigue: fonts, colours, plugins, cookie banners, a form that stops sending email after an update nobody applied.

route 3: a freelancer

one person, 1,500-5,000 euros for a business site, three to six weeks. you talk to the person who does the work, which is also the risk: if that person disappears, so does the context.

what to check before signing: a written scope, a fixed price, a timeline with the client duties listed, who owns domain, hosting and code, and what happens after launch. ask for two sites they built and one they maintain.

the advantage is not only price. it is that decisions happen in one conversation instead of a ticket queue.

route 4: an agency

a team, 5,000-20,000 euros, six to twelve weeks. you are buying capacity: copy, design, development and project management at once.

it is right for a shop with a migration, a brand relaunch with several stakeholders, or a site that must integrate with a crm and an erp. it is overkill for a professional who needs four pages and a booking form, and the account manager is not the person building it.

how to choose without a sales call

answer three questions.

1. does the site have to do something, or just say something? say: builder or one-page site. do: a person who can show you the thing working.
2. who will update it? if you, choose a tool you can learn. if nobody, buy maintenance or a static site that does not need it.
3. what happens in two years? if the site is the business, own the domain, the code and the content. if it is a leaflet, rent.

the trap of "fast and cheap"

the fastest, cheapest option is always available, and it is always a tool. that is fine. the problem is asking a professional to compete with it on its own terms, then being surprised when the result is the same.

what a person adds is not the ability to produce a page. it is the judgement about which page, for whom, with which proof, and what to remove. that judgement is what you are buying, and it does not fit in five minutes.

can i start with an ai builder and hire someone later?

yes, and it is often sensible. keep the domain in your name, export the content, and accept that the design and the technical foundation will be rebuilt. do not let the platform own the domain.

is a cheap freelancer always a bad idea?

no, but cheap and unavailable is the worst combination. ask what happens when they are ill, how many projects they run at once, and who answers after launch.

how do i compare two quotes fairly?

compare phases, not totals: strategy, content, design, build, qa, launch, care. a quote missing a phase is not cheaper, it is incomplete. there is a checklist in reading a website quote.

if you have the three answers above and still cannot decide, book a 30-minute call. i will tell you if you need a tool, a freelancer or an agency, even when the answer is not me. for the timing side, see a website in 7 days and freelancer or agency.