What does a website cost in 2026? Real prices for smaller businesses

What does a website cost in 2026?

A professional website for a smaller business in the Netherlands in 2026 costs roughly one of three things, depending on where you buy it: a template subscription of €30 to €90 a month, a custom agency build from €2,500 to well past €10,000 one-off, or a rental model like ours — €495 to €1,245 setup and then €119 to €229 a month, everything included.

Those are three completely different products that happen to share the word "website". This article puts them side by side, with real numbers, so you know what you're comparing.

The three flavours in the market

Template factories (€30–90 a month, or €495–1,099 one-off plus hosting) deliver a filled-in template: your logo in, your copy in, done. Fine as an online business card. The problem is what's not in it: no conversion structure, no structured data, slow themes, and the moment you want something changed you're locked into their editor.

Custom agencies (from €2,500, typically €5,000–10,000 for a serious SME site) genuinely build for you, but you pay the whole risk up front. Maintenance is a separate contract, SEO is a separate contract, and after delivery the meter starts running for every change.

The empty middle band is where most smaller businesses actually sit: too serious for a template, no €7,500 lying around for an agency. That's exactly what our rental model exists for.

What does a website cost at Surge Agent?

Every price is public on the pricing page with calculator; these are the page tiers:

| Package | Setup | Rent per month | | --- | --- | --- | | Website Basic (4–7 pages) | €495 | €119 | | Website 8–12 pages | €745 | €169 | | Website 13+ pages | from €1,245 | from €229 |

Every monthly rent includes hosting, maintenance, monitoring and one change per month. The site is technically sound from day one: fast, semantic HTML, clean meta tags, indexable by Google. Only the website carries a six-month minimum, because that's where most of the up-front work sits; everything after that is cancellable monthly.

What's the difference between Basic and Custom?

Basic is deliberately bare: a fast site of 4 to 7 pages with no findability work and no bots, for businesses whose visitors already arrive through ads, social media or word of mouth. Custom you compose yourself on the websites page: pick your page tier, add SEO, AEO and GEO separately or together (€79, €35 and €35 a month), and later any chatbot or voicebot you want.

Making "getting found" a module rather than a more expensive website is a deliberate choice: the technical base is the same at every tier, and you only pay for work you actually take.

Where's the catch with cheap providers?

With one-off prices under €1,000 the catch almost always sits in what happens after delivery: hosting as a surprise on top, no maintenance, and an hourly rate for every change. With template subscriptions it sits in the exit — your site lives in their system, so cancelling means starting over.

With us there's no catch, but there is one condition you should know: the rent is the engine of the model. We don't earn on the build but on the months after it, so it's in our interest that the site keeps working and keeps improving. If you stop renting, you get a clean export and your domain and Google connections stay yours. How that model works in detail is in the conversion-website story.

How fast is a website live?

A Website Basic is live in 2 to 3 weeks, including your brand style, copy and photos. Bigger tiers take somewhat longer, mostly because of the number of pages to fill. Compare that with the average agency lead time of two to four months — the difference isn't haste, it's that we build on our own mature stack instead of starting from scratch per project.

Want to know what your own mix costs? The calculator follows along live, and in a free 30–45 minute scan we'll look at which tier fits you.