What a website really costs in Finland
Getting a straight answer about the price of a website is hard. The same site can cost a few hundred euros or more than ten thousand. The difference is rarely in how the site looks. It is in who does the work and who updates the site next spring.
Here is an honest map of the options. The figures are rough market ranges you see in Finland. They are not our prices. Ours are in the price list.
The price is made of three parts
Building. One-off work: structure, design, texts, photos, publishing.
Maintenance. Hosting, domain, backups, updates, and the site still working next year. This is a monthly cost, and it is the one most often missing from quotes.
Your own time. It never shows up on an invoice, but it is often the most expensive item. If you write the texts, find the photos and learn the tool yourself, count on a couple of working days.
Always compare all three. Cheap to build and expensive to maintain is a common combination.
Website builders: cheapest in money, most expensive in time
Self-service tools typically cost from ten to a few tens of euros a month. You get a template and do the rest yourself.
This works if you have time and enjoy fiddling with a computer. The site turns out exactly as good as you have the energy to make it. The problem usually arrives six months later: opening hours change, nobody remembers the password, and the site still shows last summer’s lunch menu.
Choose this if you want to keep costs to a minimum and are happy to do the updates.
A freelancer: a good builder, one person
An individual builder makes a small company’s site for typically a few hundred to a few thousand euros. Quality varies with the person more than in any other option, and a good freelancer is worth the price.
Ask two things before you sign. Who hosts the site and what does that cost per month. And what happens when you need a change next year — by then the freelancer may be busy with another project, or in another profession entirely.
Choose this if you know a good builder and your site is a business card that rarely changes.
An agency: big job, big price
For a small company, agency-built sites typically start in the low thousands and go up from there. A large share of the price goes to design, project management and meetings.
That is genuinely justified when the site has to work for a living: an online shop, a booking system, integrations with the till, or several locations with their own language versions. For a three-page restaurant site it is overkill.
Choose this if you need more than a site: brand work, an online shop, or systems that talk to each other.
Costs that are not in the quote
These show up whoever you build with. Ask about them up front and the comparison becomes honest.
- Domain. A yearly fee, usually a few tens of euros. Make sure it is registered to your company, not to the builder.
- Hosting. A monthly or yearly fee for the site existing online.
- Email on your own domain. Usually its own fee per user.
- Updates. If the site is built on a content management system, that system and its plugins need updating. A site that is not updated eventually breaks.
- Change work. Ask for the hourly rate and the minimum charge. A half-hour minimum makes a one-line fix surprisingly expensive.
- Leaving. What does it cost to move the site elsewhere. With us it costs what the price list says, and we do not hold content hostage.
Where we sit
We build the site for you and host it for a monthly fee. Building has a fixed one-off price, maintenance a monthly one. Both are in the price list before you order, and no separate hourly invoices follow.
The practical difference is in maintenance. When the lunch menu changes or the Midsummer hours move, you tell us and it changes. You do not log in anywhere and you do not learn a tool.
When someone else is better for you
We will say this plainly, because it saves us both time.
- You need an online shop. We do not build online shops. Talk to an agency or pick a ready-made shop platform.
- You need a booking system built into the site. We can link to an external booking service, but we do not build booking logic.
- You want to build the site yourself and you enjoy it. Then you would be paying us for work you would rather do. Get a website builder.
- The budget is zero. A Google Business Profile and a Facebook page are free and better than nothing. Start there and come back when the business carries a monthly cost.
- You already have a site that works. If the old site loads fast, works on a phone and the details are current, do not pay for a new one.
Ask these before you sign
What does it cost per month and what is included. Who owns the domain. Who owns the content. What does it cost to move the site elsewhere. How fast is a small change made and does it cost extra.
If any answer is vague, ask again. A price without those answers does not tell you much.