Affordable website: where can you safely save?

You can have an affordable website built, as long as you know where to save. Save on what you can still change later: a custom design, the number of pages and the first version of your texts. Don't save on what customers and Google notice straight away: a fast site that works well on a phone and that people can find on Google. And watch what you commit to for years. Register your domain name in your own name, and never sign a 48-month contract on the doorstep, certainly not one with a lease: as a self-employed person, you have no cooling-off period. Below, you'll find what you can do with your budget, with prices from November 2026 and a checklist.

What does it cost to have a website built today?

Three examples, checked on 4 November 2026, excluding VAT unless stated otherwise.

• Building it yourself with a website builder. Hostinger charges €1.99 a month for Website Builder Premium, but only if you pay for four years in one go (€95.52). After those four years, you pay €9.99 a month (Hostinger). Squarespace Basic costs €12 a month on a yearly plan, including VAT (Squarespace). You do the work yourself.

• A web agency or a freelancer. Digimi, a Belgian web agency that publishes its prices, charges €500 to €1,500 for a one-pager (one long page with everything on it) and €1,500 to €3,500 for a small business site of 5 to 10 pages. Maintenance then costs €40 to €150 a month (Digimi, in Dutch, updated on 23 October 2026). Iseox, a French-speaking Belgian agency, quotes €800 to €3,500 for a freelancer (Iseox, in French).

• An agency that charges by the month. Incrediweb charges €49 a month on a yearly contract, and you can cancel monthly after the first year; the page doesn't say whether VAT is included (Incrediweb). Webmake charges €59 to €139 a month, plus a setup fee of €599 to €1,399, and you're tied in for at least 24 months (Webmake).

How to compare such prices over three years is explained in How much does a website cost in Belgium?

Watch out for VAT. If, as a starter, you fall under Belgium's VAT exemption scheme for small businesses (in 2026: turnover below €25,000 a year), you don't charge VAT, but you can't reclaim it either (Securex, in Dutch, 15 October 2026). In that case, add 21% to every price excluding VAT in this article.

What can you do with your budget?

Three examples for someone just starting out:

• You have almost nothing. Start with a free Google Business Profile, so your business shows up in Google Search and Maps (Google), plus your Instagram or Facebook. You can also make a site on a website builder's free plan, but without your own domain name: on Webflow, at an address like yourbusiness.webflow.io (Webflow). But do register your domain name now: a .be costs €10 to €30 a year (Digimi).

• You have €15 a month. A website builder with your own domain, such as Squarespace Basic at €12 a month. But count on 20 to 40 hours of your own work: that's our rough estimate, not an official figure.

• You have €1,000 as a one-off. Enough for a one-pager from a freelancer or a small agency. Ask what hosting and maintenance will cost per month afterwards, because they come on top. Or choose an agency that charges by the month: then you don't pay everything up front, but read the contract first (see below).

Where can you safely save?

A template instead of a custom design

A template is a ready-made design you adapt with your own logo, colours and photos. At Digimi, a template-based site costs €750 to €2,500, compared with €3,500 to €15,000 or more for a custom design. For most small businesses and self-employed people, a good template is enough. Do pick one that loads fast and works well on a phone.

Fewer pages

The fewer pages, the lower the price. Start with what a customer actually looks for: what you do, for whom, in which area, roughly what it costs, and how to reach you. A page per service (or a portfolio, if your work is mostly visual), an about page and a contact page: at the start, you rarely need more.

AI for a first draft

A copywriter charges €50 to €150 per page, and writing it yourself easily takes 10 to 30 hours (Digimi). An AI assistant gives you a first draft in minutes. Google has no problem with that, as long as the text is accurate, but you do need to check everything, because AI makes mistakes (Google). Add what only you know: your prices, your area, your real examples. More in Does Google penalise AI-written content?

Where shouldn't you save?

A fast site, on phones too

Google looks at the mobile version of your site to decide whether and how high it ranks in search results (Google). A slow site, or one that looks bad on a phone, costs you customers. If you have a lot of photos, have them resized for the web or pick a template that does this for you, because large photos slow a site down. Test it yourself: open your site on your phone using mobile data, not wifi, and run it through Google's free tool PageSpeed Insights.

Being found on Google

A cheap site is expensive if nobody finds it. Ask who takes care of the basics: a title and description for each page, readable web addresses (yourbusiness.be/contact, not yourbusiness.be/page?id=12), and your name, your profession and your town in the text. It costs little if it's done from the start.

A domain name in your own name

Your domain name is your address on the internet, and usually also the part after the @ in your email address. Register it in the name of your own business, with your own email address. A mailbox on your own domain often costs something a month too: factor that in. To move a .be domain, you need a transfer code, which DNS Belgium sends by email (DNS Belgium). If the domain is in your web designer's name, you can't leave without their cooperation.

Also ask what happens to your site if you leave. At Jitware there's no minimum term, but your site goes offline if you cancel; your domain and the material you supplied yourself remain yours (Jitware, in Dutch). Jitware is upfront about this; make sure you know it before you sign.

The mandatory company details

Every Belgian business website must show, among other things, your name, your address, your enterprise number and two ways to contact you (FPS Economy, via Forum for the Future, in Dutch). In checks in 2024, they were missing on 47.7% of the sites examined (Forum for the Future, in Dutch). A site that leaves them out is no saving.

Long contracts and leases, signed on the doorstep

This is where it usually goes wrong. On the complaints site of the Belgian consumer organisation Test Aankoop / Test-Achats, self-employed people describe their website contracts, often signed after a visit from a salesperson:

• A nail technician who had just started a side business signed on 3 July 2026 for €145.95 a month. The salesperson told her she could cancel monthly; the contract said 48 months, with a high fee for stopping early (Test Aankoop, 22 October 2026, in Dutch).

• Another self-employed person paid €197 a month. According to the salesperson, he could stop whenever he wanted, at no extra cost. After seven months, he had to pay 40% of the total price over 48 months (Test Aankoop, 11 June 2025, in Dutch).

• A business owner paid €200 a month over 48 months, through a lease with a bank. The web company said it could do nothing because it was a lease. He had to pay all the remaining months, even though the contract said 60% (Test-Achats, 24 December 2024, in French).

With a lease, you don't pay the web company but a finance company, and it wants its money, even if the site is poor or never finished. And as a self-employed person, you have no 14-day cooling-off period: in Belgium, that right only applies to consumers. A bill from December 2025 sought to extend it to the self-employed and micro-enterprises, and explicitly mentioned door-to-door sales of websites (Belgian Chamber, DOC 56 1211/001, in Dutch and French). As of 4 November 2026, the bill has still not become law.

So never sign on the doorstep or on the same day. Ask for the contract and terms in advance, and check four things: how long it runs, whether it renews automatically (tacit renewal), what it costs to stop, and whether a leasing or finance company is named in it.

Checklist: is this website really affordable?

• What does it cost over three years, all in: setup fee, monthly fee, maintenance, domain, mailbox and VAT?

• How long does the contract run, does it renew automatically, and what does it cost to stop?

• Is a leasing or finance company named in the contract?

• Is the domain in your business's name, with your own email address?

• Do you get your texts, your photos and your site if you leave?

• Does the site load fast on your phone, using mobile data?

• Does every page have its own title and description for Google?

• Can you change a text or a page yourself? If not, what does a change cost?

• Are your name, address, enterprise number and contact details on the site?

• Who checks AI-written texts before they go live?

If you want an online shop, or enjoy building everything yourself, a website builder works out cheaper: read Build your website yourself or have it built? If you'd rather have it built, this is how Kintsu answers the checklist: a fixed monthly fee, with no setup fee. If you pay monthly, you can cancel effective at the end of the month; if you pay yearly, you need to cancel at least one month before the renewal date. If you leave, your content and your domain stay yours, you get your site as files, and you can take the design with you after twelve paid months (see pricing).

Sources

All sources accessed on 4 November 2026.

• Hostinger, Website Builder (in Dutch)

• Squarespace, prices per currency (including VAT)

• Digimi, website prices (in Dutch, updated on 23 October 2026)

• Iseox, website prices in Belgium (in French, updated on 30 October 2026)

• Incrediweb, prices (in Dutch)

• Webmake (in Dutch)

• Jitware, website subscription (in Dutch)

• Securex, VAT exemption scheme for small businesses (in Dutch, 15 October 2026)

• Google, Business Profile

• Webflow, pricing (free Starter plan)

• Google Search Central, AI-generated content

• Google Search Central, mobile-first indexing

• DNS Belgium, transfer code

• Forum for the Future, mandatory company details (FPS Economy) (in Dutch)

• Forum for the Future, FPS Economy checks in 2024 (in Dutch)

• Test Aankoop, complaint of 22 October 2026 (in Dutch)

• Test Aankoop, complaint of 11 June 2025 (in Dutch)

• Test-Achats, complaint of 24 December 2024 (in French)

• Belgian Chamber of Representatives, bill DOC 56 1211/001 of 3 December 2025 (in Dutch and French)