Small Business Website Cost in Germany: A Worked Example

Website prices quoted without hours tell you nothing. Paying 1,500 euros for a site that gets twelve hours of attention is a worse deal than paying 4,000 euros for one that gets forty hours, with copy editing and a handover session included.

International founders in Berlin tend to run into two surprises. German websites need a legal notice and a privacy policy that are stricter than what they know from the US or UK. And the Berlin grant that used to pay half of many small business sites, the Digitalprämie, closed at the end of 2023.

What actually drives the price

Freelancers in German-speaking countries charged an average of 103 euros an hour in 2026, according to the Freelancer-Kompass survey by freelancermap. That figure covers all fields, so a web quote can land above or below it, and agencies add project management on top.

The number of hours depends on a few questions:

• How many pages, and how many languages?
• Who writes the copy and who supplies the photos?
• Do you need features such as booking, file uploads or a shop?
• Is a ready-made theme adapted, or is a design created from scratch?
• Will you get training so you can update prices and opening hours yourself?

Content is the hidden cost. Technology and design rarely blow small budgets. Unfinished texts and missing photos do, because every week of waiting for copy means another round of meetings, revisions and re-scheduling on the designer’s side, and that time ends up on your invoice whether the contract mentions it or not.

A worked example: a two-language site for a trades business

Concept, page structure, meetings (4 h)

€412

Setup, theme changes, contact forms (14 h)

€1,442

Copy editing, English version (8 h)

€824

Image cropping, speed optimisation (3 h)

€309

Google Business Profile, local search (2 h)

€206

Legal pages, testing, handover (3 h)

€309

34 hours at €103

€3,502

Hours are assumptions; rate is the 2026 average from the Freelancer-Kompass. All figures net of VAT.

Here, 11 of 34 hours go into text and images. That is the part you can shrink yourself by writing a first draft and taking decent photos in daylight. With professional photography, a logo or a booking system, the same method quickly lands above 5,000 euros. With finished German copy and no English version, it drops toward 25 hours, about 2,600 euros.

Running costs people forget

Hosting is cheap. IONOS, one of the big German hosts, lists its Standard to Premium web hosting plans at 6 to 16 euros a month after the introductory period, VAT included, as of October 2026, plus a one-off 10-euro setup fee. The domain is included free for the first year.

Maintenance is what adds up. WordPress sites with plugins need regular updates or it becomes a security risk. Budget roughly one hour a month if someone does it for you. At the average rate, that is about 100 euros a month, often sold as a maintenance plan. Across a year that is more than a third of the build cost in our example.

Criterion	DIY site builder	Freelancer	Agency
Upfront cost	your own time	medium	high
Ongoing cost	subscription	hosting + optional maintenance	hosting + maintenance contract
Security updates	provider	by agreement	usually included
Moving to another provider	hard		yes, if the contract says so
Custom features (booking, integrations)	partly

Site builder, WordPress or custom code?

For a café with a menu, opening hours and a map, a site builder is fine. You pay a monthly fee and hosting is handled, and you can build it over a weekend if your texts are ready. Moving away later is the catch. Most builders don’t let you export a site cleanly.

WordPress makes sense when the site will grow, when you publish case studies or articles, or when you expect to add features. The price is upkeep: core, theme and plugin updates, backups, the occasional plugin that breaks after an update. Plan for it from day one, not after the first hack.

Custom code is almost never needed for a small business website. It becomes relevant when your “website” is really an application, with customer logins, quote calculators or a sync with your inventory system.

German legal requirements you can’t skip

These catch many founders from abroad off guard, because the UK and US have nothing quite like them.

The Impressum, or legal notice, is required by section 5 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG), which replaced the old Telemedia Act in May 2024. It lists your name, postal address and contact details. Companies add the commercial register and number, regulated trades add the competent chamber, and you include a VAT ID if you have one.

The privacy policy under Article 13 GDPR has to match the services you actually use. Loading Google Fonts from Google’s servers, embedding maps or running analytics all need to be described. Cookies and tracking that aren’t strictly necessary require consent under section 25 of the TDDDG, the German telecoms and digital services data protection act.

Accessibility is less of an issue for most small firms than agencies suggest. The German Accessibility Act (BFSG) applies to e-commerce services, meaning sites where consumers conclude contracts. Micro-enterprises providing services are exempt under section 3(3) BFSG. Still, a readable, well-structured site is worth having, not least for search engines.

How to spot a fair quote

Good quotes break the job into work packages with hours. They say who supplies text and images, how many rounds of revisions are included and what happens after launch.

• The domain is registered in your name
• You get every login: hosting, domain, CMS admin
• Rights to design, text and photos transfer to you
• The number of revision rounds is written down
• Maintenance is priced separately and can be cancelled monthly
• The privacy policy matches the tools actually installed

Be wary of cheap packages with 24 or 36-month minimum terms. The site often stays the provider’s property, and when the contract ends you have nothing. Multiply the monthly fee by the full term and compare it with a one-off build plus hosting over the same period.

Where Berlin businesses can save

Preparation saves more than price shopping. Draft your own copy, however rough, and pay for editing rather than writing. Set up your Google Business Profile at the same time, since for many local businesses it brings more enquiries than the website does.

If customers should book appointments online, plan that in from the start. Using a hosted online booking system is usually cheaper than custom code. Selling online brings its own rules, covered in our guide to starting an online shop in Germany.

Only when the site has to handle processes no builder or plugin covers, such as a customer portal tied to your inventory, does custom development pay off. That is the point to talk to a team that builds custom web applications.

Your next step: write down the five questions customers ask most often on the phone. Those answers are the core of your site, and with that list in hand you will get quotes you can actually compare.

Questions people ask

Do I need a German-language website if my customers speak English?

No law requires the content to be in German. The legal notice and privacy policy must be easy to find and understandable, so many businesses keep them in German and add an English version.

What is an Impressum and do I really need one?

It is the legal notice required by section 5 of the German Digital Services Act (DDG). Almost every business website in Germany needs one, with your name, address, contact details and, depending on your legal form, register and VAT numbers.

Is there funding in Berlin for a new website?

Not as of October 2026. The Digitalprämie that covered half of many websites closed in 2023. BAFA can subsidise a consultant's advice, but not the build.

Does my website need to meet accessibility rules?

A purely informational site does not fall under the German Accessibility Act. If consumers sign contracts or buy through your site, it may, unless you are a micro-enterprise with fewer than ten staff and at most 2 million euros turnover or balance sheet.