Kodakod Team
There is no single answer to “how much does a website cost?” — because the price is set not by the number of pages, but by what the site actually does. Here are the real line items behind the cost.
In short: The price of a corporate website is set not by the number of pages but by what the site has to do. Seven factors make up the cost: who manages the content, how original the design is, what visitors can do on the site, integrations, the number of languages, SEO and performance targets, and legal compliance together with hosting and maintenance. Before comparing two quotes, make sure both cover these seven items in the same way; otherwise the quote that looks cheap ends up costing more.
Last year three separate companies came to us with almost the same sentence: "We'd like a corporate site, nothing too complicated." We quoted all three differently. The gap was not that we gave one a break and overcharged another. What each of the three meant by "simple site" was completely different.
The most honest way to explain how pricing comes together is to describe those three cases first, and then unpack the seven factors behind all of them one by one.
Company one: genuinely simple
An engineering firm. The need was clear: five pages explaining what they do, a client list and contact details. They would write the copy themselves. No second language, no integrations, and nobody would be updating anything — they would call us once a year to add a reference.
On this project the only thing driving cost was design originality. Going with an off-the-shelf theme would have made it cheaper still; they wanted a design specific to their brand, and most of the price went there.
Company two: "simple" that turned out not to be
An education institution. Again they said "brochure site." As the conversation went on, this surfaced: their programme calendar changed constantly, each programme needed its own application form, those forms had to land in their CRM, and the site had to exist in English too because they recruited students from abroad.
That is no longer a brochure site. It means a panel they can manage themselves, two separate content flows, a form-to-CRM integration and application tracking. The page count was not far off company one's — but what the pages had to do was entirely different. That is where the price gap came from.
Company three: the one who found out later
A manufacturer, holding a quote considerably cheaper than ours. We suggested comparing them and read the quote together. These were missing: hosting was billed separately after year one, content was expected from the client, revisions were capped at two rounds, data protection texts were out of scope, and the source code was tied to the agency's platform.
The other agency was not doing anything wrong; they had simply scoped it narrowly. But those items do not disappear — they just arrive later, one by one. What this company learned was this: before comparing two quotes, you have to make sure both describe the same job.
The 7 factors that set the price
Every difference in those three stories falls under one of the seven items below. Keep this list next to you when you read a quote.
1. Who will manage the content?
If you will update the copy, images, news and references yourself after launch, you need a management panel. A panel is more than an "edit" button: it defines which fields can be changed, who is authorised to change them and how a change goes live without breaking the design. If your content changes once a year, a panel is an unnecessary cost; if it changes every week, a site without one will send you a separate invoice for every update.
2. Design originality
The difference between adapting an off-the-shelf theme and an interface designed specifically for your brand made up most of company one's budget. A custom design means drawing page templates, the mobile layout and components one by one. A ready-made theme is cheaper, but you have to accept its limits: if a section you want is not in the theme, adding it later is sometimes harder than building from scratch.
3. What visitors can do on the site
A page that is only read and a page that takes a form, an application, a booking or a payment are not the same job. Every action brings validation, error messages, notification emails, spam protection and the question of where the data goes. What pushed company two's price up was not the page count but a separate application form for every programme.
4. Integrations
There is a serious difference between form data landing in an inbox and form data creating a record in your CRM, ERP or booking system. The cost of an integration depends on how well documented an API the other system offers. Before asking for quotes, write down the names and versions of the systems the site will connect to; "we'll hook it up to the CRM at some point" is the sentence that causes the most surprises in quotes.
5. Number of languages
A second language is more than translating the copy. Each language needs its own URL, its own title and description, its own content flow and signals telling search engines that these versions are equivalents of each other. Google recommends declaring language versions with hreflang and states that each language version must list itself as well as all other versions, and that if two pages do not point to each other the tags will be ignored (Google Search Central: guide to localized versions). If this is not set up from the start, the second language becomes the weakest face of the site.
6. SEO, content and performance targets
Will the site only work as a business card, or should it bring customers in from Google? The latter means planning page structure, headings, structured data and speed from the start. You can set a measurable target for speed: in Google's Core Web Vitals, the "good" thresholds are 2.5 seconds for LCP, 200 milliseconds for INP and 0.1 for CLS, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads (web.dev: Web Vitals). If the quote does not say whether these targets will be met, a promise of speed is only a wish. We covered the topic in detail in our article on site speed and Core Web Vitals. Who writes the content is also part of this item: if the copy is expected from you, the schedule is in your hands too.
7. Legal compliance, hosting and maintenance
If you have a contact form, you are processing personal data; a privacy notice and cookie management are part of the job. The cookie guide published by Turkey's Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK) explains that advertising cookies require explicit consent, that simply entering a site does not count as consent, and that cookies subject to consent should be switched off by default in the preference panel (KVKK: Guide on Cookie Practices, in Turkish). For a practical checklist, see our article is your website compliant with data protection law. Hosting, SSL, backups, security updates and who owns the source code also belong here. Almost everything missing from company three's quote sat in this item.
The seven factors in one table
| Factor | What keeps the cost down | What drives the cost up |
|---|---|---|
| Content management | Content rarely changes, the agency makes updates | Frequent updates, several authorised users |
| Design | Adapting an off-the-shelf theme | Brand-specific design and components |
| Actions | A single contact form | Applications, bookings, payments, user accounts |
| Integrations | Form goes to email | Two-way connection with a CRM, ERP or booking system |
| Languages | One language | Separate URLs, metadata and content flow for each language |
| SEO and performance | Basic technical setup | Measurable speed targets, structured data, a content plan |
| Compliance, hosting, maintenance | All left to the client | Legal texts, hosting and maintenance included in the quote |
The last row hides a trap: "all left to the client" makes the quote cheaper but does not remove the cost; it only moves it outside the quote.
So which one are you?
You do not need to count pages to work out your own situation. Your answers to a handful of questions will place you in a band almost exactly:
- Once the site is live, who updates the content — you or us?
- Is there an action a visitor can take on the site (form, application, booking, payment)?
- Will the site send data to another system?
- How many languages will it run in?
- What will have changed on this site a year from now?
That last question is the one most often skipped and the one that costs the most. A site built for today's need but deaf to next year's plan usually gets rebuilt in its second year. On a website, the most expensive option is the one thrown away twelve months later. To see whether your current site has reached that point, check the signs in our article when should you redesign your corporate website.
8 questions to ask an agency when you get a quote
- How many years of hosting and domain are included, and what is the annual fee after that?
- Who owns the source code and the content? If you part ways with the agency, can you move your site elsewhere?
- How many revision rounds are included, and what does "revision" cover?
- Who prepares the copy and the images?
- Are the privacy notice, cookie management and privacy policy in scope?
- Which integrations are included, and which are charged separately?
- What does post-launch maintenance cover — security updates, backups, small changes?
- Is there a measurable target for speed and SEO, and how will it be checked at handover?
A quote that cannot answer these questions in writing is not a quote you can compare.
Common mistakes
- Comparing prices by page count. As company two showed, the same number of pages can mean very different jobs.
- Looking only at the first year's cost. Hosting, maintenance and licence fees arrive from the second year on; calculate the total cost over at least three years.
- Putting off the second language with "we'll add it later". If the URL structure and content model are built for one language, adding a second one later creates a rebuild cost.
- Leaving the legal texts until the last day. Cookie management depends on which third-party scripts will run on the site; that decision should be made alongside the design.
How we approach it
When we quote, we write out line by line what each item covers — hosting, content, revisions, legal texts and post-launch maintenance included. We do this not as a display of transparency, but to avoid the "wait, that wasn't included?" conversation six months down the line. You can review the scope and process on our corporate website service page; if the site also needs to be visible in search results and in the answers AI assistants give, our SEO and GEO services become part of the plan.
If you are holding other quotes, bring them and let us read them together. Even if you do not choose us, you will decide knowing what you are comparing against what.
Frequently asked questions
Because quotes often do not describe the same job. One includes hosting, content, legal texts and maintenance; another leaves them out of scope. Before comparing prices, check that each of the seven factors appears in the same way in both quotes.
An off-the-shelf theme makes sense if your content is fixed, standing out as a brand is not a priority and you can accept the theme's limits. If you want a brand-specific experience, need sections the theme does not have or plan to expand over time, a custom design produces fewer surprises. We made a similar assessment for software in general in our article on off-the-shelf versus custom software.
They do not have to be included, but they do have to be in writing. If the quote does not clearly state which years they are included for, what they will cost afterwards and what maintenance covers, these items will reach you later, one by one.
The increase depends less on translation and more on how the two languages will be managed. If each language will have its own URLs, metadata and content flow, and the content changes often, the job grows noticeably. If only a few fixed pages are translated, the increase stays more limited.
If your customers research you online before they buy, yes. We explained what the site needs to do and how it differs from an ordinary site in our article what is a corporate website.
