Website pricing in Belgium varies enormously, from a few hundred euros for a WordPress template to over €20,000 for a fully custom platform. Here's what you actually need to know before reaching out to an agency.
The main pricing tiers
Template / No-code (€500 – €3,000)
Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, or a premium WordPress theme. Fast to set up, but you're constrained by the template. Virtually impossible to stand out visually from thousands of other sites. Works for a side project or a very early-stage business testing the market.
Semi-custom (€3,000 – €8,000)
A developer or small agency adapts an existing theme to your brand. More flexible than a raw template, but still constrained by the underlying architecture. This is the grey zone where many clients think they're getting a custom site when they're really getting a modified WordPress.
Fully custom (€8,000 – €25,000+)
Designed and built from scratch, no templates. The interface is crafted for your brand, the code is optimised for your specific needs. This is the tier that produces measurable results in terms of conversion and performance.
The Belgian market: Brussels, Wallonia, Flanders
Rates also vary by region. Brussels-based agencies typically charge 15 to 25% more than their Walloon or Flemish counterparts, reflecting higher living costs and office rents in the capital. That doesn't necessarily mean they deliver better work, it's a structural cost difference.
In Brussels, the average daily rate for a senior front-end developer is between €550 and €900. In Wallonia, that range drops to €400–€700. A site requiring 10 development days can therefore cost anywhere from €4,000 to €9,000 depending on the agency's location, at equivalent quality.
Agency vs freelance: what's the difference?
A freelancer generally costs 30 to 50% less than an agency for the same number of billed days. But an agency brings a team: designer, developer, project manager, copywriter. If your site needs careful design, editorial content and technical integration, an agency is often more efficient overall.
The real risk with a solo freelancer is availability. An independent developer who gets sick, takes holiday, or lands a priority project can stall your delivery for weeks. An agency has backup resources. Weigh this risk against your timeline requirements.
- —Freelancer, ideal for straightforward projects with a clear brief and a tight budget.
- —Small agency (2–5 people), good cost/service balance for most SMEs.
- —Larger agency (10+ people), suited to complex projects needing strategy, UX and integrations.
What drives the price
- —Design, original design takes 2 to 4 weeks of work. It's often the most underestimated cost.
- —Number of pages, a landing page costs less than a 20-page site with different layouts.
- —Features, forms, online payments, client portals, AI chatbots, animations: each feature has a cost.
- —CMS, if you want to manage content yourself, a content management system needs to be integrated.
- —Content, copywriting, professional photography, video: if the agency produces these, add €1,500–€5,000.
- —Maintenance, some agencies charge a monthly retainer for updates and hosting.
Hidden costs to anticipate
The development price is just the visible part of the iceberg. Here's what many businesses discover after signing the contract:
- —Hosting, from €5/month with a budget host to €100/month on Vercel or AWS for high-traffic sites.
- —Domain name, €15–€50/year depending on the extension (.be, .com, .eu).
- —SSL certificate, included with most modern hosts, but verify.
- —Software licences, some plugins or design tools cost €100–€500/year.
- —Translations, if your site must exist in EN, FR and NL, budget €0.10–€0.15 per word.
- —Technical maintenance, security updates, backups, monitoring: €100–€400/month.
How to read a web agency quote
A good quote details the number of days per line item (design, development, CMS integration, testing, launch) and includes a clearly defined revision phase. Be wary of quotes that give a single total price without a breakdown of deliverables, it often signals a lack of rigour or an intent to charge extras later.
Always ask these three questions: How many revision rounds are included? Who hosts the site and what happens if I want to switch agencies? Do I own the source code at delivery? The answers will tell you a great deal about who you're dealing with.
Warning signs of a suspiciously low quote
A fully custom site delivered for under €2,000 is almost always a renamed template. That's not necessarily bad if it's stated upfront, but it's misleading when presented as bespoke. Similarly, an agency promising a complex site in 5 days is either unrealistic or outsourcing overseas without telling you.
The real question: what ROI can you expect?
A website isn't an expense, it's an investment. A well-designed custom site can double your conversion rate, meaning the percentage of visitors who contact you or make a purchase.
A concrete example: if your current site converts at 1% and gets 500 visitors per month, you get 5 leads. An optimised site at 2% gives you 10, double, without increasing your ad budget. If each lead is worth €2,000 to you, that doubling represents €10,000 in additional monthly revenue.
Over three years, a €8,000 site generating €10,000 of extra monthly revenue delivers an ROI of over 4,000%. The cost becomes trivial. That's why the real question isn't "how much does the site cost?" but "how much is a poor site costing me?"
What WCS offers
We build custom websites from €5,000, with a focus on performance, design and conversions. Every project includes design, Next.js development, technical SEO optimisation and training to manage your content independently.
No templates, no page builders, no WordPress. Every line of code is written for your project. Our sites score 95+ on Lighthouse and load in under one second. If you have a project in mind, let's talk over a free 30-minute brief.