The short answer: a small business website in Slovenia in 2026 runs from €0 (a website builder with a monthly subscription), through €300 to €600 (a freelancer or a small studio), to €500 to €1,600 and up (an agency). The range is this wide because the quotes are not selling the same thing. Below is a breakdown of what actually drives the price, where the costs the quotes leave out are hiding, and when an expensive site is simply money wasted.
For comparison, here are our own numbers up front: our sites cost €300, €450 or €890, domain and hosting included, and the price list is public on the Websites page. This article is not a hidden sales funnel; it should let you make most of the decisions yourself.
The three routes and what they really cost
| Route | Build price | Running costs | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website builder (Wix, Squarespace, etc.) | €0 | €17-45/month for a serious plan | €720-1,620 over 3 years, and you cannot move the site |
| Freelancer / small studio | €300-600 | domain + hosting, typically €50-150/year | quality varies a lot, check live references |
| Agency | €500-1,600+ | often a maintenance contract | you also pay the agency's overhead, not just the work |
None of these routes is wrong. A builder makes sense if you have the time and the appetite to assemble it yourself. A freelancer is the best value if you find a good one. An agency makes sense for larger, multilingual projects with more people involved.
The hidden costs the quotes leave out
The build price is only the first line item. Before you sign, ask four things:
- Domain and hosting. Who pays for them and whose name are they registered under? The domain must be registered to you, not to the vendor. If it is not, the moment you switch vendors you lose the address all your customers are tied to.
- Changes after launch. How much does it cost to update the price list, add a service, swap a photo? Hours billed "as used" with no estimate are the most common source of bad blood.
- The builder subscription. €20 to €45 a month sounds small. Over three years that is €720 to €1,620, more than a solid custom site, and at the end you still cannot take the site with you.
- The redesign two years in. A site built on exotic technology that only its author can maintain is a redesign waiting to happen. Ask what happens if you end the relationship.
When €300 is enough
An honest answer you will rarely read in a quote: for a large share of small businesses, a simple €300 site is enough. If you need a tidy presentation, contact details, opening hours and a few photos, most of the pricier quotes are selling things you will never notice. The money you save is better spent on Google reviews, well-kept profiles and content.
A more expensive site makes sense once the site actually does the selling: multiple languages for customers from Italy and Austria, a separate page for each service, tracking which inquiries come from where. At that point you are not buying a prettier design, you are buying a system that pays for itself.
The most expensive site is the one nobody finds
This is where the biggest budgeting mistake hides. A €1,500 site that 30 people visit a month is more expensive than a €450 site found by 500 of the right visitors.
Search itself has changed fundamentally in the past two years. When an AI summary appears in Google, users click the regular results far less often [2], and by Ahrefs data the click on the first organic result has dropped by 58 percent [1]. Some customers now type "who do you recommend" straight into ChatGPT. In our study of 89 AI queries, a third of Slovenian businesses from the first page of Google were invisible to AI search engines.
So when you budget, do not think "how much for the site". Think "how much for the site, and how much for getting it found". What that monthly visibility work actually involves, we broke down in What an SEO Agency Does Every Month.
Why are quotes for the same thing so different?
Because you are not comparing the same things. One quote includes the copy, another expects you to write it yourself. One includes a year of hosting, another bills it separately. When comparing quotes, always equalize the scope: who writes the copy, who supplies the photos, and what happens with the domain, hosting and changes after launch.
What should a good quote contain?
A fixed price with a precise scope, a deadline, a list of everything that is not included, and a clear answer on who owns the domain, the hosting and the code. If a quote is missing any of these, ask. A serious vendor will answer gladly, because these are exactly the questions asked by the clients who are easiest to work with.
How much does website maintenance cost?
For a simple site, realistically budget €50 to €150 per year for the domain and hosting. Maintenance contracts of €20 to €100 per month make sense when the site changes often or runs something beyond a presentation (bookings, a shop, multiple editors). For a site that changes twice a year, a monthly maintenance fee is usually unnecessary.
If you want a concrete number for your case
Our price list is public: €300, €450 or €890, domain and hosting included, deadlines in weeks, not months. The details are on the Websites page. If you are not sure which package fits, write to us and tell us what the site will be for. No sales pressure: if the cheapest route, or even a builder, is enough for your case, we will tell you so.
Limits
Cards on the table: the ranges in this article come from public price lists and quotes we compared in June 2026 for a typical small business presentation site. Your case may differ, especially for shops, booking systems and larger multilingual sites. We list our own prices as one reference point; compare them with at least one other quote.
