Guides

Website builder or custom site, what each costs

By Ashton Foran, director. Published 22nd September 2026.

A business plan on one of the big subscription website builders costs roughly €15 to €50 a month when you pay for a year up front, so about €180 to €600 a year for as long as the site stays up. A custom site is a one-off build plus a yearly fee for hosting and changes. Over three years the two often land within a few hundred euro of each other, and the bigger differences are who does the work, how fast the site loads and what you can take with you if you leave.

What does a website builder cost?

The subscription covers the hosting, the padlock and the tools to build the pages yourself. Most annual plans include a free domain for the first year and charge for it after that. Business email is usually a separate add-on, and the plans that take bookings or sell online sit at the top of the range.

The price leaves out your time. You pick the template, write the words, size the photos and keep it all current. If you enjoy that, it is a fair trade. If every evening spent on it is an evening you would rather have back, the time costs more than the subscription.

Plenty of businesses pay a freelancer to set a builder site up for them. That is the €500 to €1,500 range in how much a website costs in Ireland, and the subscription still runs on top of it.

What does a custom site cost?

A one-off build, then a yearly fee for hosting, upkeep and changes. A brochure site from a freelancer or small agency in Ireland is commonly quoted at €1,500 to €3,500, and the yearly fee varies as much as the build does. What that fee should cover is in what web hosting costs in Ireland.

Ours is €500 for the build and €300 a year from the second year.

Three years side by side

This example uses a mid-range builder plan at about €25 a month, paid yearly.

On those figures the builder comes out about €200 cheaper over three years, before you count your time. The €1,100 with us covers the build, hosting, security, backups, every change and new page you ask for, and a monthly report on your visitors and enquiries.

When a builder is the right call

• You enjoy building it and you have the evenings to give it.
• You want to change things yourself several times a week.
• You are testing an idea and do not know yet whether it will last.
• A single page with your number on it is all the business needs.

When a custom site earns its keep

You want it done for you. A change is a message to us, not an evening in an editor.

Speed matters. A builder site carries the platform's own code on every page, and you cannot trim it. A custom site ships only what each page uses. Every site we build is checked at 95 or more on Google's speed score before handover.

You need a page for every service and every town. That is how a trade gets found for "painter in Mallow" as well as "painter in Cork". On a builder each of those pages is more of your time. With us, new pages are part of the yearly fee.

You want to be able to leave. A builder site lives on that builder. The domain can move and the words and photos can be copied out, but the design and the pages generally stay behind, so moving means rebuilding. A custom site is a set of files any host can run.

What to compare, whichever way you go

The three-year figure. The first month tells you almost nothing.

Who makes the changes. And how long a change takes to go live.

Whether VAT goes on top. Subscriptions and many designers add 23% at the checkout or on the invoice. Our prices carry none.

What you keep if you stop paying. Our guide on who owns your website goes through how to check.

What we charge

A website is €500, everything included, as many pages as the business needs up to thirty. Care is €300 a year from the second year and covers hosting, security, backups, changes, new pages and a monthly report. No VAT is added. Every figure is on our pricing page.

Common questions

Is a website builder cheaper than a web designer? In the first year, usually. Over three years the gap is often a few hundred euro, and the designer's yearly fee covers the work a builder leaves to you.

How much does a website builder cost a year? A business plan on the big builders costs roughly €180 to €600 a year when paid yearly, before any VAT. Most include the domain free for the first year, and business email costs extra.

Can I move a builder site to a custom site later? Yes. The domain moves across and the words and photos come with you. The pages themselves are rebuilt, and the old addresses should redirect to the new ones so you keep what Google already knows about the site.

Do website builders include hosting? Yes. Hosting and the padlock are part of the subscription, which is also why the site goes offline if the subscription stops.