How much does a website for tradespeople cost? Prices, running costs and pitfalls

What drives the price

A website is a bit like a bathroom: everyone sees the tiles, but the price depends just as much on the pipes behind them, the planning and who redoes the silicone joint at the end. For a website, these are the building blocks:

• Scope: a business-card site with three subpages is very different from 20 service pages, projects, a careers section and several languages.
• Design: a ready-made template, an adapted template or a fully bespoke design.
• Copy: do you write it yourself, or does someone who understands your trade write it for you? Copy is often the biggest time sink.
• Photos: your own phone photos, half a day on site with a photographer, or stock images.
• Features: enquiry form with photo upload, Google reviews, map, job ads, workshop appointment booking.
• Technology and legal: mobile optimisation, loading time, accessibility, Google basics, Impressum (legally required provider information) and privacy policy.
• Operation: hosting, domain, SSL certificate, updates, backups, and who makes changes when opening hours or prices change.

Three routes and what they cost

Route 1: build it yourself with a website builder

Website builders charge €15 – €45 a month for plans suitable for businesses. That sounds cheap, and for a one-person business with time and some skill it can work. The real price is your time: planning the structure, writing copy, choosing and resizing photos, sorting out Impressum and privacy policy, testing everything on a phone. Expect 40 to 80 hours before a website is really finished. Multiply those hours by your own hourly rate and the builder often turns out to be the most expensive route.

On top of that, you are responsible for loading time, accessibility, visibility on Google and legal compliance. And if you want to switch provider, you usually can't take the website with you.

Route 2: the traditional web agency

An agency plans and builds your website individually, often with a workshop, a concept and several design rounds. Published price overviews for Austria and Germany put this at €3,000 – €10,000 up front, plus €50 – €300 a month for hosting and a maintenance contract with support hours (converted to gross, as of November 2026). In the first year that adds up to €3,600 – €13,600. It can pay off if you have special requirements, such as an online shop for spare parts or a link to your trade software. For a typical business website with services, projects and contact details, though, you often pay for work that has been done a hundred times before.

Route 3: fixed-price offers for trades businesses

In between are providers who specialise in one sector. Because an electrician's website and a joiner's website need the same basic building blocks (services, service area, projects, team, enquiry, legal information), they can build on a proven system and still design it in your colours, with your photos and your copy. At Meine-Handwerker-Website, for example, the finished website costs €1,800 one-off, or €3,600 with a content management system so you can edit it yourself, plus €30 a month for hosting and maintenance and domain management from €24 a month (all prices gross). Exactly what is included is on the pricing page.

Running costs: what comes back every year

The starting price is only half the sum. Over five years, the running costs usually decide which offer is cheaper. These items almost always apply, whichever route you choose:

• Hosting and SSL: the server space your website lives on and the encrypted connection (the padlock in the browser).
• Domain: your address on the web, such as "elektro-mustermann.at" or "malerei-beispiel.de".
• Updates and security: systems like WordPress need regular updates to the core, theme and plugins, otherwise the website becomes vulnerable.
• Backups: who backs up the website, and how quickly is it back online after an outage?
• Email inboxes: not always included in hosting, often charged per inbox per month.
• Changes: a new service, a new team member, new opening hours, company holidays. Agencies often bill these by the hour.

Hidden costs that quotes leave out

A typical case: a painting business takes the cheapest quote and ends up paying almost double. The copy wasn't included, the photos from an image library had to be licensed again, and every small change after launch was billed at a one-hour minimum. Watch out for these points:

• Copy and photos are not included in the price; "content supplied by the client" is in the small print.
• Image rights: stock photos without the right licence can lead to expensive legal warning letters. Your own photos are better and more credible.
• Paid plugins and fonts that have to be renewed every year.
• Minimum terms of 24 or 36 months for the maintenance contract.
• Domain registered in the agency's name: switching becomes complicated. The domain should always be in your business's name.
• Migration costs: who gets the data when you switch provider, and what does handing it over cost?
• Legal texts: Impressum and privacy policy not included, or only as an unchecked template.

Tax: business expense and input VAT

The cost of your business website is usually a business expense. Running costs such as hosting, domain and maintenance are deducted in the year you pay them. Whether the one-off amount for building the site is written off at once or spread over several years depends on the amount and the type of service. Your tax adviser can clarify that in five minutes.

For VAT, it depends on your status. If you are VAT-registered, you reclaim the VAT shown on the invoice as input tax, so the net price is what counts for you. Small businesses using the Kleinunternehmerregelung (small business VAT exemption), on the other hand, cannot deduct input tax, so the gross price is the real cost for them. In Austria the scheme has applied since 2025 up to annual turnover of €55,000 gross; in Germany the limits are €25,000 in the previous year and €100,000 in the current year (as of November 2026, see sources).

Questions to ask before you place the order

What pays off for which business

A one-person interior trades business that works mainly through recommendations doesn't need an elaborate agency website with a concept workshop. A car workshop with six employees that is looking for apprentices and wants to book services online needs more than a business card on the web. Think about what the website should achieve: more jobs in particular services, fewer unnecessary phone calls, new staff? A single extra bathroom renovation or solar PV job often pays for a solid website in the first year.

Which content you need for that is covered in the guide What belongs on a website for tradespeople. How visitors turn into suitable enquiries is explained in the guide More suitable enquiries.