A simple website for a small business, with three to ten pages, takes about one and a half to five working days. At the average pay in computer programming in Serbia, that comes to roughly €250 to €800 for the build. An online store, booking with payment and a website in several languages take more work and cost more. After launch the domain is paid every year, a little over €20. Hosting of about €50 to €60 a year is usually paid only when the website has an editing panel such as WordPress.
Most businesses in Serbia already have a website. According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, more than four in five small enterprises have a website. When smaller businesses and sole proprietors are counted too, a survey done for the .rs domain registry shows that about three quarters of businesses use a website. The question is therefore often not whether to build a website, but how much it should cost.
What does the price of a website depend on?
The price is first set by the number of pages. Every page has its own text, photos and layout, and every page is checked on a phone and on a computer. When the texts and photos are ready, a website of up to three pages takes about one and a half days of work. Up to five pages take about three days, and up to ten pages about five working days.
The second big part of the price is content. When the owner prepares the texts, photos and logo, the work goes faster, while writing texts from scratch and taking photos take extra time. The deadline also depends on content, so the calendar time of the build is usually longer than the days of work alone.
The third question is who changes the website after handover. A website the owner edits alone needs an editing panel such as WordPress, and setting it up is extra work. When changes are made by the developer, the website can be programmed directly in code, without a panel. Such a website is cheaper at the start, while later changes are paid or agreed separately.
The price rises most with features that handle money and appointments. Online sales, booking with payment, user accounts and several languages need programming and testing that an ordinary presentation website does not have. That is why their price is usually set only after a conversation about what exactly they should do.
Working well on phones should be part of every quote. According to measurements by StatCounter, about half of visits to websites in Serbia come from phones. A website that works poorly on a phone therefore works poorly for every second visitor. If this is a separate item in a quote, it is worth asking why.
Why do quotes for the same website differ so much?
The same word “website” hides very different amounts of work. On the Krstarica forum, one owner wrote that quotes for an online store ranged “from 15 euros to 3000 euros”. In the work of the developers, the owner saw no big difference. The difference exists, but it lies in hours of work, and those are not visible at first glance.
The price of a build is basically the number of hours multiplied by the hourly rate. Taking the average pay in computer programming published by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, a day of work is worth about €163, and an hour about €20.
A €50 quote thus covers about two and a half hours of work. That is enough time to set up a ready template with changed text and colors. A design that fits the business, writing the texts and setting the website up for Google search hardly fit into that time. A €500 website matches roughly three working days, and a €3,000 project almost four weeks of work.
Pay is only part of the cost, since the developer also pays for tools and space and spends time agreeing details with the client. On the other hand, ready components and modern tools shorten the work, so a lower price can also mean serious work. That is why it is worth comparing first what exactly the quote says, and only then the amount.
“Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
What is paid after the website is built?
After the build, the domain is paid regularly, and where needed also hosting, business email, maintenance and a sales platform. These costs repeat, so it is worth adding them up for the whole year before comparing quotes.
The domain is the address of the website, for example companyname.rs. It is leased for a year or more and renewed before it expires, and each accredited registrar sets the price for buyers on its own. At two registrars the regular yearly price of an .rs domain is about €21 and €24. At one of them a lower promotional price applies only for the first year, so it is worth checking the renewal price too.
Hosting is the server the website runs on, and paid hosting is not required for every website. WordPress and similar editing systems need a server that supports them, as stated in the official WordPress requirements. Basic plans of such hosting at two Serbian companies cost about €50 to €60 a year and include an SSL certificate.
A website that is programmed in code and published as ready pages, known as a static website, does not need such a server. It can run on services such as Cloudflare Pages, whose free plan has no limit on the number of visits, so in that case hosting costs nothing. That is why it is worth asking the developer whether the website needs paid hosting at all and how much it costs after the first year.
An SSL certificate, the reason a website address starts with https, does not have to be a separate cost. The nonprofit Let’s Encrypt issues these certificates for free, so a separate item for a basic certificate in a quote calls for an explanation.
Business email with an address on the company domain is paid at an email service or comes with hosting. At one of the two hosting companies mentioned, email is included in all plans.
Maintenance covers updates, backups and small changes. Some developers charge for it monthly and some per change, and that is worth knowing before agreeing.
Sales platforms charge a subscription. Shopify asks about €310 a year for the basic plan with yearly billing. That amount goes to the platform, no matter who built the store.
“Fees for registering .rs and .срб domain names for end users are set independently by the accredited registrars.”
How much does a hair salon website cost in the first year?
The example is a hair salon with five pages, namely home, services, price list, gallery and contact. The owner has the texts and photos, and changes after handover are made by the developer.
Such a website takes about three working days, which at the average pay in computer programming comes to about €490. If it is built as a static website on free hosting, the first year with the domain costs about €510, and every following year only as much as the domain.
If the salon wants to change the content alone through WordPress or a similar panel, there is more work and hosting is also paid every year. The price also rises when the texts have to be written from scratch.
Some developers also offer a website in monthly installments, with maintenance included. In that case it is worth adding up all the installments and comparing the total with the single price and the maintenance cost for the same period.
For most service businesses a presentation website is enough. Online booking with payment is a bigger job, so it can be added later, once it is clear how many clients come through the website.
“On both free and paid plans, requests to static assets are free and unlimited.”
How much does an online store cost?
An online store costs more than a presentation website, because besides pages it needs a product catalog, a cart, payment, delivery and the required seller details. The Law on Electronic Commerce requires basic seller details, such as the name, registered office, email address and tax number, to be available on the website at all times. Next to prices it must be clearly stated whether delivery and tax are included.
A custom store has no platform subscription, but it takes more days of work. Its price depends on the number of products, the payment methods and the connection to delivery services. A store on a ready platform starts faster, but besides the setup work it carries an ongoing subscription, before card payment fees. For a smaller store this is often a question of whether it is easier to pay more once or less every year.
How to spot a quote that ends up costing more?
First, it is worth checking whose name the domain is registered in. The .rs domain registry explained to the Biznis.rs portal that only the one the domain is registered to has full rights over it. A contractor who registers the domain in their own name can keep it after the work ends. In a study of Serbian online stores, only about two thirds were on the domain of the business that owns the store.
Then ownership of the website. The quote should say who owns the code, design and content after handover and whether the owner gets all access. Without that, moving to another developer later is harder and more expensive.
A promise of first place in Google search also calls for caution. Google writes in its documentation that no one can guarantee first place and that it does not accept payment for better ranking. The same goes for Google Maps, since a Google Business Profile is free, and only the setup work is paid.
If the website has a contact form, it also needs a text about data processing. The Law on Personal Data Protection requires that a person be told, at the moment the data is collected, who collects it, for what purpose and on what legal basis. It is good to know in advance who writes that text and whether it is included in the price.
Finally, the price, the deadline and the list of what is included should be in a written quote before work starts. The quote should also state the price of hosting and maintenance after the first year.
How to get an exact price for a website?
A few details are enough for an exact price. The first is the list of pages, then whether texts and photos exist and whether the owner wants to change the content alone. It also matters whether the website needs to sell, book appointments or work in several languages.
With those details, quotes from different developers can be compared by days of work, by what is included and by the cost after the first year. At Atrigen the prices of the basic packages are public and can be found in the website pricing, and hosting for presentation websites is not charged. The whole process from the first conversation to launch is described on the web development page.