Guide
What a website costs in Switzerland
Nobody publishes prices, so we publish the method. A website is measured in hours: the rest is simply those hours multiplied by an hourly rate you are free to negotiate.
The short version
- A conventional five-page brochure site represents around 40 to 70 hours of work; a more elaborate brand site, 70 to 120 hours.
- Agency rates in French-speaking Switzerland run CHF 120-200 an hour; freelancers CHF 80-250.
- Each extra language adds around 18% to development time, not just translation.
- Annual maintenance runs at 12 to 15% of the initial development cost.
- Recurring third-party costs (hosting, domain, plugins, images) land around CHF 400-1,800 a year.
Estimator
How many hours for your project?
Configure your project and get an hour range instantly. The baseline assumes supplied content, a standard form and a conventional launch.
Count home, services, about and contact. Repeated catalogue items do not count here.
Simply choose how many languages will be available to your visitors.
Estimated range
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hours
Approximate budget
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Based on typical Swiss agency rates: CHF 120-200/hour.
This gives you a first benchmark. The final price depends on the supplied content and the exact scope.
Indicative estimate based on our delivered projects and on the published data cited at the foot of this page. It is not an offer.
Breakdown
Where the hours actually go
Typical range for a conventional SME brochure site: around 5 pages for “Simple”, 8 to 10 pages for “Elaborate”, with content supplied.
| Task | Simple | Elaborate |
|---|---|---|
| Scoping and information architecture | 4 h | 6 h |
| Wireframes and mockups | 8 h | 14 h |
| Design integration | 12 h | 18 h |
| Building the pages | 10 h | 20 h |
| Animation and micro-interactions | 2 h | 7 h |
| Technical SEO | 3 h | 6 h |
| Analytics and conversion tracking | 1 h | 2 h |
| Testing and fixes | 4 h | 7 h |
| Documentation and training | 2 h | 2 h |
| Project management | 4 h | 8 h |
| Total | 50 h | 90 h |
Excludes copywriting, translation, photo or video production and specific business functionality.
What moves the bill
Five variables, in order of real impact
The number of languages
An extra language involves more than translation: every page must be adapted, proofread and checked on desktop and mobile. Some text, especially in German, also takes more space and needs a few layout adjustments.
+18% per languageIntegrations
Connecting to an ERP, a CRM or a line-of-business system often exceeds the time for the entire rest of the site. The cost depends entirely on the quality of the API on the other side, and sometimes there is none.
40 to 120 hThe number of templates
Pages do not cost; different layouts do. Fifty identical product pages are one template; five all-different pages are five.
≈ 5 h per templateLevel of finish
Animations, transitions, hover states, pixel-perfect consistency across breakpoints. This is what separates a functional site from a memorable one, and it takes tens of hours.
×0.75 to ×1.3The state of the content
A client who arrives with text and images saves weeks. A project waiting on content costs more, because waiting time is paid for in chasing and rework.
VariesRecurring costs
What a site costs every year
Development is one-off, running the site is not. These are orders of magnitude observed on the Swiss market.
| Item | Per year |
|---|---|
| Hosting and domain name | CHF 150-500 |
| Plugins and licences | CHF 50-300 |
| Stock imagery | CHF 200-1,000 |
| Certificate, backups, monitoring | CHF 0-300 |
| Maintenance and security updates | 12-15% of development cost |
The 12-15% rule is an industry standard: on a site built for the equivalent of 200 hours, budget 24 to 30 hours a year to keep it healthy.
Market rates
Who does the work, and at what rate
The rates below are those published by players in the Swiss market. We do not publish ours: they depend on the project, and a rate out of context helps nobody decide.
| Profile | Hourly rate | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Swiss agency | CHF 120-200 | A team, continuity, a contractual frame. The rate includes project management and warranty. |
| Senior freelancer | CHF 100-200 | The best skill-to-price ratio, as long as the person is available. The main risk is continuity. |
| Junior freelancer | CHF 80-120 | Economical on simple, well-defined scopes. Expensive on architecture. |
| Offshore | 30-40% less | The advertised gap is 60-70%; the real gap is closer to 30-40% once supervision and rework are counted. |
On a day rate, a freelance web developer in French-speaking Switzerland sits between CHF 600 and 1,200 a day depending on seniority.
For reference, the average gross salary of a software developer in Switzerland is around CHF 119,600 a year in 2026: close to CHF 58 an hour in direct salary cost, before charges, tooling, holidays, training and non-billable time.
Method
How to read a quote without getting caught out
Six checks that separate a serious quote from a promise.
A fixed price on a written scope
Not an estimate in days. If the scope is not written down, the overrun is already scheduled.
The list of deliverables
Mockups, code, admin interface, documentation. What is not listed will not be delivered.
Code ownership
The repository must be transferred to you at delivery. Without that clause, you are renting your site.
The stated recurring cost
Hosting, maintenance, updates. A quote that omits them will bill for them later.
What is not included
The most instructive section of a quote. Its absence is a signal in itself.
What happens if the project stops
What do you get back if the collaboration ends halfway? The answer must be in writing.
Questions
What people ask us about price
Why do agencies not publish their prices?
Because the same label can cover scopes that vary tenfold, and a figure out of context attracts the wrong enquiries on both sides. That is defensible, but it leaves decision-makers with no reference point, which is why this page exists.
Is a CHF 2,500 website possible?
Yes, and it corresponds to roughly 15 to 20 hours at market rate: a theme installed, configured and filled. That is a valid choice to test an idea. It is not one for a multilingual site meant to last.
Should you pay up front?
The norm is a 30-40% deposit on order, then payments tied to verifiable milestones. Be wary of paying everything up front, and of paying everything at the end: both unbalance the relationship.
Does a more expensive site earn more?
Not automatically. What drives returns is the fit between the site and what your customers come looking for. A CHF 30,000 site with no content strategy will be beaten by a well-positioned CHF 8,000 one.
How long does a site stay valid?
Technically, five to seven years with proper maintenance. Visually, three to four years before it starts to date. A well-built site can be refreshed incrementally rather than rebuilt.
Sources
The figures on this page come from the following publications, consulted in August 2026.
A precise estimate, free
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