How much does a new website cost in 2026?

What does an hour of web design and development cost in Sweden?

Swedish agencies don't share a price list, but the state's framework agreements for IT consultants publish every supplier's hourly rate. They are run by Statens inköpscentral, the central purchasing body at Kammarkollegiet, and the price annexes were updated in October 2026.

• Development: in the Arkitektur och utveckling (architecture and development) lot, which includes web development, the ceiling rate for any role at competence levels 1–4 runs from SEK 914 to SEK 1,890 an hour across nine suppliers. Eight of the nine sit between SEK 914 and SEK 1,296.
• Design and UX: in the Verksamhetens IT-behov (business IT needs) lot, which covers web design, UX design and accessibility work among other things, the ceiling rate is SEK 815–991 an hour at competence level 3 and SEK 1,019–1,238 at level 4, the top level with a capped price.

These are caps, excluding VAT, for large consultancies selling to public bodies. Private studios set their own rates, so read the figures as a benchmark rather than a tariff. The worked examples below use SEK 900–1,300 an hour; replace that with the rates in the quotes you receive.

What do you get at each budget level?

Price follows hours. The hours below are assumptions for typical projects at a studio or agency, and the hourly rate is in line with most suppliers on the Swedish government framework. It is not our price list: Naexit's own quotes often come in below these levels. Treat the figures as a template and put the hours and rates from your own quotes into the same sum.

• A site builder you manage yourself. Squarespace lists US$19–99 a month on annual billing and US$25–139 on monthly billing (October 2026). Templates, hosting and editing tools are included. The main cost is your own time, and you work within the platform's templates and features.
• A small business site from a studio. Four to six unique page templates, 10–20 pages, one language, a CMS and a contact form, with copy and images supplied. 100–200 hours × SEK 900–1,300 = SEK 90,000–260,000.
• A larger multilingual site with integrations. 10–20 templates, two or three languages, a CRM or booking-system integration and an accessibility review. 300–700 hours × SEK 900–1,300 = SEK 270,000–910,000.
• An online shop on Shopify. A customised theme, product pages, checkout and shipping configured in the platform. 150–400 hours × SEK 900–1,300 = SEK 135,000–520,000. On top comes Shopify's subscription: US$29 a month for Basic up to US$299 for Advanced on annual billing. If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, a transaction fee of 0.6–2% applies, depending on the plan.

In our estimate, a headless shop connected to an ERP system costs about as much as the larger site, or more.

What drives the cost up?

Cost follows the number of distinct things that must be designed, built and tested, not the page count. A service-page template costs roughly the same whether it holds five pages or fifty.

• Unique templates. Each new template needs design, development and testing across screen sizes. More templates mean more hours at every stage.
• Content. Copy, photography, video and translation take time, and someone has to do the work. Check whether the quote assumes you will supply the content, and by when.
• Integrations. CRM, booking, ERP or newsletter tools. Each connection has to be built, tested and kept working when the system at the other end changes.
• Languages. Every language adds copy to write, translate and review, and the templates must cope with longer words and different formats.
• Accessibility. Sweden's Act on the accessibility of certain products and services, which implements the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882), has applied since 28 June 2025 to services including e-commerce aimed at consumers. Micro-enterprises, with fewer than ten employees and annual turnover or balance sheet of no more than €2 million, are exempt for services. Others can face penalty fees of SEK 10,000–10,000,000. We build accessibility in from the start, because fixing it later means reworking every template.
• Design ambition. A bespoke visual language, animation and illustration take more hours than a restrained, proven layout.
• Choice of CMS. A CMS with flexible content blocks gives editors freedom but takes longer to set up. We build new sites on Next.js and Sanity; WordPress and site builders are other routes. Ask what the licence costs per year and how many editors it covers.

What are the running costs of a website?

For a small site the licences are usually modest. The bigger line is maintenance hours. For a small business site on Next.js and Sanity, the items look like this:

• Hosting. Vercel Pro costs US$20 a month per developer seat, excluding VAT, with US$20 of usage credit and free viewer seats. Vercel's free Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only.
• CMS. Sanity's Free plan costs nothing for up to 20 users and 10,000 documents, but only with public datasets. Growth costs US$15 per user a month.
• Domain. A .se domain renews every year through a registrar. Compare the renewal price, not the introductory one.
• Maintenance. Framework and dependency updates, security fixes and small changes: 2–6 hours a month × SEK 900–1,300 = SEK 21,600–93,600 a year.
• Analytics. The cost depends on the tool and your traffic. Ask what is included and whether the tool needs cookie consent.

A three-year example for a small business site

• Build: 150 hours × SEK 1,100 = SEK 165,000
• Maintenance: 3 hours a month × SEK 1,100 × 36 months = SEK 118,800
• Hosting: US$20 × 36 months = US$720
• CMS: nothing on Free, or 2 editors × US$15 × 36 months = US$1,080 on Growth

That comes to SEK 283,800 plus US$720–1,800 in platform fees, excluding VAT. Three years of maintenance add up to just over 70% of the build cost, so a low build price tells you little about what the site will cost you overall.

How should you compare website quotes?

Put every quote into the same shape: hours per part, hourly rate, what is included and what recurs each year. Only then do the real differences show.

A fixed price suits a clearly defined scope, with the number of templates, languages and integrations agreed. The supplier carries the risk on hours, but every change becomes an extra. Time and materials suits a project where you want to change course as you learn. Ask for an estimate per part and a cost cap.

Five questions to put to every supplier:

1. What exactly is included: number of templates, languages, content work, mobile testing and accessibility testing?
2. What does the timeline look like, and what material do you need from us, and by when?
3. Which licence and hosting costs recur each year?
4. Who owns the code, design and content after final payment, and do we get the code repository and admin access?
5. What do changes and support cost after launch, and how quickly do you respond?

Warning signs include a low first-year price that rises sharply at renewal, a contract that doesn't say who owns the code, design and content, and quotes that don't state the number of templates or languages.

Are Swedish prices quoted with or without VAT?

Business prices in Sweden are often quoted excluding VAT; the state frameworks and Vercel both do so. Swedish VAT is 25% on almost all goods and services, so a site priced at SEK 200,000 excluding VAT costs SEK 250,000 including it. Check that every quote you compare uses the same basis.

What does it cost with Naexit?

Most websites we build cost SEK 25,000–100,000, and systems and web apps from about SEK 50,000 upwards, excluding VAT. Where a project lands in that range depends on the same things as above: page templates, content, integrations and languages. You get a proposal with a fixed price per stage after the free prototype or audit, before any work starts.

How we build websites and online shops, and how we move a site off WordPress without losing content or URLs.