Build your business website yourself in 2026

When someone thinks about building their own business website, they usually start with the tool: “WordPress or Wix?”. The real question is a different one: how much of that work do you want to do yourself. There are four sensible routes, and each one solves a different problem.

The short answer: if the site is your business card and you would rather not learn a tool, a professional or a managed service works out better than the hours you would put in; if you just need to be online and test an idea, an AI builder is the sensible choice; and if you will be editing the site every week, WordPress gives you control the others do not.

The four options, in one table

None of them is “the right one”: what changes is the time you put in, the money, and who you call when something stops working. Here is the summary, with the source for each figure next to it.

Option	What it is	Time it takes	Real first-year cost	Who it is for
WordPress by hand	You install WordPress, pick a theme and plugins, arrange hosting and a domain, and build it yourself	An afternoon to publish the basics; weeks to get it polished	Hosting and domain separately and, above all, your hours (market maintenance €50–150/month if you would rather pay someone)	Anyone who will edit often and wants control without depending on anyone
AI builder (Wix, Hostinger, Durable)	You build the site in a website builder with templates and AI-written copy	An afternoon if all goes well	A monthly fee: Wix Business ~€15–20/month, Hostinger $1.99/month renewing at $10.99/month, Durable 0, 25 or $49/month	Anyone who needs to be online on a small budget and test an idea
Freelancer or agency	You commission design and development from a professional who delivers it finished	Weeks, between the proposal, the content and revisions	Landing page €600–1,000 from a solo professional or €700–1,500 from an agency; custom ~€1,200–2,500; and maintenance €40–150/month if you sign up for it	Anyone with a clear project who wants to hand the whole thing over
Running it from WhatsApp (our option)	You tell us about the business on WhatsApp and we build the site; you see it before you pay	Days, once we have photos, logo and contact details	€200 incl. VAT as a one-off (Essential web presence) plus hosting: first 2 months included, then €25/month + VAT. Around €500 incl. VAT in the first year, plus the domain if you want your own	Freelancers and small businesses who want a presentation site without learning any tool

These are four different products, not four versions of the same one. What follows is what you get and what you do not from each, without gloss.

Option 1: building it by hand with WordPress

WordPress gives you full control and ties you to no fee: it is free software, the content is yours and you can move hosts whenever you like. In exchange, it leaves you in charge of hosting, updates, backups and plugins. It is the option for someone who will touch the site often and wants to learn.

What it takes. With a simple theme and your copy and photos ready, an afternoon can be enough to publish the basics. Getting it polished —speed, forms that actually arrive, mobile done properly, a design that is not the default theme— takes weeks, and learning as you go.

What you need to know. A WordPress with many plugins is a site that has to be updated and watched; every plugin is a third-party piece that can break with an update or lose its maintainer. And cheap hosting shows in speed, which is exactly what a visitor notices before reading a single word.

Where it wins. On licence cost, freedom and autonomy: if you publish articles every week or need a specific plugin, it has the largest ecosystem there is. Market maintenance runs at €50–150/month (Cronoshare) or €40–90/month in the basic band (Bossbyte), and you can save that money by doing it yourself, at the cost of your time.

Where it falls short. It gives you no original design if you start from a template, no content judgement and no guaranteed performance unless you know what you are loading. And the first time round you pay in hours: the hours spent learning are hours not spent on your business.

Option 2: an AI builder (Wix, Hostinger, Durable)

An AI builder gets a decent site published in an afternoon for a small monthly fee, with no design or development cost. It is the fastest and cheapest way to have a presence online, and also the one that gives you the least control over design, performance and content.

What the market offers, with published prices:

Wix, Business plans around €15–20/month depending on the plan (Creasitios).
Hostinger AI Website Builder, a $1.99/month promotion renewing at about $10.99/month (Hostinger).
Durable, plans at 0, 25 and $49/month (Durable).

What it takes. An afternoon if all goes well: you answer a few questions, the AI proposes a structure and you adjust copy and colours. If the business has a catalogue or bookings, the afternoon turns into several days.

Where it wins. On entry cost and immediate autonomy. To test whether an idea has demand before investing, or for a business that only needs its name and a phone number online, it is a reasonable decision.

Where it falls short. The template is shared by thousands of businesses, so the look does not set you apart. You do not decide which scripts the page loads or how much it weighs, and as the builder adds features you pay for that in speed on every visit. The copy is written by an AI that does not know your customers. And if one day you want to move, exporting the content and the design is not always simple: check that before you put the business in there. When something breaks, support is a form.

Option 3: commissioning it from a freelancer or an agency

You pay for someone else’s work and skip the learning: the professional designs, structures the copy, builds and publishes. It is the option for anyone who knows what they want and would rather spend that time on their trade.

The ranges being paid in Spain in 2026:

One-page landing page: €600–1,000 from a solo professional and €700–1,500 from an agency (Creasitios).
Custom landing page, with original design: around €1,200–2,500 (Adrián Pozo).
Maintenance, if bought separately: €40–150/month depending on what it covers (Bossbyte, Cronoshare).

What it takes. Weeks, not an afternoon: you have to ask for proposals, prepare the content, review the first version and fix it. What delays a commission is almost never the development, but the copy and the photographs.

Where it wins. On judgement and on delegation. A good professional tells you what to cut, what is missing and in what order it goes, and takes on the technical side. For a project with several pages, a catalogue or integrations, that is where the money is best spent.

Where it falls short. The entry price is the highest of the four options, and the result depends on how involved you are: no professional knows your business better than you. Not all of them include the copy, the photographs or later maintenance, so the first year can be considerably more expensive than the initial quote once you add the monthly fee.

Option 4: running it from WhatsApp with us

This is our option, and we explain it by the same standard as the rest: you describe the business in a chat, we build the site and you see it before paying. You learn no tool and you book no meetings; a person answers on the other side.

Our published catalogue:

Essential web presence: €165.29 + VAT — €200 incl. VAT — as a one-off. One page with up to five blocks, call and WhatsApp buttons, baseline SEO and HTTPS. The first 2 months of hosting are included; after that, €25/month + VAT, with no minimum term. The domain stays in your name.
Delivered site: €320 + VAT. You get the finished site with its code to host wherever you prefer, with no fee to us.
Changes: with the Digital employee, €59/month + VAT (€49/month in the first year if taken with the site): small changes over WhatsApp, up to 15 a month, changes published usually within a few hours and the hosting already included — one fee per site. One-off changes go as a fixed quote.

What it takes. Days, once we have your photos, logo and contact details, and you see it before paying. What delays the work is not the development: it is the missing copy and photographs.

Where it wins. You do not pay for the learning or for a template fee: you pay once for a site with an original design and then decide whether you want hosting and changes with us. For a freelancer or a small business that needs a presentation site, the first year comes in below the cheapest market landing page.

Where it falls short. It is not the cheapest option if you only want to “be there”: an AI builder costs you less per month. Nor is it for anyone who needs to edit the site daily: the scope is a presentation page, and a site with a blog, store, bookings or integrations is quoted separately. And if you need to rewrite the whole site yourself every week, say so before we start: the entry offer does not include a management panel, and changes are requested and charged: they come with the Digital employee or as a fixed quote, told before we start.

The first year, added up

The entry fee is never the first-year cost. In numbers, with the same sources as above:

AI builder: just the fee. Wix Business, some €180–240/year with the €15–20/month plans; Hostinger, the first term at $1.99/month and then $10.99/month; Durable, from 0 to $49/month depending on the plan. Add your time.
Freelancer or agency: the landing page (€600–1,500) plus maintenance if you sign up for it (€40–150/month), which leaves the first year between roughly 1,100 and €3,300. Without a maintenance fee, the spend stays at the project… and maintenance becomes your time.
Running it from WhatsApp: €200 incl. VAT plus ten months of hosting at €25/month + VAT (about €300 more), around €500 incl. VAT in the first year, plus the domain if you want your own. If you choose Delivered site, €320 + VAT and no monthly payment to us.
WordPress by hand: hosting and domain, plus your hours. It is the cheapest option in euros and the most expensive in time if you value yours.

First-year figures barely change from one year to the next when there is a monthly fee; what really moves them is how much content has to be prepared and how many things have to be connected to the site.

Choosing in three questions

Three questions usually settle it; if the answers point in different directions, the one about your time carries the most weight.

Will you be editing the site yourself, often? If yes, WordPress by hand or an AI builder give you that autonomy; if not, paying for it to be handled works out better than learning to maintain it.

Are you after being there or explaining what you do properly? For being there, an AI builder will do. For someone to understand in ten seconds what you offer and get in touch, you need design and content judgement: that is what the other three options pay for.

What is your time worth? That is the question that really decides. Building a site by hand costs little money and many hours; commissioning it costs money and gives you the hours back. Both are respectable decisions, but it is worth making it on purpose rather than out of inertia.

Before signing with anyone

Four checks that apply to any option, ours included:

Whose domain it is. It should be in your name, not the provider’s.
Exactly what is included. Copy, photographs, languages, forms, email and analytics. If something is not in the written scope, it is not included.
What happens if you leave. If there is no minimum term, get it in writing; if there is one, what it costs to exit and whether you take the content with you.
Whether you can see it before paying. It is the cheapest way to check who you are dealing with.

If it is only the price you are after, in what does a website cost for a freelancer in 2026? we break the market ranges down one by one and what moves each figure. This article compares ways of building it; that one compares quotes.

If you want us to tell you which option fits your case, tell us on WhatsApp and we will answer with a number, not with an “it depends”. Prices and what each one includes are published on pricing and the service detail on web design and development.