Search for "website redesign cost" and you will mostly find pages that end with "contact us for a quote". That is frustrating when all you want to know is whether your budget is realistic. The price of a redesign depends on real technical and editorial factors, and they can be explained clearly.
This article goes through those factors one by one, shows exactly what a full redesign with a back office contained, billed at €3,200 excluding VAT, and lists the questions that will protect you from the two classic traps: overpaying for a facelift, or underpaying for a redesign that destroys your search rankings.
Facelift or full redesign: what is the price difference?
The word "redesign" covers very different services. Some providers change the colours and photos on top of the existing structure: that is a facelift, sometimes useful, but it fixes neither speed, nor structure, nor SEO. A full redesign rebuilds the website in depth: page architecture, content, code, performance and search visibility. The two obviously do not cost the same, and this is the first reason quotes are so hard to compare.
Before comparing figures, make sure you are comparing the same scope. And before requesting quotes at all, make sure a redesign is actually needed: our article website redesign: when and why to change reviews the signs that justify one, and those that only call for an update.
What drives the price of a website redesign?
Once the scope is clear, six factors explain most of the price differences between two redesigns. The third column is the one you will want on hand the day you compare two quotes.
| What drives the price | Why | The question to ask your provider |
|---|---|---|
| The number of pages and templates | Rebuilding a 6-page website and a 40-page website with product pages are not the same project. | How many different page templates does my website need? |
| What happens to the content | Texts and photos kept as they are, reworked, or rewritten from scratch: the most underestimated line of the budget. | Who writes the copy, you or me? |
| A back office, or not | Editing your own pages after launch means an administration tool has to be built, connected and taught. | Will I be able to edit my pages without calling you? |
| Features | Booking, an English version, online payment, a client area: each building block adds design and testing work. | What is included, and what will be billed on top? |
| The state of the existing website | Clean code can serve as a base. A website built on an ageing template needs rebuilding on solid foundations. | Are you starting from my current website, or from scratch? |
| The SEO migration | Listing the pages that rank and redirecting old addresses: invisible on screen, decisive for your traffic. | Are redirects included, and checked after launch? |
A serious redesign quote reads line by line. If a single line "redesign: €X" sums up the whole project, you do not know what you are buying, or what will be missing.
What a redesign costs when your site runs on WordPress
If your current site is a WordPress, this is where the quotes you receive will differ the most. Two agencies can sell you two completely different jobs while using the same word, redesign.
Rebuild the theme, or leave WordPress
The first job keeps the installation in place and changes the skin. The plugins and the database stay where they are, only the theme is rebuilt. It is the cheaper line on a quote. The site will look better, and whatever was slowing it down will still be there.
The second takes the content and rebuilds the site on a fresh foundation, with the redirects that go with it. It costs more up front. In return, you are not buying the same problem again in three years.
What actually drives the bill up
On a WordPress takeover, the first price factor is not the number of pages, nor the design. It is the number of plugins. Each one was installed to solve a specific problem, each stores its data its own way, and you have to understand what it does before you can replace it. A site with a handful of plugins is quick to take over. A site that has accumulated thirty needs a full inventory before the first line of code.
On our side, a full redesign with a back office sits between €3,000 and €3,500. Coming off a heavily loaded WordPress pushes towards the top of that range, because the inventory takes time.
The cost that appears on no quote
Once the site is live, WordPress keeps asking for work. Plugins ship updates, sometimes several a month. One of them can break another. And a plugin its author has walked away from turns into a hole someone will eventually use. That work never goes away. The only question is who does it and who pays for it.
We build sites without WordPress and without plugins, with a separate back office when the client needs to manage their own content. Hosting and maintenance are covered by the subscription, which is mandatory and can be cancelled at any time. A WordPress kept in good order by someone who genuinely looks after it is still a site that works: our way is not the only valid one, but it explains why our quotes do not compare line by line with the others.
The question to ask whoever is quoting you: are you rebuilding the theme of my WordPress, or are you rebuilding the site? Both answers are defensible. The problem starts when they carry the same price.
A real example: €3,200, fully itemised
Rather than theoretical ranges, here is a figure we can break down because it is our own project: a full website redesign with a back office that we delivered was billed €3,200 excluding VAT. It was a full redesign with a back office, for a business that wanted to take back control of its content.
- Custom design, built for the client's activity, with no purchased template or recycled theme.
- Full development of the website, with modern, fast code handed over to the client at the end of the project.
- An administration back office: the client edits texts, photos and pages independently, without calling us or paying for every change.
- Content migration and reorganisation, reworked page by page rather than copied as is.
- A clean migration: redirects for every old address, a structure built for SEO, and post-launch checks.
After launch, a subscription covers hosting and maintenance. On this project: €59/month for the first year, then €79/month. The amount depends on the website (a simple showcase site without a back office costs a little less), and there is no lock-in period: the client can cancel at any time and leave with their code and domain.
To place this project on our price scale, here are our real reference points. These are not market averages collected elsewhere: they are our own prices, and we can break every one of them down.
| Type of project | Our price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Custom showcase website | from €1,500 | Custom design and development, without an administration tool. |
| Full redesign with a back office | €3,000 to €3,500 | The website rebuilt in depth, plus a tool to edit your own content. |
| A real project we invoiced | €3,200 | Design, development, back office, content migration and SEO migration. |
| Hosting and maintenance | €59/month for the first year, then €79/month on this project | Amount varies by website, no lock-in period, cancel at any time. |
Our article how much does a website cost in Nice details these reference points by type of project.
What about your own site?
Send us the address of your current site. We reply within 24 hours with a price range and what moves it.
The cost nobody puts a number on: losing your rankings
The real financial risk of a redesign is not paying a few hundred euros too much. It is losing the Google positions your website took years to build. The classic scenario: page addresses change without redirects, content that ranked gets deleted because it "looked old", and traffic collapses in the weeks after the new website goes live.
Prevention comes down to three steps: before the redesign, list the pages that receive traffic; redirect every old address to its new equivalent; and monitor Search Console after launch. It is the method we apply on every website redesign in Nice, where the migration is set out step by step. If your website already suffers from this kind of damage, our article why your website does not show up on Google helps with the diagnosis.
A cheap redesign that makes your website vanish from Google ends up costing far more than a properly managed one: recovering lost rankings takes months.
Redesign, or start from scratch?
Sometimes the existing website is not worth keeping. A site built on a plugin-saturated template, code nobody understands anymore, a closed platform you do not own: in those cases, patching often costs as much as rebuilding, for a less durable result. Starting from a clean base is not a failure; over three years it is frequently the cheaper choice.
What must survive the rebuild, however, is not negotiable: your domain name, the content that performs, and your old addresses, properly redirected. Rented-platform websites are the typical case: our comparison Wix or a custom website details what can be recovered and what has to be rebuilt.
How do you get a reliable price for your redesign?
To receive a precise quote rather than a vague range, prepare three things: the address of your current website, an honest list of what works and what holds you back, and your concrete goals (more enquiries, online booking, online sales). With that, a professional can price the work line by line, free of charge. If your business is on the French Riviera, our page on custom website redesign in Nice sets out the full pricing grid and what each line covers.
Then, a few questions asked before signing will protect you better than any price comparison:
- Does the quote break down every line of work, or does it fit on one line?
- Who owns the code and the domain name once the redesign is delivered?
- Are redirects for the old addresses included, and checked after launch?
- What will I pay each month after delivery, what does it cover, and can I cancel freely?
Our own answers to these questions are public: the delivered website belongs to you, code and domain included, and the hosting and maintenance subscription has no lock-in period. The full model is explained in our article web agency with no lock-in, and the way we work across a whole project is described on our web agency in Nice page.