Hidden costs in web projects: what sits outside the quote

en 2026-09-21 6 min read

Building the site costs what its step costs, from EUR 600-900 for a single-page landing to EUR 3.500-7.500 for an advanced site or web app, and a fixed quote follows scoping. What that quote leaves out, unless it says so, are the bills from other companies: the domain and email, font and photo licences, the tools your site connects to, payment fees once you reach step 04, and the upkeep after launch, which from us is Care at EUR 100-300 per month.

None of these is a trick. They surprise you because they come from different companies, on different dates, and several of them only start once the site is live. Here they are, so they are in your budget before you sign with anyone. The full step ladder is on packages.

What the quote covers, and what it cannot

A fixed quote prices work: scoping, design, build, testing and launch. It can name outside costs, but it cannot fix them, because another company sets each price and many of those prices move with how much you use the service. A font foundry, a stock library, a booking tool and a payment provider all bill on their own terms, and they can change those terms without asking you or us.

That is also why this page prints no outside prices. We do not set them, and a figure copied here would go stale.

The outside costs, one by one

Fonts and photos: the licences behind the design

Fonts

A typeface installed on a designer's laptop is licensed for that laptop. Putting the same font on a website needs a web licence, and using it in an app can need another. Foundries license web use in different ways: by page views, by domain, or as a subscription, and with some subscriptions the font stops loading on your site when the subscription ends. Settle which one you are buying before the design is approved, because swapping a typeface after launch means checking every page it appears on.

Open-licence typefaces cost nothing to use on the web, and plenty of them are very good. Picking one is an ordinary design decision, and it takes this line out of the budget.

Photos, video and icons

Royalty-free means you pay once and then use the image within its licence. It does not mean free. The terms matter too: an image licensed for editorial use cannot sell your product, and some uses, such as merchandise, need an extended licence. An image saved from a search result carries no licence at all, and rights holders do trace unlicensed use and send invoices for it.

Make sure each licence covers your business. You own the code, the repository and the database, and the licences for what appears on the site should stay valid if you ever change studio.

Tools that cost more as the site works

The tools a site connects to can be cheap or free at launch and grow with use. That is fair, and it is also where budgets drift. A booking tool can bill per staff member or per booking. A CRM bills per seat. A maps service gives a free allowance and bills past it. A chatbot running on an AI model bills by use. On a step 04 site the payment provider takes a fee on every transaction, which is a cost of selling more than a cost of the website.

Before a tool goes in, ask what it will cost once the site does what it is built to do. A free tier that ends where your business starts was never the real price.

Your step decides how many of these you carry. A step 01 landing needs a domain, hosting and analytics. A step 03 business website can add a booking or contact tool. Step 04 is where login, a dashboard, an API, a CRM, payments and a chatbot come in, and each can bring its own recurring line. Our sites are built in Next.js, so there is no stack of plugin licences to renew. More on that on Next.js development.

How the costs get named before you sign

Scoping is where outside costs belong. We go through what the site has to connect to, which fonts and images the design will use, and where the site will be hosted, which is agreed per project. The fixed quote follows scoping, so the outside costs are known before you approve the build price.

The build then runs on the timeline for its step: 1-2 weeks for a single-page landing, 2-3 weeks for a mini-site, 3-6 weeks for a business website and 6-12 weeks for an advanced site or web app. A custom SaaS platform gets its timeline after discovery. Font, photo and icon licences are bought during design, the domain is worth registering first, hosting starts at launch, and connected tools start billing when you move them onto a paid plan. How design and build run together is on design and engineering.

When to spend less

• Pick an open-licence typeface. It removes a licence from the budget and costs the design nothing.
• Use your own photos where they are decent. A clear picture of your actual shop, product or team tells a buyer more than a stock image of someone else's.
• Start every connected tool on its free tier and move up when your usage calls for it, not before.
• Use a contact form instead of a booking tool while you can still answer requests yourself.
• If your site is a step 01 landing that rarely changes, you may not need Care at all.
• Hold off on SEO growth until the one-off SEO foundation is done and the site has pages worth growing.

Questions buyers ask

Why are these costs not in your quote?

Other companies set them, and many change with your usage. They are included only when the quote says so, and a fixed quote can only fix what we control. Scoping names the outside costs so you can budget for them next to the build price.

Who should hold the font and photo licences?

Your business. You own the code, the repository and the database, and the licences for what appears on the site belong with them. That way nothing on your site depends on a licence someone else can let lapse.

Is hosting included in the build price?

Hosting is agreed per project during scoping rather than assumed. The studio can host, and whatever you agree is settled before you approve the quote, so it does not turn up as a surprise at launch.

Does Care cover a redesign or new features?

No. Care at EUR 100-300 per month covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. A redesign or a new feature is quoted as work, and you see that number before anything is built.

Can the quote go up after I approve it?

The quote is fixed on the scope agreed during scoping. It changes only if you add something that was not in that scope, and then you see the new number first. Outside costs can change, which is why they sit outside the quote.

Tell us what your site needs to do and connect to, and we will name the outside costs we can see before you commit. Get in touch.