Website for architects: what a portfolio site costs
A portfolio site for an architecture practice is step 02 or step 03 work: EUR 900 to 1.500 for a mini-site of two or three pages, and EUR 1.500 to 3.500 for a business website of four to seven pages with a CMS behind it. The choice comes down to one question, whether you intend to add projects yourself after we hand the site over.
That really is the whole decision, because the rest of an architecture site is the same work at either step. The photographs are the product and the layout exists to get out of their way. What changes is who touches the site once it is live.
What sits behind the number
Three things move the price, and page count is the least interesting of them.
How the images arrive. A folder per project, already selected, cropped and named, is a different job from a drive holding everything the photographer shot. Choosing images and deciding their order is design work. If we do it, it is in the quote. If you do it, the quote is smaller.
How many project templates you need. One template that carries a house, a school and an unbuilt competition entry costs less than three bespoke layouts, and it holds the portfolio together visually. Individually art-directed project pages are possible, and they are what moves a step 03 build towards the top of its range.
Whether drawings go on the site. Plans, sections and axonometrics are not photographs. They are fine dark lines on white, and the image treatment that flatters a photograph smears them. Drawings want higher-contrast source files, sometimes SVG rather than a raster image, sometimes a zoom view. Say so early, because it is easy to leave out of a quote.
Step 02 or step 03, side by side
| What you get | Step 02, EUR 900 to 1.500 | Step 03, EUR 1.500 to 3.500 |
|---|---|---|
| Pages | 2 to 3 | 4 to 7 |
| Projects | One portfolio page, images in sequence | An index plus a page per project, from one template |
| Adding a project | You send the images, we publish | You add it in the CMS yourself |
| Practice information | A short about section on the page | Studio, team and approach as their own pages |
| Enquiries | Contact flow into your inbox | Booking or contact, routed per enquiry type |
| Build time | 2 to 3 weeks | 3 to 6 weeks |
Both include responsive layout, analytics and the image pipeline below. Neither includes a later redesign: Care, EUR 100 to 300 per month, covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes.
Image quality is the engineering
An architecture site succeeds when the photograph on a laptop looks like the photograph. That is a build decision as much as a design one, and it is where a cheap site quietly fails. A file straight from a retoucher is far larger than any browser needs, and a site that loads it whole and scales it down with CSS is slow on a phone and no sharper on a desk. What should happen instead:
- The build generates several widths of every image and the browser takes the one that fits its screen.
- AVIF and WebP are served first, with a JPEG fallback for anything that cannot read them.
- Colour profiles are converted properly, so an Adobe RGB photograph does not land looking washed out.
- Every image has its dimensions declared, so nothing jumps under the reader's thumb as the page loads.
- The first image on a project page loads with priority and the rest load on scroll.
None of it is exotic, and all of it separates a portfolio that feels considered from one that feels heavy. It is in every build we do, at step 02 and above. We work in Next.js, which is where that pipeline comes from: Next.js development in Amsterdam, and design and engineering for how the two halves fit together.
Where a CMS starts paying for itself
A CMS is more than a checkbox on a quote. It is a content schema, an editing interface, image handling, a preview and a deploy hook, and it is a large part of what step 03 adds over step 02's basic CMS. It earns its money the moment publishing a completion stops being an email to us and becomes something a person in the studio does directly, on the afternoon the photographs land.
The threshold is not a number of projects, it is the rate of change. If your public work is a settled set of finished buildings plus a way to reach you, you do not need one. If you enter competitions, publish completions or keep a journal, the site changes constantly and routing every change through us is the wrong shape. One warning: a CMS nobody opens is a login and a running cost attached to the expectation that the site is current. Decide who will use it, by name, first.
When a practice site goes past step 03
On a new build, step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500 over 6 to 12 weeks, is where the site stops being a portfolio and becomes a tool: a client login, a private area with drawings and documents per project, a dashboard, or payments of any kind. Be sure you want the tool.
Process and timeline
A mini-site runs 2 to 3 weeks and a business website 3 to 6 weeks.
- A scoping conversation, then a fixed quote against a fixed scope. The number moves only if the scope does.
- Image selection, yours or ours, settled in that quote.
- The project template is designed first. It is the hardest page, and the others get easier once it is right.
- Build, content load, then a review pass on real photographs rather than placeholders.
- Launch, with analytics connected.
The part that waits on you is the photography. If the images for two projects are still with the photographer, that is where your timeline actually sits.
When to spend less
If the practice wins work through referral and competitions, and the website is the credibility check someone runs after hearing your name, buy step 02 and put the difference into photography. A mini-site with excellent images beats a seven-page site with mediocre ones.
If the portfolio rarely changes, skip the CMS. Publishing through us under a Care plan costs less than a CMS nobody opens.
And if you are tempted by ongoing search work before the site exists, wait. The first move is the SEO foundation at EUR 450 to 750, a one-off: console and analytics set up, the site indexed, technical hygiene, titles, internal links and a plan for the following 3 to 6 months. Ongoing SEO growth at EUR 500 to 800 per month is a separate decision. Every step and price is listed on packages.
Questions practices ask
Who owns the site when it is finished?
You do. The client owns the code, the repository and the database, so you can hand the project to another studio. Hosting is agreed per project, decided with you rather than assumed.
Can we add a project without calling you?
At step 03, yes, that is what the CMS is for: create the project, upload the images, set their order, publish. Step 02's basic CMS handles text edits, but structured project pages with ordered galleries are step 03 work. So at step 02 a new project comes to us and goes up as a small job, which is what Care covers.
Our photographer sends enormous files. Is that a problem?
No, send the largest version you have. The build derives everything it needs from the original, so a big master file is an asset rather than an obstacle. What slows a project down is a drive with no structure, because someone has to work out which photograph belongs to which building.
Do we need a page for every project?
Not necessarily. A single strong portfolio page with generous images beats thin project pages that each repeat the same three sentences. Separate pages earn their place when a project has a story, drawings, credits and a location worth writing about, which is also when they start attracting search traffic.
If you can name the projects that belong on the first screen, the scope is close to written. Tell us about the practice and the project list, and you get a fixed quote against a written scope.
Building something?
JP Studio designs and builds websites, storefronts and product interfaces.