What does a website cost in Iceland?

Why the answer is never one number

A website is not an object with a price tag, it is work done over a certain number of hours. Two companies can both ask for a simple website, and one needs four pages with copy that already exists while the other needs fifteen pages, new copy, a photo shoot, a price list that updates and a booking form that talks to a calendar. Same words, six times the work.

So the real question is not what a website costs, it is what your website has to do. Once that is settled the price can usually be said in one sentence.

What actually drives the price

Page count matters less than people expect. Five pages that are all different cost more than fifteen that share one layout with different words.

Copy matters more than most people expect. If you bring text that is finished and correct, the job shortens considerably. If it has to be written from scratch, that is separate work and it costs, whether it appears as its own line on the invoice or is folded into the total.

Photography matters too. A site with real photographs of the actual business looks better than any design can rescue, but somebody has to take them. Stock photography is cheaper and it shows from a distance.

The systems underneath are the single biggest item. A site that presents information is one job. A site that takes a booking, tracks what is free, sends a confirmation and talks to your calendar is a different job, and that is the difference between 149.000 and 690.000.

Two languages double part of the work. Icelandic and English mean two URLs, two sets of copy and twice the upkeep, not one button that swaps the words.

What a starting price usually leaves out

A starting price is a real number for real work, but it describes the smallest possible version of the job. What gets added is nearly always the same list: copywriting, photography, a second language, a connection to a booking or sales system, and a CMS so you can change something yourself afterwards.

So do not ask what the starting price is. Ask what has to be added to it for the site to do what you just described. Whoever is selling it knows the answer immediately.

The other thing a starting price hides is the running cost. A website is not bought once. Hosting, the domain, the security certificate, updates and somebody who answers when it breaks are a monthly cost, and it continues long after the build is paid for.

The company itself moves the price most

Two companies with the same number of pages can land on either side of double the price, and that is not arbitrary. A sole trader selling one service needs a site that says who they are, what they do and how to reach them. There are few decisions to make and the work moves quickly.

A company with staff, several service lines and a price list that changes needs more: more pages, a system to keep them correct, and usually more than one person who has to approve each step. That lengthens the work, and longer work costs more.

The trade matters too. Accommodation and restaurants need booking, a calendar and usually two languages. Workshops and salons need appointments. A shop needs products, stock and payments. Somebody who needs none of those systems does not pay for them.

So I always ask what the company does and who the site is for before I name a number. Anyone who gives you a fixed price without asking anything either has a template ready or is guessing.

What it costs with me, all of it

The build, paid once: a website from 149.000 kr, whether that is a redesign or built from the ground up. A larger site with many pages, full content management and more languages from 390.000 kr. A custom build, with a system underneath the site, from 690.000 kr.

Running it, monthly: Grunnur at 4.900 kr, where the site simply works and you do not think about it. Vöxtur at 29.900 kr when the site has to change as the business does. Sýnileiki at 44.900 kr, where what the machines can read is measured every month. Allt at 74.900 kr, which is the site, the measurement and both systems in one place.

The systems, if you want them: the booking system at 19.900 kr a month, the kitchen at 19.900 kr a month and the AI assistant at 24.900 kr a month. Bought separately alongside the site they would come to 89.700 kr a month, so Allt saves 14.800 kr.

All prices are before VAT and they stand on the price list, not only here.

What if I build it myself?

A fair question, and the answer does not always favour me. The build-it-yourself platforms, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and WordPress on a bought theme, do exactly what they promise: you can have a site live in a weekend without knowing anything.

The cost sits elsewhere. You pay a monthly fee that never ends, and on most of them the site stops appearing if you stop paying. You do the work yourself, and the weekend usually becomes several weekends. The template is the same one thousands of others bought, so the site looks chosen rather than designed. And Icelandic is rarely well supported, either in the editor or in how the page is built for search engines.

If you are a sole trader starting out, with more time than money, and you mainly need to exist online, then this is the correct decision and I say so on the phone. If the site has to sell for you, take bookings, or be found on Google for something competitive, then it is doing work a template cannot carry.

How to compare two quotes

Ask who owns the site and the domain when the arrangement ends. The answer should be you, and on subscription routes that is not a given.

Ask what happens if you stop paying. A website needs hosting from somebody, so it always stops being served where it was when payments stop, mine included. The question is whether you get it handed over and can set it up elsewhere, or whether you are left with nothing. That is the difference between owning the site and renting it.

Ask whether you can change the text yourself without sending an email, and ask to see the system you would be using. Thirty seconds on screen tells you more than a page of description.

Ask who writes the copy and who takes the photographs, and whether that sits inside the price.

Ask what the monthly fee includes and what counts as extra work. The difference between 4.900 and 29.900 should be explainable in one sentence.

When cheap is right, and when it gets expensive

The cheapest route is right more often than people in my trade like to admit. If you are starting out, do not yet know who your customers are and mainly need to exist online, then a small well made site is the correct decision. You can always build on top of it.

Cheap gets expensive when the site has to do work it was never built for. Somebody who buys a cheap template and six months later needs a booking system, two languages and a site that can be found on Google pays for the build twice. At that point the cheap site was not a saving, it was a postponement.

Sources and dates

• Every price here is my own and is read off the price list at /verd. If it changes there, it changes here.
• I do not publish other companies’ prices. They have their own price lists and it is for them to describe them.