Guide
What a restaurant website really costs
The question looks simple and is not, because the three ways of buying a website charge you at different moments. One asks for everything up front, one asks for little and leaves you the work, one spreads the cost and keeps the work. Here is what actually separates them.
The agency quote: a lot up front, little after
A local agency building a bespoke restaurant site usually asks for a one off fee in the low thousands, plus a yearly charge for domain and hosting. The figure swings enormously with the city and the page count. The thing to settle before signing is not the number, it is what happens next. Ask what it costs to change one price on the menu in March, and to swap the photographs in October. If the answer is a separate quote each time, the real cost of the site is not the one on the quote.
Do it yourself: cheap in euros, expensive in hours
Template platforms cost a few tens of euros a month and look like a bargain on the first evening. The real bill arrives in hours: picking the theme, fixing images that come out crooked on a phone, working out why the menu breaks across lines, redoing it when the card changes. For someone with a kitchen to run those hours carry a cost that appears on no invoice, and they are the same hours the place is open.
A monthly plan: nothing up front, the work stays with us
This is the model we chose. You pay a fixed amount each month, domain and hosting are inside it, and we make the edits: send a message with the new dish and it is online that evening. There is no build fee, and you see the site finished before deciding whether to keep it. The advantage is not the price itself, it is that keeping the site current stops being a decision you have to make every single time.
The line items that vanish from quotes
Three costs turn up later in all three models, and it is worth asking about them first. The domain, which renews yearly and should be registered to you. The security certificate, nearly always free today but not always inside the automatic renewal. And photographs: a restaurant is chosen with the eyes, and stock images are recognisable. If you have no pictures of your own that cost exists anyway, whether you pay a photographer or spend an afternoon with a phone.
The question that matters more than the price
Ask whoever writes the quote who owns the domain. If it is registered to the supplier and one day you want to move, you are not carrying away a file: you are starting over, and the address your customers know stays with someone else. A domain in your own name is the difference between changing supplier and redoing everything, and it costs nothing to ask beforehand rather than after.
In short
There is no single right price, but there is a question worth more than the price: what does the next edit cost, and who owns the domain. Once those two are answered, quotes become comparable.
Frequently asked
What is the minimum cost of a restaurant website?
Technically a few tens of euros a year for domain and hosting, if you build everything yourself. The cost that matters is time: getting a site that reads well on a phone and keeping it current is recurring work, not one evening.
Is a one off fee or a monthly plan better value?
It depends how much the place changes. If the menu has been fixed for ten years, a one off can be enough. If the card changes with the seasons, a plan that includes edits costs less than a separate quote every time.
Is the domain included in the price?
In our plan yes, domain and hosting are included. What matters with any supplier is that the domain is registered to your business: ask before you sign.
Can I see the site before paying?
With us yes: we build it and send you a link to look at it finished. If it does not convince you, you pay nothing and nothing is left hanging.
The other guides
If you would rather not do it yourself, the site starts at €24.99 a month and the preview is free.
Tell us about your business in two lines: we build the site and you look at it finished before deciding.
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