WordPress website creation
A WordPress website built by a professional usually costs between 2,500 and 6,000 francs for a showcase site, and between 5,000 and 15,000 francs for an online store built with WooCommerce, with hosting, the domain name and maintenance added on top every year. WordPress now powers about 41% of all websites in the world, which makes it the most widely used platform for publishing content, yet that popularity does not mean it suits every project. This page sets out the real prices in Swiss francs and what makes them vary, the widely misunderstood difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, the maintenance and security cost that most guides stay silent about, and the cases where a custom-built site serves your business better than WordPress.
What WordPress really gives a business
WordPress is free, open-source software that lets you build and run a site without writing a single line of code, and it is that mix of zero licence cost and apparent simplicity that explains why it now powers about 41% of all websites in the world. A business owner can edit a paragraph, add a page or publish an article from an ordinary browser, which cuts the dependence on an agency for everyday changes. That freedom comes at a price, because a tool this open has to be configured, secured and maintained properly to last, and that is exactly where a rushed WordPress site and a professional one part ways.
Technically, WordPress belongs to the family of content management systems, the platforms that separate the content you write from the way it is displayed, so you manage your pages without ever touching the code that styles them. That advantage becomes real the day you want to add a section, swap a photo or fix a price without calling your provider for every comma. To go further, the article on what a CMS is explains that logic in detail.
The real strength of WordPress is its ecosystem, because tens of thousands of free or paid plugins let you add a store, a booking form, a member area or an SEO tool without starting from scratch. A restaurant plugs in a reservation module while a practice adds online appointment booking, each assembling the pieces they need rather than paying for full custom development for features that already exist.
WordPress fits sites that publish content regularly and catalogues that change often particularly well, because its editorial logic was designed for that from the start. It stays a solid base for a straightforward presentation site too, as long as it is installed and tuned by someone who knows its traps rather than thrown together in a hurry. The page on showcase website creation sets out what that kind of project contains.
WordPress.com or WordPress.org: which to choose
The name WordPress actually covers two different products that people confuse constantly, and that confusion costs money to anyone who discovers it too late. WordPress.org is the free software you install on your own hosting and control entirely, whereas WordPress.com is a commercial service hosted by a company, easier to start with but clearly more limited as soon as you want to install a specific plugin or change how your site behaves.
For a business that wants a serious site, the self-hosted version almost always wins, because it gives access to every plugin and every theme and because it leaves you the owner of your files and your data. The free WordPress.com plan shows advertising you do not choose and restricts customisation, so it suits a personal blog but rarely a business that needs to inspire trust and rank properly.
The choice of theme and plugins weighs on the final result more than the platform itself, and this is an area where experience changes everything. Our background includes designing OceanWP, a WordPress theme installed on more than 500,000 sites worldwide, which gives a precise view of what the platform does very well and where it starts to show its limits. That knowledge feeds straight into your project, because it rules out the plugins that bloat a site, the themes stuffed with useless options and the settings that get paid for later in slowness or security holes.
A professional WordPress site rests on a deliberately small number of well-chosen plugins, a light theme or development suited to your activity, and a security setup planned from the outset. A site that stacks twenty random plugins to plug every gap, by contrast, becomes slow and hard to maintain, and it is more exposed to attacks, which is what gives WordPress its poor reputation among people who used it badly.
How much a WordPress website costs to build
For a showcase site of five to eight pages with a careful design, copy written for search and compliance with Swiss law, a professional WordPress site costs between 2,500 and 6,000 francs. The lower end matches a quality theme configured cleanly with limited content, while the higher end includes a more custom design, animations, a structured blog or a filterable portfolio, each option adding design time and therefore budget.
An online store built with WooCommerce, the most common commerce plugin on WordPress, sits between 5,000 and 15,000 francs depending on the number of products, the complexity of shipping and the degree of customisation. The price hinges mostly on the catalogue structure and the payment methods to integrate, from a simple card payment to options such as TWINT or paying in instalments. The feature breakdown is on the page about e-commerce website creation.
A multilingual version is a common line item in Switzerland and in export-focused businesses, and it represents between 800 and 2,000 francs depending on the volume of content to translate and adapt. That amount does not only cover translating the text, it includes the technical structure that lets Google index each language cleanly at its own address, without which the versions compete with each other instead of complementing one another.
On top of the build cost come the recurring costs many guides forget, namely hosting between 10 and 60 francs a month depending on performance, the domain name between 10 and 30 francs a year, and maintenance between 50 and 200 francs a month if you hand updates and backups to a provider. Adding these lines up, an SME launching a WordPress site can reasonably plan between 3,500 and 8,000 francs in the first year, then a much lighter annual budget afterwards. For a full overview of the cost lines, see the article on how much a website costs or request a quote.
Maintenance and security: the true cost of a WordPress site
The popularity of WordPress is also its main weakness, because software present on about 41% of sites naturally draws the attention of people hunting for flaws to exploit. The vast majority of hacks do not target the WordPress core itself, which is fairly well kept, but plugins or themes left without updates for months. A site abandoned right after launch becomes an easy target, while a site kept up to date stays reasonably safe.
Maintaining a WordPress site means applying the updates to the core, the theme and the plugins regularly, checking after each update that nothing broke, and keeping recent backups stored somewhere other than the site's own server. That routine looks simple, but it takes discipline and a bit of method, because a badly handled update can make a site unreachable overnight.
This is why a maintenance contract makes sense for most businesses, since it hands that watch to someone whose job it is rather than to an owner already busy running their business. The usual cost sits between 50 and 200 francs a month depending on the number of plugins and how often work is needed. The subject is covered in the article on website maintenance.
Security is also built at installation, with strong passwords, reinforced authentication for the admin area, a limit on login attempts and a certificate to encrypt the exchange between the visitor and the site. These settings are invisible and return nothing as long as all is well, but they make all the difference the day an automated attack sweeps your site, which happens to every site online far more often than people imagine.
WordPress or a custom build: how to choose
WordPress is not the right answer to every project, and an honest provider will tell you so before selling you either option. The platform is at its most relevant when you publish often, when you want to manage your own content and when your needs match plugins that are already proven, which covers a large share of business and retail sites.
A site built to measure with modern technology, by contrast, takes the lead when performance and speed are decisive, when you want a genuinely distinctive interface the theme catalogue does not offer, or when you want to keep the surface exposed to attacks to a strict minimum. This kind of project asks for more development upfront, but it often ages better and is simpler to maintain. The page on a custom-built website presents that approach in more detail.
Weight and loading speed deserve particular attention, because a poorly optimised WordPress site loaded with plugins and built on a heavy theme loads slowly, and that slowness penalises both your visitors on mobile and your ranking on Google. A lighter site starts with a head start on that front, which matters more and more as speed becomes an openly stated ranking factor.
Many businesses actually arrive with an old, slow or neglected WordPress site and wonder whether to repair it or rebuild it from a clean base. The answer depends on the state of the foundations rather than the age of the site, and an honest diagnosis is worth more than a reflex rebuild. The article on redesigning a website explains how to make that call.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to build a WordPress website?
A WordPress showcase site of five to eight pages usually takes between three and five weeks, the time to design it, configure the platform, write the copy and test everything. A WooCommerce store or a multilingual site takes closer to six to ten weeks, because the catalogue or the translation has to be integrated and the testing multiplied before launch.
Is it better to choose WordPress.com or WordPress.org?
For a professional site, the self-hosted WordPress.org version almost always wins, because it gives access to every plugin and every theme and because it leaves you the owner of your data. WordPress.com suits a personal blog or a project that wants to start without worrying about hosting, at the cost of limited customisation.
What budget should I plan for a professional WordPress site?
Plan between 2,500 and 6,000 francs for a custom-built WordPress showcase site, between 5,000 and 15,000 francs for a WooCommerce store, and between 800 and 2,000 francs more for a multilingual version. On top of that come hosting, the domain name and maintenance every year, a recurring budget that a serious quote breaks down line by line.
Is a WordPress site really secure?
The WordPress core is well kept, and a site that is up to date, backed up and correctly configured stays reasonably safe. Hacks almost always target plugins or themes left without updates for months, which is why regular maintenance is the first security factor, well ahead of the choice of platform.
Can I edit my WordPress site myself?
Yes, that is one of the great points of WordPress, since you can edit a paragraph, swap an image or publish an article from an ordinary browser, with no technical knowledge. Structural or design changes call for more care, and it is better to leave those to your provider so you do not upset the balance of the site.
Should I rebuild an old WordPress site or keep it?
It all depends on the state of the foundations. A site built on a clean theme with up-to-date plugins can often be brought back up to standard at low cost, while a slow site overloaded with plugins and never maintained is sometimes better rebuilt from a healthy base. A prior diagnosis lets you decide without rebuilding on reflex.
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