The most common question before a relaunch is: what will it cost? The second, usually more important question is: does it need to be a relaunch at all? This article answers both — and describes the one mistake that turns a relaunch from a step forward into a step back.
What a website relaunch costs
For small and medium businesses the cost sits in the same range as a new website, because technically the same thing happens: structure, content, design and build are all created afresh. For us that means:
| Package | Price | Scope | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | €1,250 | Up to 5 pages | 2–4 weeks |
| Pro | €2,100 | Up to 10 pages + blog | 4–6 weeks |
| Enterprise | Individual | Shop, custom features | By arrangement |
The price is in the quote before the project starts. What actually moves it is rarely the design:
- Number of pages — by far the biggest lever
- How much content is carried over rather than rewritten
- Whether features are added (shop, booking, multiple languages)
- How cleanly the old site was built technically
- How many old addresses have to be redirected
Be careful with quotes that only name an hourly rate. An hourly rate is not a price; it is an invitation to do the sums at the end.
When a relaunch pays off — and when a revision is enough
Not every unsatisfying website needs rebuilding. The honest dividing line runs between appearance and substance.
A revision is usually enough when the structure and the text hold up and only the styling looks dated. Colours, typography and images can be replaced without touching everything — considerably cheaper, and done in a few days.
A relaunch is the cheaper option when any of these apply:
- The site is noticeably slow on a phone, or its layout breaks
- Content cannot be changed without a developer
- The system is outdated and no longer receives security updates
- The site has produced no enquiries for years despite having visitors
- The offering has changed and the site still describes the old one
The test is simple: if every single change has to be paid for dearly, you are buying the rebuild anyway — just in instalments, and without the result.
The most expensive mistake: the old addresses
By far the most common damage in a relaunch is not a design problem but an address problem. Every subpage has a URL, and Google has memorised those URLs. If the new site uses different addresses and nobody redirects the old ones, every existing search result and every inbound link from another site runs into nothing.
The result is a website that looks better and gets found worse — and the loss often only shows up weeks later, when the enquiries do not arrive.
Preventing it takes two steps that must happen before the first design draft: a complete list of every existing address, and a mapping of which old address will point to which new one (technically: a 301 redirect). We ran exactly that process on our own website before rebuilding it.
What to gather before the first quote
The quotes you receive are only as precise as the information they rest on. Going into the conversation with these five things gets you comparable numbers instead of ranges:
- How many pages the current website has — a rough count is enough
- Which content should be carried over and which rewritten
- Which features are genuinely required and which would merely be nice
- Who supplies the text, and by when
- Who maintains content after launch: you or the agency
That last point is the most frequently forgotten and causes the most follow-up cost. If you want to maintain content yourself, it has to be accounted for during the build — retrofitting it is more work than planning for it.
Also ask explicitly who owns the website at the end and whether you receive all the logins. A website you merely rent is a different calculation from one you own — both can be legitimate, but you should know which you are buying.
The process in five steps
- Inventory: record every page, measure what works and what does not
- Redirect plan: every old address gets a new destination
- Structure and content: running order first, then the text, then the design
- Build and test: on real devices, over a mobile connection, not just office wifi
- Go-live and checks: verify redirects, submit the sitemap, watch visibility
Realistically that is 2–4 weeks for a small site and 4–6 weeks for a larger one. The schedule depends less on the technology than on how quickly content and approvals come together.
What a relaunch does not do
A relaunch improves load time, structure, maintainability and the technical foundations for search engines. It is not a ranking promise — anyone guaranteeing you position 1 is selling something nobody can deliver. What measurably improves is visible in Google Search Console, and you should have access to it either way.
Nor does it replace a well-maintained Google Business Profile. For local providers a large share of enquiries is decided in the map panel, before anyone opens the website at all.
Common questions about a website relaunch
Only if the old addresses are not redirected. With a complete list of every existing URL and a 301 redirect for each one, the visibility you have built up is preserved. A short dip in the first weeks is normal, because search engines have to take in the new structure; anything that has not recovered after four weeks points to missing redirects.
2–4 weeks for a site of up to five pages, 4–6 weeks for larger projects. The schedule depends less on the technology than on how quickly content and approvals arrive from your side.
Usually yes. Text and images can be carried over as long as they are still accurate. Whether it is worth it is decided page by page: content that has had no visitors for years makes a relaunch the right moment to cut it.
A redesign swaps the styling while structure and content stay. A relaunch rebuilds the site technically and editorially. If the structure and text hold up and only the styling looks dated, a redesign is usually enough — and considerably cheaper.
No. The new site is built in parallel on a test address; the old one stays reachable until the switch. The switch itself takes minutes and is scheduled for a quiet period.
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