Why I publish my prices

Key takeaways

• Of 31 Swiss providers who received the same brief this year, six quoted a fixed price. The rest sent hourly rates and an estimate, after an average wait of 4.6 working days.
• Published prices save both sides a week and a meeting. They also force me to define what is included, which is good for the client and good for me.
• I am not the cheapest option, and the pricing page says so. It is there so you can compare, not so you stop looking.

The way it usually works

You need a website. You write to three providers. Two reply within the week, one does not. The two offer a call. On the call, you describe what you need, they ask good questions, and then they say they will send a proposal. The proposal arrives a week later with a number that was never mentioned on the call, and it is either fine or twice what you expected. If it is twice, you start again.

That is three weeks, and you still do not know what a website costs.

The numbers back this up. In the Zürich quote study from early 2026, one identical brief went to 31 providers. Six answered with a fixed price. The others gave an hourly rate between CHF 110 and 220 and an estimate of the hours, which is a fixed price with the risk moved to the client. The average reply took 4.6 working days.

What publishing prices changes

For you: you know in two minutes whether we are in the same range. If a Business site at CHF 7'200 is out of the question, you have lost nothing. If it fits, the call is about your project, not about money.

For me: a package with a price on it has to say what is in it. Pages, languages, revision rounds, SEO scope, what happens after launch. Writing that down once is more useful than any proposal template, because it is the proposal. Every project starts from that list, and "I thought that was included" stops being a conversation.

For both: no negotiation theatre. The price on the page is the price. Larger projects get a quote, because they are not packages, but the packages set the scale.

What the pricing page is not

It is not a claim to be the cheapest. Freelancers in the same study averaged CHF 2'100 for a seven-page site; my Start package is CHF 3'100. The difference is a custom design, the legal pages, the SEO setup and ten years of building exactly this kind of site. If a cheaper build is the right choice for you, I would rather you knew that from the page than found out after a call.

It is also not a menu you must order from. Most projects are a package plus two or three things. The package is the starting point; the quote adds the rest.

The "typical agency price" line

Each package shows what a comparable project typically costs at a Swiss agency, and the percentage difference. Those numbers come from the published studies, not from my opinion, and the sources are listed on the page and in the cost article. I update them when the studies do. If a reader thinks the comparison is unfair, I want to hear it, because the whole point is that it can be checked.

What I would say to other freelancers

Publish them. The fear is that competitors will undercut you by fifty francs, or that a client will see the number and leave. Competitors already know what you charge; they have the same clients. And the client who leaves because of a number was going to leave on the call, a week later, after you had both spent an afternoon.

The clients who stay are the ones who read the page, understood what they get, and wrote to ask when you can start. Those are better projects.

FAQ

Sources: Websharks Zürich quote study, January to February 2026 (31 offers for one identical brief).