Web design prices

Why the prices are published at all

Quoting privately, case by case, is an ordinary convention in this market and there is nothing irregular about it. Publishing simply removes a step for the buyer: a figure can be checked against a budget before any conversation takes place. Fritz publishes and accepts the consequence that comes with it, which is that the price is the same whether the buyer is a two-person gelateria or a company with a legal department.

The published figures are not entry points that grow during the project. They are the amounts invoiced for the scope described on this page. If the scope changes, the price changes, and it changes in writing before anything is built, not at the end.

This page is Fritz's own price list. It is not a survey of what design costs in Switzerland generally; that material lives on the market cost guide, which covers observed ranges and how to read a quote from anyone, including from studios other than this one.

One-off builds: the three engagements

Three engagements are paid once, not monthly. They are three separate engagements, bought individually or together as needed. Each has a fixed price and an indicative timeline. The timelines assume the client returns feedback and content at a normal pace; they are estimates of working time, not contractual deadlines.

The three are priced independently. If you already have a brand you are happy with, the website engagement stands on its own. If you do not, the identity is designed first and the site is built on it, and the two are quoted as two engagements.

Brand identity, CHF 1'500

A complete visual identity rather than a logo on its own. The engagement produces a primary logo with the secondary and reduced versions a real business needs (horizontal, stacked, monogram, single-colour), a colour palette with the exact values for screen and print, a typographic system with the weights and the hierarchy set out, and the basic applied pieces: business card, email signature, and the avatar and header formats used on social profiles.

It ships with a short guidelines document that states how the marks are used and how they are not, and with the editable source files. The indicative timeline is around 14 days from the moment the brief and the reference material are in hand. Il Duca, an artisan gelateria in Lausanne, was built as this engagement. The scope question that sits underneath this price, meaning where a logo ends and an identity begins, is treated separately in the guide to what a logo and a full identity cost in Switzerland.

Brochure or marketing site, CHF 1'700

A site that presents a company and produces enquiries. It covers the design of the pages, the build, and the deployment: responsive layouts that hold on a phone as well as on a desktop, the page structure and internal linking, the technical SEO foundations (titles, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, sitemap, structured data where it applies), a contact form wired to a real inbox, analytics installed, and the site put live on the client's own hosting account.

The content is editable after handover, and the code is handed over with it. The indicative timeline is 2 to 4 weeks. Eden Terranova, an agricultural investment company, was built as this engagement.

E-commerce, CHF 2'500

Everything in the site engagement plus the machinery of selling: catalogue and collection structure, product pages built to hold real variants and real photography, cart and checkout connected to a payment provider, shipping and tax rules configured for the markets being sold to, order and stock management set up in an interface the client can operate, and the transactional emails (confirmation, dispatch) styled to match the brand.

Handover includes a working session on running the shop day to day. The indicative timeline is 6 to 8 weeks, most of which is catalogue and checkout rather than design. SoYou Cosmetics, a natural cosmetics company in Geneva, was built as this engagement.

Monthly programmes: Marketing and Growth Ops

Two programmes are billed monthly, because the work is continuous rather than delivered once. Marketing covers the visible output: content, campaigns, the material that goes out under the brand. Growth Ops covers the machinery underneath: tracking, automation, the systems that route and measure what the marketing produces.

The tiers differ in amplitude, not in kind. The entry tier is not a lesser method applied by a lesser person; it is the same method applied to fewer channels, at a lower cadence, with a smaller volume of output each month. Moving up a tier buys more surface covered, more frequent iteration, and more of the studio's month, and nothing else changes: the same person does the work at every tier, and the strategic thinking is not withheld from the lower ones.

Programmes run month to month. There is no minimum term stated on this page, and no tier is a prerequisite for another. A build can be commissioned without a programme, and a programme can be started without a build.

What is not included in the price

The figures above are complete for the scope described, which means it matters exactly what falls outside them. Four things do.

• Content that does not exist yet. Copywriting, translation, and the sourcing of photography are not inside the build price. If a site needs text and images that have never been written or shot, that is separate work and it is quoted separately.
• Advertising spend. Media budgets on any platform are paid by the client to the platform. The programme fee covers the work, never the spend, and Fritz does not take a percentage of it.
• Multi-day photo or film production. A shoot with a crew, a location, and a production schedule is its own project. LeVallon was that kind of work, commissioned as film, not folded into a website price.
• Domain and hosting fees. These are paid by the client directly to the registrar and the host, on accounts opened in the client's own name. It costs slightly more attention at setup, and it means the client holds the infrastructure and the credentials directly, without a studio account in between.

Nothing in this list is an upsell waiting to happen. Each item is named here so that the number on the quote is the number that is actually paid.

Ownership: the code and the files are handed over

At the end of a build the client receives the design source files and the code. For an identity that means the editable vector files and the exports; for a site it means the repository. The domain and the hosting are already in the client's name because they were set up that way from the start.

The practical consequence is that another studio, or an in-house developer, can pick the work up without asking Fritz for permission or for a file. That is deliberate, and it is the structure Fritz prefers to work under: a continuing relationship should rest on the work being worth continuing, and a change of direction, if it comes, should cost nothing in rebuilt assets.

What the buyer gives up in exchange

Published prices at this level are possible because Fritz is one person, without the overhead a larger structure carries. That structure is also the limit, and it is worth stating plainly before anyone commits.

One person can hold a limited number of projects at a time. A slot may not be available in the week it is requested, and the honest answer to that is a start date rather than a promise. There is no capacity to staff a large simultaneous programme: a rebrand, a site, a shop, and a campaign all running in parallel across several markets is not work this studio can take, and saying so early is cheaper for everyone than discovering it in month two.

What the arrangement gives back is that the person quoting is the person designing and building. There is no account layer between the brief and the work, and nothing is passed to a junior after the pitch. Whether that trade is the right one depends on the project, and the structural comparison between commissioning an agency or an independent is set out in its own guide rather than argued here.

How payment and the quote work

Builds are one-off payments. Programmes are billed monthly. A quote is free and carries no obligation, and enquiries receive a reply within 24 hours.

The sequence is short. The client describes what is needed; Fritz confirms which engagement fits, or says that none of them does; a written quote states the scope, the price, and the start date. Work begins once that is agreed. There is one point of contact throughout, and it is the same person at the start, in the middle, and at handover.

Fritz works from Geneva, across French-speaking Switzerland, and in English. The French version of this price grid is published separately for clients who prefer to read it in French.

Where these prices sit against observed market ranges

Ranges observed on the Swiss market are wide, and it would be inaccurate to claim that everything here undercuts them. The precise position is this.

Brand identity at CHF 1'500 sits inside the observed range for a full identity, near the bottom of it. It is not below the floor. A brochure site at CHF 1'700 sits inside the observed range for brochure sites, again near the bottom, and again not below the floor. Only e-commerce at CHF 2'500 is genuinely below the observed floor, which starts higher for shop builds.

The accurate formulation, then: at or near the bottom of the observed range, and below the floor on e-commerce. Anyone calibrating a quote from any studio, including this one, will find the observed ranges, the reasons Swiss prices differ, and the three-year cost of ownership set out in full on the market cost guide. That page does the market arithmetic; this one simply states what Fritz charges.

Frequently asked questions

the French price grid →market cost guide →what a logo and a full identity cost →agency or an independent →web design in Geneva →branding across Switzerland →request a free quote →