What the web really costs in France.
What the French market charges, service by service, with its sources. What artificial intelligence actually did to rates — the answer is not the one you hear. And why we publish our prices 20 % below.
Did AI break prices?
No — except on one precise segment, and it is not custom build. Four measurements are enough to show it.
- −33 %Copywriting briefs
Between November 2022 and February 2024, across 5 million listings. Translation fell 19 %, customer service 16 %.
Bloomberry / Revealera - +10 %Web design briefs
Over the same window, while front-end development grew 4 %. AI commoditised text, not the building of sites.
Bloomberry / Revealera - < 10 %What AI gains on complex work
AI halves the time to write standard code, but its contribution collapses on an unfamiliar framework — precisely where custom work lives.
McKinsey - −3,9 %Developers’ real day rates
Over three and a half years, inflation deducted: +1.9 % in current euros against +5.2 % inflation. Slow erosion, not collapse.
Baromètre Malt
The counter-evidence, and it is the best established
The only peer-reviewed study in the file runs against what a studio would like to read. After the launches of ChatGPT and Midjourney, freelancers in exposed trades lose 2 % of contracts and 5 % of revenue — and it is the best rated and most experienced who take the biggest hit. The mechanism: a client sees less value in paying a premium for excellence when a well-equipped average profile comes close.
In other words, AI does not crush beginners: it erodes the rent of the best. What holds is therefore not "doing the same thing better", but the complexity AI does not cross — where its contribution falls below 10 %.
Hui, Reshef & Zhou — Organization Science — The Short-Term Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Employment, Organization Science 35(6), 2024Where commoditisation bit, and where it did not
A segment eaten by AI shows two measurable markers: a price ceiling, and the disappearance of the Paris-to-regions gap. Applied to the roughly 3,800 real budgets in the French barometer:
| Segment | Price ceiling | Paris premium | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sites built on Webflow | Yes — 96 % of projects under €25,000 | None — the Paris region charges like anywhere else | Both markers are present. This is the segment where AI and no-code genuinely bit. |
| WordPress sites | Partial — 57 % under €5,000 | Weak | Commoditising. WordPress falls from 63.7 % to 58.9 % of the global web in three and a half years. |
| Custom web development | No — the ninth decile reaches €100,000 | Yes — a ratio of 1 to 2 between Paris and the regions | No marker of commoditisation. Prices hold. |
| Identity and branding | No — the ninth decile reaches €50,000 | Yes — a ratio of 1 to 4 | No marker either, despite AI logo generators. |
Across twelve barometers covering those same 3,800 budgets, not one cites AI as a factor of price pressure. That is an argument from absence, worth what it is worth — but it is a big one.
Demand moves, prices hold
The danger for a studio is not deflation. It is that the brochure-site market shrinks while the software market grows.
- 27,7 %Top priority for small businesses: software
Ahead of online presence (21.1 %) and AI adoption (17.0 %). The order has flipped.
Baromètre France Num - 64,6 %Small businesses with a website
Against 68.0 % in 2022: adoption peaked, then fell back. In 2025, the social media account (66 %) overtakes the website for the first time.
Baromètre France Num - 17,0 %Top objection: "not relevant to my trade"
Price comes in at only 6.4 %. On that segment, a discount does not answer the real objection.
Baromètre France Num - +8,1 %Insolvencies in software and IT services
In the first quarter of 2026, and +9.1 % in consulting and communications. 75,350 jobs at risk, a record since 2009.
Altares
The market price, service by service
Medians outside the Paris region, in the custom tier. Every line carries its confidence level: a page that publishes prices owes you which ones are measured and which are reconstructed. Alongside, our price — the median minus 20 %.
Site internet
| Service | Market median | At Anym | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site vitrineA site genuinely developed to a brief, not an adapted theme (median €12,000 across 366 projects, adjusted outside the Paris region). | 8 000 € – 12 000 € | 6 400 € – 9 600 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| Site marchandA custom or headless store. Regional e-commerce median €12,000; the "custom" line rises to €45,000 nationally. | 12 000 € – 20 000 € | 9 600 € – 16 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| Site éditorialNo barometer segments the editorial site. Reconstructed from the "content / institutional" line (€12,000) plus multilingual work and data migration. | 12 000 € – 18 000 € | 9 600 € – 14 400 €excl. VAT | Reconstructed |
| Refonte complèteA CMS migration with content transfer and redirects (€12,000 to €20,000 nationally). Measured across four samples: a rebuild costs 1.4 to 1.7 times a build. | 8 000 € – 13 000 € | 6 400 € – 10 400 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
Application web
| Service | Market median | At Anym | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype fonctionnelA first testable version of the critical journeys. First quartile of the software barometer at €10,000. | 10 000 € – 15 000 € | 8 000 € – 12 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| Produit SaaSAccounts, subscriptions and back office. National "web app / SaaS" median €30,000 across 116 projects, brought back to regional level. | 15 000 € – 20 000 € | 12 000 € – 16 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| Portail ou espace clientA private space with personalised data. No barometer segments this line: cross-checked against the business software median. The deciding factor is integration with existing systems. | 12 000 € – 20 000 € | 9 600 € – 16 000 €excl. VAT | ConvergentLa Fabrique du Net |
| Plateforme sur mesureSeveral profiles and journeys around shared rules. National median €60,000, one project in six passes €100,000. | 25 000 € – 30 000 € | 20 000 € – 24 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
Application mobile
| Service | Market median | At Anym | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype mobileThe word covers three very different deliverables. Taken here: an installable prototype, not a clickable mockup. | 8 000 € – 12 000 € | 6 400 € – 9 600 €excl. VAT | Reconstructed |
| App multiplateformeA shared base for iOS and Android. Regional mobile median €23,000. Worth noting: measured, cross-platform comes out dearer than native, because it is chosen to widen the scope. | 20 000 € – 23 000 € | 16 000 € – 18 400 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| App nativeTwo dedicated apps. No source publishes a median for dual native: the iOS (€25,000) and Android (€20,000) medians added, brought back to regional level. | 28 000 € – 32 000 € | 22 400 € – 25 600 €excl. VAT | Reconstructed |
| App compagnonExtends an existing service. The tipping point is a single one: if the service already has a documented API, you stay low; otherwise it has to be built. | 12 000 € – 15 000 € | 9 600 € – 12 000 €excl. VAT | Reconstructed |
Outil métier
| Service | Market median | At Anym | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| AutomatisationThree to five scenarios connecting existing tools. The word means nothing without the number of scenarios: the range runs from 1 to 100. | 5 000 € – 9 000 € | 4 000 € – 7 200 €excl. VAT | ConvergentLa Fabrique du Net |
| Logiciel métierAn internal application built on real processes. National median €20,000 across 184 projects; regional software median €15,000. | 15 000 € – 20 000 € | 12 000 € – 16 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| CRM ou back-officeClients, operations and follow-up in one place. The real price driver is not the CRM but the number of integrations and the data migration. | 18 000 € – 25 000 € | 14 400 € – 20 000 €excl. VAT | ConvergentLa Fabrique du Net |
| ModernisationThe least documented category on the market: the reference barometer reports too little volume to publish a median. Data migration often accounts for a third of the work. | 12 000 € – 22 000 € | 9 600 € – 17 600 €excl. VAT | Reconstructed |
Identité de marque
| Service | Market median | At Anym | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| LogoIndependent studio tier. The market is bimodal: around €500 from a junior freelancer, €3,500 to €5,000 for a logo and basic guidelines at an agency, €15,000 at a branding agency. | 2 000 € – 3 200 € | 1 600 € – 2 560 €excl. VAT | ConvergentLa Fabrique du Net |
| Identité visuelleLogo, colours, typefaces and usage rules. The "small business" line of the visual identity barometer at €3,500; the median across all sizes rises to €15,000. | 3 500 € – 6 000 € | 2 800 € – 4 800 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| Système digitalVersioned components, tokens and documentation. This is a software product, not a graphic deliverable: national median €60,000, the most expensive design service on the market. | 20 000 € – 30 000 € | 16 000 € – 24 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
| RepositionnementBrand platform and new expression. Median for a full rebrand €30,000 nationally across 78 projects. | 10 000 € – 15 000 € | 8 000 € – 12 000 €excl. VAT | MeasuredLa Fabrique du Net |
Expérience interactive
| Service | Market median | At Anym | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lancement immersifAn animated manifesto page, not a conversion page. Here the price is a positioning price: a generalist agency sells for €3,500 what a creative studio sells for €25,000. | 12 000 € – 20 000 € | 9 600 € – 16 000 €excl. VAT | ConvergentStudios immersifs |
| Expérience WebGLReal-time 3D scenes and narrative, 10 to 16 weeks. Three studios independently build the same tiers, around €10,000, €40,000 and €200,000. | 25 000 € – 42 000 € | 20 000 € – 33 600 €excl. VAT | ConvergentStudios immersifs |
| InstallationEvent tier — the "digital production" line of an installation. Public museum procurement, for its part, awards between €20,000 and €250,000, but to consortia of several suppliers. | 12 000 € – 24 000 € | 9 600 € – 19 200 €excl. VAT | ConvergentCommande publique |
| Prototype créatifNo source, French or foreign, prices a creative prototype as a commercial service. Reconstructed from public funding for immersive pre-production. | 10 000 € – 18 000 € | 8 000 € – 14 400 €excl. VAT | Reconstructed |
We publish our prices 20 % below that median.
A one-person studio has no sales team, no project manager and no office to fund. That cost structure goes back to the client. The discount is mechanical, applied to every service, and the estimator follows from it — not the other way round.
Three precautions, without which none of these numbers mean anything
Median, never mean
On branding, the market mean is €23,000 for a median of €10,000. A few very large projects pull every average in the sector: an "average" web price is a number nobody charges.
Outside Paris, not nationwide
The Paris-to-regions gap runs from +50 % to ×3.3 on a project budget, but only +8 to +15 % on the day rate. A Paris project is not billed more per day: it is bigger. At equal scope, a regional budget is legitimate.
One tier at a time
A "brochure site" is worth €500 on a template and €12,000 genuinely developed. Mixing the two produces no usable number. Every median on this page describes the custom tier.
What we get asked most
Has AI brought down the price of websites?
Not measurably, and not where you would think. Between November 2022 and February 2024, copywriting briefs fell 33 % and translation 19 %, while web design grew 10 % and front-end development 4 %. On rates, the French measurement gives +1.9 % in current euros over three and a half years — a real erosion of 3.9 % after inflation. AI commoditised text, not custom build.
What does a website cost in France in 2026?
The word covers two markets. The median for a site built on an existing theme is €3,500. For a site genuinely developed to a brief it is €12,000, measured across 366 projects. Outside the Paris region, the median for site creation sits at €5,000 against €7,500 in the Paris area.
Why are Paris prices higher?
Not for the reason you would think. The gap runs from +50 % to ×3.3 on a project budget, but only +8 to +15 % on the day rate. A Paris project is not billed more per day: it is bigger — more large accounts, more software, more requirements. At equal scope, a regional budget still holds.
Should you trust an average price or a median?
Always the median. On branding, the market mean sits at €23,000 for a median of €10,000: a few very large projects pull every average in the sector. An "average" web market price is a number nobody charges.
Which services hold their price best?
Those showing two markers: no price ceiling, and an intact geographic premium. That is the case for custom web development (ninth decile at €100,000, a ratio of 1 to 2 between Paris and the regions) and for branding. Sites assembled from standard blocks, by contrast, hit a ceiling and have lost any geographic premium.
Where each figure comes from — and what limits it
No source is neutral. Each one is given with what it actually measures and with its limit: that is the only way to make a price comparison checkable.
La Fabrique du Net
Price barometers 2026: around 3,800 real budgets declared by listed agencies, published as medians and quartiles. No cross-tabulation under 20 projects, no agency weighing more than 10 % of a figure.
Limit — Self-declared budgets, on a matchmaking platform whose core is small business: the high creative end is under-represented. The pricing pages only exist since February 2026 — no comparison over time is possible.
Baromètre France Num
Annual French government survey on the digitalisation of small businesses, run by the Directorate General for Enterprise and CREDOC. 2025 edition: 11,021 companies surveyed, margin of error under 1 %.
Limit — Measures adoption and intent, not prices. The reasons given for not adopting are self-reported.
Baromètre Malt
Day rates of 39,590 developers and 3,368 data scientists. The 2023 to 2026 series was rebuilt from web archives: nobody publishes it.
Limit — Measures ADVERTISED rates, not work won. Demand can fall without touching rates. Nothing in it separates the effect of AI from the wider economy.
INSEE
Consumer price index, series 001763852, used to deflate day rates and reason in constant euros.
Limit — Extrapolating from December 2025 to August 2026 is an estimate, not a publication.
Hui, Reshef & Zhou — Organization Science
Peer-reviewed study (2024) measuring the effect of the ChatGPT and Midjourney launches on freelancers, by difference-in-differences.
Limit — Covers a US platform. Transposing it to the French market is an inference.
McKinsey
Timed experiment (2023) on real development tasks, measuring the gain from generative AI by type of task.
Limit — A corporate sample, published by a consultancy that sells digital transformation.
Bloomberry / Revealera
Analysis of 5 million Upwork job listings between November 2022 and February 2024, on 84-day rolling averages.
Limit — Counts listings, not euros. Proprietary data published on a blog, without external review.
W3Techs
Continuous survey of the technologies websites run on, with public methodology. Used here to measure the rise of no-code builders.
Limit — Counts sites, not budgets. The .fr segment is not France: 36 % of French small businesses use a .com.
Altares
Company insolvencies by sector, from BODACC data — exhaustive, no sampling.
Limit — Measures mortality, which follows the general economy as much as technological change.
Numeum
Survey of 296 French digital companies and 116 IT departments, on productivity gains from generative AI.
Limit — Gains declared and anticipated, not measured. An industry trade body.
Studios immersifs
Production tiers published by Metabole Studio, cross-checked with Beaucoup Studio and NEWP. These are among the rare players in the field to publish amounts.
Limit — Prices advertised by studios that sell the work, not a market measurement. Three sources only.
Commande publique
Actual award amounts for public tenders on interactive museum installations, 2022-2025, published as essential procurement data.
Limit — Concerns consortia of suppliers and a public buyer: neither the size nor the constraints of a private project.
The medians quoted describe a market, not a named competitor. They are dated August 2026 and will be revised as the barometers update. Our 20 % discount applies to those medians; it is not a firm price commitment, which can only come from a quote.