What a website really costs in Indonesia

"Berapa harga bikin website?" is the first WhatsApp I get from almost every new client. I usually reply "depends", then feel bad, because that answer helps nobody.

So this is the long version. Where the money goes, what people in Indonesia are actually charging, and the costs that only show up after the site has been live for a year.

One disclaimer before we start: I build landing pages and company websites for a living. My own prices are near the end. Read everything else knowing I have a horse in this race.

Every website has three costs#

A one-page promo and a forty-page corporate site are made of the same three parts. Quotes get confusing when someone bundles them into one number and doesn't say what's inside.

The domain#

Your address, like namausaha.com or namausaha.co.id. A .com runs about Rp200 to 350 thousand a year at most registrars. A .co.id asks for company documents and costs a little more.

The domain is the cheapest part of the whole thing. The only question that matters is whose name it's registered under. I'll come back to that.

Hosting#

Hosting is the computer that sends your pages to visitors. What you pay depends much more on how the site is built than on how many people visit it.

A static site, meaning pages that are built ahead of time with no database behind them, can live on a free host like Cloudflare Pages or Vercel. For most small business sites I make, the hosting bill is zero rupiah.

Anything with a CMS or a database is different. WordPress, an admin panel, a booking form that saves to a database: all of these need a server that stays on. Shared hosting in Indonesia starts around Rp300 thousand a year. A decent VPS or managed plan is more like Rp1 to 3 million a year.

The build#

This is the actual work. Design, arranging your content, building the pages, making them load fast on a phone, wiring up WhatsApp and the contact form, basic SEO, analytics.

It's also where prices are all over the place, because "website" can mean wildly different things.

What people are charging#

These ranges come from quotes clients have forwarded to me and from what I see advertised. They aren't anyone's official price list, and you'll find offers outside them on both sides.

When a quote is far below these numbers, something is usually missing. In my experience it's one of three things. The site is a template with your logo dropped in, the hosting is locked to the seller, or you never get the source code.

The bill in year two#

Most of the nasty surprises I hear about happen here. The first invoice looked cheap. Then the renewal arrived.

A lot of packages include the first year of domain and hosting in the build price. Fair enough. But in year two there's a renewal invoice, and among the providers I've looked at it ranged from Rp250 thousand to Rp1.8 million a year. For sites that, in some cases, would cost almost nothing to host somewhere else.

Then there's hosting you can't leave. If the site only runs on the seller's own platform, moving means rebuilding from scratch. People find this out when they want to switch developers, which is the worst possible moment to find it out.

Change requests are the third one. Small text and photo edits are normal and you will need them. Ask before signing whether they're free for a while, charged per request, or only available on a monthly retainer.

And if it's WordPress, ask about paid themes and plugins. Many need a yearly licence to keep getting security updates. Skipping that is how sites get hacked.

Reading a quote#

When a quote lands in your chat, I'd check it against these questions. Any decent developer can answer all of them in writing.

1. Are the pages and features listed? One line saying "Website company profile, Rp X" is not enough. You want the pages, the features and how many rounds of revisions you get.

2. Whose name will the domain be in? It should be yours, and you should get the login.

3. What exactly do I pay from year two? A number, not "harga normal".

4. Do I get the source code? If this developer vanishes, can someone else pick it up?

5. What happens if something breaks after launch? A bug warranty of a few months is reasonable to expect.

6. How is payment split? Paying 100% upfront for something you haven't seen puts all the risk on you.

My prices, for comparison#

Everything is listed on my services page. Short version: a landing page starts at $490 (Rp1.5 million) and takes 2 to 4 working days. A company website with 2 to 5 pages starts at $990 (Rp3 million) and takes about a week. The versions with an admin panel cost more, because they need a database and paid hosting.

The static sites I build go on free hosting in an account under your name, so after launch the only running cost is renewing the domain. You pay half to start and the other half after you've seen and approved the finished site. There's a 3-month bug warranty, and the domain, hosting account and code are handed to you at the end.

That isn't the only sensible way to do this. If you need brand strategy, copywriting and a photoshoot as well, a bigger agency might genuinely be the better fit. Whoever you pick, though, their quote should answer those six questions.

So, how much?#

For a small business in Indonesia, building a decent site usually costs a few million rupiah. If it's static, keeping it online afterwards can cost less than a nice dinner per year. I'd worry less about the build price and more about year two and who holds the keys.

If you'd like a written quote for your own site, send me a WhatsApp about what your business does and what the site needs to do. I reply within a day.