What a Next.js site costs and how it differs from WordPress for business

A price without a scope decides nothing

“How much does a website cost?” sounds like a question about one product. The same label covers a ready-made theme with a logo pasted on, and a site that has to collect enquiries for years, survive a campaign, and not need intervention after every update.

Before comparing WordPress with Next.js, settle three things: what the site is for, who will run it, and how long it should work without a full rebuild.

At HIKARI we work only with modern web technology. We do not assemble sites from ready-made themes. We design and build websites that should be fast, clear to search engines, and straightforward to maintain. At a budget close to a WordPress build, we can deliver clearly higher quality and a site far less prone to breaking.

When WordPress is genuinely enough

WordPress is mature, widely known, and you can launch a simple site on it in a relatively short time. For a small company, one language, a straightforward layout, and someone who keeps updates current, it is often entirely enough.

Where the real cost of WordPress begins

Trouble rarely shows up on launch day. It shows up later, when languages, custom sections, integrations, and plugins arrive because “that was the fastest way”. Each plugin is its own dependency: its own update cycle, its own conflicts, and specific attack vectors and potential security gaps.

After two or three years it is hard to say which mix of versions is safe. An update that was supposed to be routine can take the form offline, break the layout, or slow the site down hard on a phone. It can be fixed. It costs time, hosting fees, and someone whose job is to keep the theme and plugins on speaking terms.

The cheapest quote on the market almost never includes that. It shows the starting price. The bill for peace of mind arrives in the years after.

Next.js when the site has to work for years

Next.js is a framework for modern websites and web applications. In a company project it gives control: over loading speed, over how the site is built, and over what can break when something changes.

In practice that means fast pages on a phone, steadier performance scores, and solid technical SEO: semantic HTML, a sitemap, language versions, and meta tags on every page. There are fewer moving parts than in a stack of dozens of plugins, and the design is made for the brand rather than bent around a theme’s limits.

It is a choice for a company that consciously prepares its site for growth. How we approach these projects is on our Next.js websites page.

A simple brochure site: usually PLN 5,000–10,000

We do not publish a price list for every possible system, because scope varies too much. There is a threshold that comes up again and again for straightforward work.

A modern, responsive brochure site, aligned with the brand’s visual identity system and optimised for search engines, is usually PLN 5,000–10,000 with us. That figure is in Polish złoty. For that amount you get a finished tool: an original design instead of a catalogue theme, a Next.js architecture, and hosting matched to that architecture. The site should be fast and built with care for security.

For similar money, the market often produces a WordPress site that looks perfectly respectable: a theme, setup, and a promise that missing features will be added with plugins. The difference is not the number on the quote. It shows up a year later: whether the site is still fast, whether an update takes the contact form down, and whether a small change to the offer begins with a conflict between three extensions.

That range is not the amount for every project. Several languages, CRM integrations, bookings, a large content structure, or a system the company runs on day to day are quoted separately. There the budget follows complexity.

What matters is the cost of owning the site over years, not the launch invoice alone. That means hosting and maintenance, lower exposure to attacks typical of an overgrown WordPress stack, fewer emergency fixes after plugin updates, and the time your team loses when the site slows down or stops working. To map that to your company, write to us — a short conversation is usually enough to separate a brochure site from scope you do not need yet.

Performance, search, and campaigns

Search engines reward sites people can actually use. A slow site on a phone loses rankings and conversion. WordPress can be sped up, but that often means another optimisation layer on a heavy theme. That layer needs care too.

The Next.js stack we work with is significantly faster and less troublesome. Performance scores stay steadier, and maintenance is easier to plan. With paid campaigns, a faster landing page usually improves the quality of the visit. It does not replace a good offer. It stops undermining one.

Who will update the site

WordPress wins on editor simplicity. Next.js needs an agreed way of working: a content system, a panel fitted to that specific site, or a partner who ships the changes. Nobody in the company has to write code. Someone does need to know who publishes, and who makes sure a text change does not break the layout or the SEO.

It is worth counting how often the structure changes in a month, and how often it is only a paragraph or a photo. The more languages, sections, and integrations you have, the more an architecture that does not sit on a pile of plugins pays off.

Why things break less often

Failure risk grows with the number of things that must agree at the same moment: theme, plugins, cache, form, SEO extension. On a typical WordPress site that chain is long. On a well-built Next.js project it is shorter, and changes go through a controlled release rather than a bulk update of everything in the admin panel.

Next.js is not indestructible. Hosting, dependencies, and the publishing process still need looking after. The practical point is narrower: the familiar failures after a weekend plugin update happen less often, and when something does need a fix, the cause is easier to find. That is what we mean by higher quality at a budget close to WordPress. Fewer surprises after launch, not only a prettier first screen.

HIKARI CARE after launch

Going live is the beginning. What remains is updates, monitoring, backups, fixes after browser changes, small content work, and confidence that the form and analytics still work. Without a technical person in the company, those tasks most often land on someone in marketing.

HIKARI CARE is subscription care for the site and the systems around it. For a predictable monthly cost, a partner who knows the architecture looks after security and availability and delivers an agreed scope of work.

Next.js does not remove the need for care. With sound architecture and a steady partner, that care is simply easier to plan than with an overgrown set of plugins.

Five questions before you decide

Will the site need to serve more than one language market within two years? Are a CRM, automations, or bookings part of sales, rather than something for later? Is there a technical person in the company, or does everything go outside? Will the content structure grow substantially within three years? Is a slow or unreliable site already costing you enquiries?

If the answer to most of these is yes, Next.js may be the best fit — and it may be worth considering the dedicated solutions we build. It is not always cheaper in the first week. It is more favourable once you add maintenance and the risk of downtime. If you need a simple presence online and someone who truly runs WordPress, that path can be entirely enough, yet it still carries a degree of risk.

If you want to know what this investment would cost in your company — write to us. A short conversation is usually enough to tell a brochure site from a project that needs a different architecture.