What agencies charge to build a club website
Quotes for a club website range from under a thousand to well over twenty. The spread is not about quality — it is about what is included and who maintains it afterwards.
The bands
| Route | Typical cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Template builder, self-built | Low monthly | A site, and all the work is yours |
| Freelancer | €1,500–5,000 | A custom site, dependent on one person staying reachable |
| Local agency | €3,500–12,000 | Design, build, some content, then hourly for changes |
| Sports specialist | €10,000–40,000+ | Sport-aware, with fixtures and squad handled properly |
| Platform | Setup plus monthly | Site, updates and data included, no rebuild cycle |
What the quote usually excludes
- Content. Someone writes the player profiles and history pages. It is rarely the agency.
- Fixtures and results. Unless a feed is specified, a person types them in every week, forever.
- Changes. Post-launch edits are usually hourly. A season of small changes often exceeds the build cost.
- Hosting, certificates, updates. Sometimes bundled, often not.
- The rebuild. Agency sites are typically replaced every three to four years, which is the real cost cycle.
Ask one question before accepting any quote: what happens on a Saturday when the score changes? If the answer is that somebody logs in and types it, you are buying a brochure with a fixture list bolted on, and you will be paying for that manual work every week of every season.
Why the build cost is the wrong number
Spread over four years, a €9,000 agency build is under €200 a month — before changes, hosting and the labour of keeping it current. Most clubs never do this arithmetic, so a one-off invoice feels cheaper than a monthly fee when it usually is not.
The thing worth paying for
Not the design. Designs age and every agency can produce a good-looking club site.
Pay for the thing that stops the site going stale — fixtures, results, log and squad arriving automatically. A beautiful site that is three weeks out of date is worse than a plain one that is current, because supporters stop checking it and go to Facebook instead.
That is the argument for a club website that maintains itself.
The four-year total, not the build price
Comparing a one-off build against a monthly platform fee is the mistake almost every committee makes. Normalise both to four years, which is roughly how long a club site lasts before it needs replacing.
| Line | Agency route | Platform route |
|---|---|---|
| Build or setup | R38,000 | R35,000 |
| Hosting and certificates, 4 years | R21,600 | Included |
| Change requests, 4 years | ~R50,000 | Included |
| Fixtures and results data entry | Volunteer labour | Automatic |
| Licence, 4 years | — | R312,000 |
| Rebuild in year four | R45,000+ | None |
The platform costs more in cash. What it buys is everything in the rows that say “included” and “automatic”, plus an app and commercial tooling the agency route does not provide at all. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether you have sponsors to report to.
For a club with no sponsors and a capable volunteer, the agency route or even a builder is genuinely the better answer. We would rather say that than sell you something you do not need.
What to specify if you do go to an agency
Most club website disappointments come from an underspecified brief. Put these in writing:
- Where fixtures and results come from, and who enters them
- Whether the league table calculates bonus points, and on whose rules
- How many teams and programmes the structure must support
- What happens to player pages when a player leaves
- How sponsor placements are added and whether impressions are counted
- What a change request costs and what the turnaround is
- Who owns the code and the hosting account
That last one matters more than it sounds. A site you cannot move without the agency's cooperation is a site with a permanent tax attached.
Signs a quote is too low
A R6,000 club website is not a bargain, it is a template with your crest on it and no data layer. That is fine if you know that is what you are buying. It is a problem if you expected fixtures to update.
Warning signs: no mention of where sport data comes from, no discussion of how many teams you run, a fixed price with no scoping conversation, and no answer on what changes cost after launch.
The rebuild cycle, and how to avoid it
Club sites get rebuilt every three to four years, usually because the content system became unusable rather than because the design aged.
What extends the life: a data layer that keeps the site current without human effort, a structure that accommodates new teams without a redesign, and a commercial layer that grows with the club. What shortens it: bespoke code nobody can maintain, and a design so specific that adding a women's section requires an agency visit.
Common questions
What does a sports club website cost?
A local agency typically charges 3,500 to 12,000 euro for design and build, with changes billed hourly. A sports specialist runs higher. Spread over the three to four years before a rebuild, the monthly equivalent is often more than a platform licence.
What is usually excluded from a website quote?
Content, fixtures and results data, post-launch changes, hosting and certificates, and the rebuild in three to four years.
What is worth paying for in a club website?
Not the design. Pay for whatever stops the site going stale, because a beautiful site three weeks out of date is worse than a plain one that is current.
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