How Much Does It Cost to Redesign an Old Website? Real 2026 Prices

Eduard Tudorache·August 5, 2026·7 min read

How much does it cost to redesign an old website in 2026: from 2,000 to 15,000+ RON, depending on what you keep. Find out when a redesign is worth it, when a new site is cheaper, and how to avoid losing your Google rankings.

Let me guess. You have a website. You built it 6-7 years ago, you paid decent money for it, and back then it looked good. Maybe even great. Now you open it on your phone and you want to look away, the way you do with a photo of yourself from 2015.

You're not alone. Half the business websites in Romania look like the internet stopped in 2018. And the problem isn't just aesthetics. That old site is losing you customers every single day, quietly, without telling you. Like an employee who shows up, does nothing, and goes home.

So: how much does it cost to fix it? The short answer is between 2,000 and 15,000+ RON, depending on how much of what you already have gets kept. The long answer is below, along with the traps nobody warns you about.

A redesign is (usually) cheaper than a new site

The rule of thumb is simple: if the structure and content stay mostly the same, a redesign costs roughly 60-80% of a brand-new site. The copy already exists, the photos already exist, the page logic already exists. You're changing the outfit, not the person.

For reference, a new presentation website in Romania in 2026 costs somewhere between 2,500 and 12,500 RON at a serious agency (we broke down the full math in our article on presentation website pricing).

Apply that percentage and here's what to expect.

Real redesign prices in 2026

Cosmetic redesign: 2,000 - 4,000 RON. Your site is structurally fine but looks tired. Pages and copy stay, the design gets rebuilt: colors, fonts, spacing, imagery, the mobile version. It's like repainting the house and swapping the furniture without moving any walls. For a lot of local businesses, honestly, that's enough.
Full redesign: 4,000 - 8,000 RON. Here both the design and the structure change. New pages, rewritten copy, maybe a blog, forms built to actually convert, load speed brought up to date, technical SEO redone. Basically a new site that inherits whatever was good about the old one. This is the level where most of our clients land.
Redesign with migration and new features: 8,000 - 15,000+ RON. An old site on a dead platform (if yours is running on an unpatched 2019 WordPress install with abandoned plugins, this is you), a move to new technology, booking integrations, a product catalog, a client portal, serious stuff. At this point the price gets close to a new project, because that's essentially what it is.

And yes, there's always "the guy who'll do it for 800 lei." There always is. You'll find him again in two years, redoing the redo. The most expensive website isn't the one that costs 10,000 lei. It's the cheap one you end up paying for three times.

The signs your site actually needs a redesign (not just "it'd be nice")

You don't redesign a site because the designer got bored. You redesign it when:

It doesn't look right on a phone. Over 70% of your visitors come from mobile. If they have to zoom in to read anything, they've already left.
It takes more than 3 seconds to load. Every extra second cuts into your conversions. Google measures this and penalizes you for it in search.
You don't show up on Google. Old sites often have invisible technical issues keeping them buried. We wrote a full article on why your website isn't showing up on Google, worth a read before you blame the design.
You're embarrassed to put the link in your email signature. Not a technical criterion, but the most honest one on this list.
Your competitors look better. Customers compare. Always. They open two tabs, you and the competitor, and decide who to call in five seconds.

If you checked two or more of these, it's no longer "it'd be nice." It's "this is costing me money every month."

The trap almost nobody warns you about: redirects

This is where it gets serious, so let's drop the jokes for a second.

Your old site, however ugly, has one valuable thing: history with Google. Its pages are indexed, some of them may even be bringing in visitors. When you redesign the site and the page addresses change without properly configured 301 redirects, Google hits the old links, finds dead pages, and throws away everything you built organically over the years.

We've seen businesses "modernize" their site and lose 80% of their Google traffic overnight. They paid money to disappear. It's like moving into a beautiful new house and forgetting to update your address with anyone: the house is gorgeous, but nobody can find you anymore.

When you ask for a redesign quote, ask directly: "How do you handle 301 redirects and SEO migration?" If you get a blank stare, say thanks and walk away. A properly done redesign includes a redirect map, keeps the URL structure where possible, and monitors rankings after launch. For us that's part of the process, not an optional extra, and if you want to see what ongoing optimization after launch actually looks like, take a look at our SEO services.

Redesign or a brand-new site? The honest test

Sometimes a redesign isn't worth it. Yes, we're saying that even though we sell redesigns.

Go with a redesign if: the site's structure makes sense, the content is reusable, the platform is still alive, and the site has good Google history you want to keep.

Go with a brand-new site if: it's built on some obscure platform you can't export anything from, the content needs a full rewrite anyway, or the cost of adapting it exceeds the cost of building from scratch. When you're changing everything, the redesign price ends up matching a new site anyway, so there's no point patching it.

Practical advice: don't guess on your own. A decent agency will look at your site and tell you honestly which scenario you're in before any money gets discussed.

The costs that come after, so nothing surprises you on the invoice

A redesign is an investment you make every few years, but the site runs monthly:

Domain: 40 - 80 RON per year. Nothing dramatic.
Hosting: 150 - 1,500 RON per year, depending on how fast you want it.
Maintenance: 100 - 500 RON per month for updates, backups, and security. Optional in theory, until the day the site goes down or gets hacked and becomes the most important expense of your year. See what's covered in our maintenance service.

How long does a redesign take?

Less than you'd think. A cosmetic redesign takes 1-2 weeks. A full redesign, 3-5 weeks. One with migration and new features, 5-8 weeks. The old site stays live for the entire process, so you're never offline, not even for a day. The switch happens like a well-scheduled procedure, not a power outage.

The bottom line

A proper redesign in Romania in 2026 costs between 2,000 and 15,000+ RON, with the 4,000 - 8,000 RON range being the sweet spot for most small and mid-sized businesses. It's cheaper than a brand-new site, as long as you have something worth keeping. And it's infinitely cheaper than losing customers month after month to a site that's wrecking your image.

Your website is the first employee your customer meets. The question is whether it looks like one you'd actually trust.

Want to know exactly which scenario your site falls into? Send us the link and we'll tell you for free, within 24 hours, whether you need a redesign or a new site, plus a concrete price estimate. No obligations, no pressure, no fine print. Request your free evaluation or check out our packages and pricing.