"How much does a Drupal website cost?" is the question we hear more than any other. The honest answer is: it depends, but here are the real numbers for 2026 so you can budget without guesswork.
This guide comes from a senior WordPress and Drupal agency that has quoted hundreds of projects for US, UK, and European clients. We will be specific about ranges, what drives them up or down, and where you can reasonably trim cost without regretting it later.
The short version: Drupal cost ranges in 2026
- Small marketing site (under 50 pages, standard content types): $6,000 to $15,000 for the build, plus $399 to $750 per month for ongoing maintenance.
- Mid-size platform (custom content model, 5 to 10 integrations, editor workflows): $18,000 to $45,000 for the build, plus $1,199 to $2,499 per month for ongoing work.
- Enterprise platform (complex data model, multisite, headless frontend, heavy integrations): $60,000 to $250,000 for the build, plus a dedicated retainer or in-house team.
- Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 or 11 migration: $8,000 to $35,000 depending on content volume and custom module count.
- WordPress to Drupal migration: $6,500 to $25,000 depending on content mapping complexity and ACF field conversions.
- Headless Drupal build with a modern frontend: $18,000 to $90,000 depending on frontend scope.
If you are getting quotes dramatically outside these ranges, something is off. Either the scope is being inflated, or you are being sold a template site with a Drupal label on it.
What actually drives Drupal project cost
1. Content model complexity
A marketing site with pages, blog posts, and a team bio type is a very different build from a platform with 30 custom content types, nested entity references, and a three-role editorial workflow. Content modeling is where senior engineering earns its money, and where template approaches fall apart at 10,000 nodes.
2. Integrations
Every external system your Drupal site talks to is a cost multiplier: CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce), marketing automation, SSO, payment gateways, search (Solr, Elasticsearch, Algolia), analytics, and legacy databases. Budget $1,500 to $6,000 per non-trivial integration.
3. Design and frontend
A Figma-to-Drupal theme from a design system that is already mature costs less than a fresh brand with no assets. Design work for a new Drupal build typically runs $4,000 to $15,000 on its own. Responsive implementation on top of a finished design runs $3,000 to $12,000.
4. Migrations and SEO preservation
Migrating 5,000 pages from a legacy CMS with URL preservation, redirect mapping, and content field transformation is its own engineering project. The cost scales roughly with (content volume * content model complexity), not linearly with page count.
5. Agency location and seniority
Senior engineers at US agencies bill $150 to $250 per hour. Senior engineers at European agencies bill 120 to 200 EUR per hour. Senior engineers at reputable offshore agencies like WebEvra bill $65 to $95 per hour. Junior developers at any agency bill roughly half, but you pay for that in bugs, re-work, and slower delivery.
Where you can reasonably cut cost
- Use Drupal's out-of-the-box features. Views, field UI, and the new Site Template Marketplace cover 70 percent of what most sites need. Every custom module you avoid is cost you save.
- Start with fewer content types. You can always add more later. Shipping with 5 types is cheaper and faster than shipping with 15, and you often discover you only needed 6.
- Skip the custom design if you do not need it. A well-chosen Drupal starter theme plus brand tokens gets you 80 percent of a custom design at 20 percent of the cost.
- Defer integrations to a second phase. Launch with the minimum viable stack, prove the model, then integrate.
- Use managed hosting instead of rolling your own. Managed Drupal hosting at $15 to $100 per month removes a whole category of operational cost and risk.
Where cutting cost backfires
- Skipping staging environments. Deploying directly to production is cheap until it is very expensive.
- Skipping automated tests. On a complex Drupal site, no tests means every change is a gamble and every update is a prayer.
- Hiring juniors for core architecture. A junior builds what works today. A senior builds what works in three years.
- Going with the cheapest offshore quote. The price-to-quality curve is not linear. A $20 per hour shop will cost you more than a $80 per hour shop when measured in total delivery time and re-work.
Retainer vs. project pricing: which should you pick?
Project pricing works when the scope is clear, the requirements are stable, and you want a fixed budget. Migrations, upgrades, and new builds fit this model.
Retainer pricing works when you have a live site that needs ongoing work: feature development, bug fixes, small improvements, and security maintenance. Retainers are cheaper per hour than project work and give you predictable access to senior engineers.
Most growing businesses end up on both: a fixed-scope project to launch the initial build, then a retainer for ongoing development and support.
What WebEvra charges
We publish our pricing. Our retainer plans run from $399 per month for Care (10 engineering hours per month) up to $2,499 per month for Scale (60 engineering hours with a dedicated lead engineer). Project pricing is quoted after a short discovery call, typically one hour, so we can give you a real number rather than a range.
For migrations specifically: Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 migrations start at $8,000. WordPress to Drupal migrations start at $6,500. Headless Drupal builds start at $18,000.
Frequently asked questions about Drupal cost
Is Drupal more expensive than WordPress?
For simple sites, WordPress tends to be cheaper because the ecosystem of themes and plugins is larger. For complex sites with custom data models, Drupal is usually cheaper in total cost because you spend less on fighting the platform and more on building features.
Can I get a Drupal site for under $5,000?
Technically yes, with a starter template and minimal customization. Realistically you are probably better off with WordPress at that budget unless you have a specific reason to be on Drupal (editorial workflows, multilingual, enterprise integrations).
How long does a typical Drupal build take?
Small sites: 4 to 8 weeks. Mid-size: 8 to 20 weeks. Enterprise: 4 to 12 months. Migrations: 2 to 8 weeks. Headless builds add 4 to 12 weeks on top of the Drupal backend work.
Do you include hosting in your quotes?
We quote build and hosting separately so you can see what you are paying for each. Our managed Drupal hosting starts at $15 per month for small sites and scales with traffic.
Ready to get a real quote?
If you are planning a Drupal build, migration, or retainer in 2026, book a discovery call. We will ask the questions that matter, quote you a real number, and flag any scope we think you do not actually need.
