What this guide covers
You're searching for pricing because you want a clear answer: which platform actually costs less for a B2B website? The honest answer is that it depends on your team, your site complexity, and how you measure cost.
WordPress looks cheaper on paper. The software is free, hosting can be inexpensive, and there's a plugin for everything. But the total cost of running a WordPress B2B site, including hosting, plugins, security, maintenance, and developer time, often exceeds what you'd spend on Webflow.
This guide breaks down each cost category so you can map your own situation to realistic ranges. We'll cover platform fees, hosting, development, plugins, maintenance, and the operational costs that don't show up on any pricing page.
We build on Webflow at Spect Agency, so we'll be upfront about that bias. That said, WordPress is genuinely the better financial choice in certain situations, and we'll be clear about when that's the case.
For a full comparison covering design, SEO, CMS, and team workflow, see our complete Webflow vs WordPress guide.
One important note: these cost comparisons assume a properly built site on either platform. A cheap WordPress build creates expensive maintenance problems. A poorly structured Webflow site creates developer dependency that erases its cost advantage. Build quality affects total cost more than platform choice.
Quick cost overview
Breaking down every cost category
Platform and hosting fees
This is where the pricing models diverge most sharply.
Webflow charges a monthly or annual site plan fee that includes hosting, SSL, global CDN, and automatic backups. Most B2B companies use the CMS or Business plan, which ranges from approximately €23-39/month when billed annually. Everything runs on Webflow's infrastructure (built on AWS), so you don't have to make any hosting decisions.
WordPress itself is free. But free software still needs a place to run. Your hosting choice is the single biggest factor in WordPress pricing and directly impacts site speed, security, and reliability.
WordPress hosting options fall into three tiers:
- Shared hosting (€5-15/month): The cheapest option, but it comes with slower performance, shared server resources, and limited support. Not recommended for B2B sites where speed and uptime matter.
- Managed WordPress hosting (€25-100/month): Providers like Kinsta, WP Engine, or Flywheel handle server maintenance, automatic backups, and performance tuning. This is the realistic option for B2B companies. It removes some operational burden but adds meaningful cost.
- Enterprise or VPS hosting (€100-300+/month): For high-traffic sites or companies with strict compliance requirements. Gives you full server control but requires technical expertise to manage.
For a fair comparison, most B2B companies should compare Webflow's pricing against managed WordPress hosting, not shared hosting. Shared hosting creates performance and security problems that cost more to fix later.
Themes and plugins
Webflow doesn't use themes or plugins in the traditional sense. The platform includes native support for visual editing, form handling, SEO controls, image compression, and CMS functionality. You might pay for a few Webflow Apps from the marketplace, but most B2B sites run well without any paid additions.
Typical Webflow App costs: €0-300/year total.
WordPress relies heavily on plugins for functionality that Webflow includes natively. A typical B2B WordPress site needs paid plugins for several core functions:
- SEO plugin (Yoast Premium or Rank Math Pro): €80-200/year
- Security plugin (Wordfence or Sucuri): €80-200/year
- Form plugin (Gravity Forms or WPForms): €50-250/year
- Page builder (Elementor Pro or WPBakery): €50-90/year
- Backup plugin (UpdraftPlus or BlogVault): €40-100/year
- Performance/caching plugin (WP Rocket): €50-60/year
- Premium theme: €50-80 one-time, with optional annual renewal for updates
These add up quickly. A conservatively equipped WordPress B2B site typically costs €250-500/year in plugin and theme renewals. Some of these plugins offer lifetime licenses, but most have moved to annual subscription models.
You can use free alternatives for some of these categories, but free plugins often come with limited features, less reliable support, and slower security patches.
Professional development and design costs
Initial build costs are similar for both platforms. A standard B2B marketing site (10-30 pages with CMS, blog, case studies, contact forms, and integrations) typically costs:
- Webflow agency build: €5,000-20,000
- WordPress agency build: €5,000-20,000
The ranges are similar because the bulk of the cost is strategy, design, and content, not the platform itself. A complex site costs more on either platform. A simple site costs less on either platform.
Where development costs start to differ is in ongoing work. Webflow sites built with proper component architecture require less developer involvement for day-to-day marketing work. WordPress sites typically require more ongoing developer time because design changes, plugin updates, and troubleshooting are harder to handle without technical skills.
Ongoing maintenance costs
This is where the total cost of ownership diverges significantly over time.
Webflow maintenance is minimal. There are no plugins to update, no themes to patch, no server configurations to manage. Webflow handles all of this automatically. Your ongoing costs are limited to the situations where you need an agency to build new components or add functionality that doesn't exist yet. If your site is stable and your team handles content updates themselves, you can go months without any maintenance expense.
WordPress maintenance is constant and non-negotiable. A well-maintained WordPress site requires regular attention:
- Plugin and theme updates: These need to happen regularly to patch security vulnerabilities. Each update should be tested for compatibility, which means someone needs to check that one plugin update didn't break another feature.
- Security monitoring: Watching for malware, suspicious activity, and unauthorized access attempts. Even with a security plugin, someone needs to review alerts and respond to issues.
- Performance checks: Monitoring page speed, checking for bloated databases, clearing caches, and making sure nothing has degraded.
- Backup verification: Confirming that backups are running correctly and that restore processes actually work.
Total: roughly 2-4 hours of developer time per month. At typical agency rates of €75-100/hour, that's €150-400/month or €1,800-4,800/year in maintenance costs. Some months are quiet. Others (major WordPress core updates, plugin conflicts) require more time.
Some managed WordPress hosts reduce this burden by handling server-level updates and backups. But plugin compatibility, security monitoring, and WordPress core updates still require human attention.
Integration costs
Both platforms integrate with common B2B tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Mailchimp, and Google Analytics. The cost difference is in how those connections work.
Webflow offers native integrations through Webflow Apps and connects to hundreds of additional tools via Zapier. Most common B2B integrations work without extra cost beyond your existing tool subscriptions. Form submissions can flow directly into your CRM with native app support.
WordPress typically uses plugins for integrations. The HubSpot and Salesforce WordPress plugins are free, but some CRM and marketing automation integrations require premium plugins. You might also need a developer to configure more complex integrations or troubleshoot conflicts between integration plugins and other plugins on your site.
For most B2B companies, integration costs are roughly the same across both platforms. The difference is more about developer time for setup and maintenance than about licensing fees.
For a deep-dive into the integrations possibilities of both platforms, see our Webflow vs WordPress integration comparison.
The costs that don't show up on pricing pages
Developer dependency
This is often the highest hidden cost for B2B teams on WordPress, and the hardest to quantify in advance.
On WordPress, many content and design changes require a developer. Updating a page layout, adding a new section to a landing page, or changing how a blog template displays content typically means filing a ticket and waiting. At €75-100/hour, even small changes add up. A team that submits a few requests per month can easily spend €300-1,000/month on developer time for tasks that shouldn't need a developer.
On Webflow (with a properly built site), your marketing team handles most of these changes directly. Copy updates, image swaps, new landing pages built from existing components, CMS content publishing: all of this happens without developer involvement. You only need agency support for genuinely new component designs or functionality.
The annual cost savings from reduced developer dependency can range from €3,000 to € 10,000, depending on how active your marketing team is. For teams that ship new landing pages weekly or update content frequently, this is often the single biggest cost factor in the comparison.
Time-to-market costs
When launching a landing page takes two weeks instead of two days, there's a real cost. It's harder to measure, but it affects your business directly.
If your marketing team runs paid campaigns, every week a landing page is delayed means wasted ad spend or missed conversion opportunities. If you're running account-based marketing, a slow response to sales requests for custom landing pages means lost deals. If you're testing messaging, slow iteration means slower learning.
Webflow's visual editor lets marketing teams build and publish pages the same day, assuming the site has a proper component library. WordPress typically puts a developer in the middle of that workflow, adding days or weeks to each request.
This cost varies widely by company, but for B2B teams running active demand-generation programs, it's often the most expensive hidden cost of any platform choice.
Security incident costs
WordPress powers a large portion of the web, which makes it a frequent target for attacks. The open plugin system is both a strength and a vulnerability. Outdated plugins, weak passwords, and unpatched themes are common attack vectors.
The cost of a security incident goes beyond the cleanup:
- Malware removal: €500-2,000+ depending on severity
- Downtime: Lost leads and damaged credibility during the outage
- SEO damage: Google may flag your site, dropping rankings
- Recovery time: Days to weeks of developer time to fully restore and secure the site
Not every WordPress site gets hacked. But the risk is real, and the cost of prevention (security plugins, monitoring, regular updates) is an ongoing expense that Webflow simply doesn't require. Webflow's closed, managed infrastructure handles security automatically, with no plugins or user-installed code to create vulnerabilities.
Technical debt
Technical debt is what happens when quick fixes and workarounds accumulate over time. On WordPress, this often looks like:
- Plugins that were installed for one feature but never removed
- Custom code patches that worked with an old theme version but break after updates
- Page builder elements that don't render correctly after a plugin update
- Database bloat from years of revisions, unused media, and orphaned data
This debt builds gradually and shows up as slower performance, more frequent bugs, and higher development costs for every change. Eventually, the site becomes expensive enough to maintain that rebuilding from scratch (on WordPress or another platform) becomes the more economical option.
Webflow's managed environment limits the accumulation of technical debt. There are no plugins to create conflicts, no server configurations to drift, and no database to bloat. The site you built two years ago works the same way today.
Three-year total cost comparison
The table below shows realistic cost ranges for a mid-size B2B marketing site (15-30 pages, blog, case studies, CRM integration) over three years. We've included three scenarios to account for the variables.
Scenario 1: B2B team with no in-house developer
This is the most common scenario for small to mid-size B2B companies. Your marketing team manages day-to-day content, and you rely on external help for technical work.
The gap is meaningful. Without an in-house developer, WordPress maintenance and developer dependency costs account for the majority of total spend.
Scenario 2: B2B team with an in-house developer
If you have a developer on staff who handles WordPress maintenance as part of their broader responsibilities, the cost picture changes.
When maintenance and developer time are absorbed into an existing salary, WordPress's lower platform fees make the ongoing costs roughly comparable. The developer's time still has an opportunity cost (those 4-6 hours/month could go toward other projects), but it doesn't appear as a separate line item.
Scenario 3: Large B2B site with heavy content operations
For companies with 50+ pages, extensive blog archives, multiple content types, and high traffic.
At scale, the maintenance burden on WordPress grows faster than the platform costs on Webflow. More pages means more plugins, more potential conflicts, and more developer time for each update cycle.
Important caveat: these ranges represent realistic middle-ground scenarios. Your actual costs depend on your specific hosting choice, plugin selection, developer rates, site complexity, and how actively your team uses the site. Use these ranges as a starting point for your own calculations, not as exact predictions.
When WordPress is the cheaper choice
Being fair about this: WordPress can be more economical in specific situations.
You have an in-house WordPress developer. If someone on your team already maintains WordPress sites as part of their role, the maintenance cost is already covered. The opportunity cost of their time still exists, but it doesn't create a new line item in your budget.
You need functionality that Webflow can't deliver natively. Complex e-commerce, membership portals with advanced permissions, multi-site networks, or deep custom application logic may require WordPress's plugin depth. Building these features as custom solutions on Webflow could cost more than using established WordPress plugins.
You're running very large content operations. If your site has thousands of pages, hundreds of authors, and complex editorial workflows, WordPress's content management was built for this scale. Webflow handles most B2B content needs well, but at media-company volume, WordPress's mature publishing tools may reduce operational costs.
You already have a well-built, well-maintained WordPress site. If your current WordPress site works well, your team knows the platform, and you're not experiencing significant pain points, the cost of migrating to Webflow may not be justified the savings. The investment in rebuilding should deliver concrete operational benefits to make financial sense.
When Webflow saves you the most money
You don't have a dedicated developer. Without someone on staff to handle WordPress maintenance, you're paying agency rates for every update, security patch, and troubleshooting session. Webflow removes most of these costs.
Your marketing team frequently ships content and pages. The more active your marketing team is, the more expensive WordPress's reliance on developers becomes. Webflow's visual editor lets marketers handle most changes independently, which compounds savings over time.
You want predictable budgeting. Webflow's costs are fixed and known in advance. WordPress costs fluctuate based on hosting upgrades, plugin renewals, security incidents, and developer hours. For finance teams that need predictable technology spend, Webflow is easier to budget for.
You're building a new site from scratch. If you're starting fresh (not migrating), Webflow and WordPress have similar initial build costs. But Webflow's lower ongoing costs start saving you money from month one.
What migration from WordPress to Webflow costs
If you're considering switching from WordPress to Webflow, the migration itself is an investment. Understanding the cost helps you evaluate whether the long-term savings justify it.
Migration budget ranges
Migration from WordPress to Webflow is a rebuild, not a simple transfer. Your content moves over, but the site gets built from scratch in Webflow. Typical migration costs for a B2B site fall within a similar range to a new build: €5,000-20,000, depending on complexity.
The cost is driven by the number of pages, content complexity, custom functionality that needs to be replicated, and SEO preservation requirements (redirect mapping, URL structure decisions).
Timeline and process
Most B2B migrations take one to two months from kickoff to launch. The process includes content export from WordPress, design and development in Webflow, URL redirect mapping, testing, and team training on the new platform.
When migration pays for itself
A simple calculation: if your WordPress site costs €4,000-10,000/year in maintenance and developer time, and a Webflow migration costs €5,000-20,000, the migration can pay for itself within one to two years through reduced ongoing costs. After that, the savings compound annually.
Migration doesn't make financial sense if your WordPress costs are already low (in-house developer, minimal maintenance), you've recently invested in a WordPress rebuild, or you need WordPress-specific functionality that would require expensive custom solutions in Webflow.
Which platform fits your budget?
"We have no developer and need to keep costs predictable."
Webflow. The all-inclusive pricing model means fewer surprises. Your biggest ongoing expense is the monthly platform fee, not developer invoices.
"We have a WordPress developer on staff and our site works well."
WordPress may be cheaper to stay on. Your maintenance costs are already included, and migration would add a one-time cost with little ongoing savings.
"We're spending €300+/month on WordPress maintenance and developer requests."
Webflow. You're likely spending more on WordPress upkeep than you would on Webflow's platform fee plus occasional agency support.
"We need complex e-commerce or membership functionality."
WordPress. Building these features on Webflow may require custom development that exceeds the cost of established WordPress plugins.
"We're building our first B2B website."
Webflow for most cases. Similar initial build costs, but lower ongoing expenses from day one. Unless you have specific functionality needs that require WordPress's plugin library.
"Our marketing team constantly needs developer help for website changes."
Webflow. The visual editor and component system let marketers work independently, eliminating the most expensive ongoing cost category.