Business Website in Switzerland: build, run, keep it legally compliant

What does a business website in Switzerland involve?

A business website in Switzerland involves four phases: building, setting it up legally compliant, running it, and connecting it to Swiss payments. It is not a one-off project but a lifecycle spanning years. Building costs CHF 3’500 to 25’000 depending on scope. After that come ongoing hosting from CHF 19 per month and maintenance from CHF 79 per month. I’ll go through the four phases here in order.

Most of the problems I see with existing company websites arise not during the build but afterward. A site is set up once and then left untouched for years. That is why I treat operation and law as equal to design.

Phase 1: Building, WordPress or custom-built

At the start comes the concept, not the technology. I first clarify who visits the site, what that person should do, and which content they need for it. Only after that does the decision about the system fall into place.

For most SMBs, WordPress is enough. It is widespread, you can change text and images yourself, and there is a solution for almost any requirement. The price for that is regular updates, because many moving parts work together.

I build custom-built when a site needs its own workflows, has to load very fast, or must do without third-party plugins. Such sites are leaner and more secure, but they cannot be rebuilt with every click on your own. Which variant fits depends on how often you change content yourself. I compared this in detail in the post WordPress or custom-built.

What does a company website cost?

In short: a business-card website starts at CHF 3’500, a standard presence lands at CHF 7’500 to 12’000, a demanding presence at CHF 12’000 to 25’000. A simple online shop with WooCommerce or Shopify and a bexio connection starts at CHF 6’500.

The Swiss hourly rate of a web agency is roughly CHF 120 to 250. That explains why a serious website does not cost a few hundred francs. The details and what the ranges each cover I broke down in What does a website cost in Switzerland. You’ll find the current packages on the Pricing page.

Phase 2: Setting it up legally compliant (revFADP)

The revised Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP) has been in force since 1 September 2023. Unlike the EU GDPR, it does not require a cookie consent banner. A duty to inform is enough, meaning a clear privacy policy that says which data you process and how.

Even so, there are operational points I implement on every site:

• Embed Google Fonts locally. If fonts are loaded directly from Google, the visitor’s IP address flows to Google on every page view. Embedded locally, this does not happen.
• Keep the privacy policy current. When you add a new tool, such as a booking system, that belongs in the policy. An outdated policy is worse than a brief but correct one.
• Consent Mode v2 as soon as Google tools are in play. Since March 2024, you need Google Consent Mode v2 if you use Google Ads or Analytics for visitors from the EU. In practice, this means a consent solution again, even though the revFADP itself does not require one.

The fines under the revFADP can amount to up to CHF 250’000. Important: they hit the responsible natural person, not the company. That is one more reason not to put the obligations off until later. More on this in revFADP and cookie banners in Switzerland.

Phase 3: Running it, hosting, updates, backups

A website is not finished after launch; it goes into operation. From then on, three things run continuously.

Hosting is the place where the site lives. I offer Swiss hosting from CHF 19 per month. What matters is that it suits the technology and delivers quickly.

Updates keep WordPress, plugins, and themes secure. An outdated installation is the most common gateway for hacks. With a custom-built site, fewer updates come up, but it doesn’t work entirely without them either.

Backups are only worth something once someone checks that they work. A never-tested backup is not a backup but a hope.

These three points I prefer to handle as a fixed process rather than sporadically. WordPress maintenance is available from me from CHF 79 per month, a custom-built one from CHF 90 per month. Whether that pays off for you I worked through in Does my website need maintenance. The offer is on the Maintenance page.

Phase 4: The Swiss payment and invoicing layer

As soon as you sell online or issue invoices, the Swiss particularity comes into play: TWINT, the QR invoice, and the accounting.

TWINT has been natively available in Shopify since June 2025. With WooCommerce, it runs through a payment service provider such as Datatrans, Saferpay, Payrexx, or PostFinance. Both paths work; they just reach the goal differently.

I usually connect the accounting with bexio. Orders and invoices then land there automatically with a Swiss QR invoice, instead of you transferring everything by hand. VAT has been at 8.1 percent since 2024 and must be stated correctly on invoices. What this connection looks like in concrete terms I show on the WooCommerce and bexio page.

The whole lifecycle at a glance

When what pays off

Not every company needs everything. If you only want to be found and build trust, a small business-card website with a clean privacy policy and lean maintenance is enough. Here a CHF 25,000 presence would be wasted.

It is only worth building an online shop with bexio and TWINT once you sell regularly and the manual handling of orders eats up too much time. Before that, a plain page with a contact option often suffices.

Maintenance, on the other hand, I recommend almost always, as soon as the site is live. Not because I sell it, but because an unmaintained WordPress site runs into a problem sooner or later. With a purely static, custom-built site, the upkeep effort is smaller, so a light package is enough.

If you are unsure which phase you are currently in or what makes sense next, take a look at the Pricing page or drop me a short note via Contact. I reply within one working day (Mon to Fri).