The short answer: in 2026, a corporate website in China usually lands in one of three first-year budgets: RMB 360–4,998 per year for a template or SaaS builder, RMB 6,000–30,000 for a standard custom build, and RMB 30,000–200,000+ for a high-end, multilingual, or integrated site. AI is not a separate price tier. It can be a cheap SaaS feature or part of a project-priced platform.
This is a budgeting and selection guide for companies with 5–500 people — manufacturers, service businesses, and exporters — planning a corporate or lead-generation site. It excludes large e-commerce platforms, standalone apps, and complex business systems. Prices are public list prices and editorial estimates, checked on 24 October 2026, not a quote from Lingyi or any other provider. We do not promise rankings, indexing, or AI citations.
The build fee is only the first-year cash cost. Template, AI, and custom are not quality tiers — they are different delivery boundaries. And the ceiling for SEO/GEO is set by architecture and content, not by a sales page.
Three budgets, four delivery models
The ranges below explain the market. They are not a formula. Scope, content, and integration move the number more than the label on the invoice.
| Model | First-year cash cost | Typical launch | Best for | Main boundary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template / SaaS | RMB 360–4,998 / year | Generated in 5–10 minutes; content and filing extra, usually 1–15 days | 5–100 people, display or lead generation, limited budget, market validation | Template limits, platform dependency, data export, SEO control |
| Standard custom | RMB 6,000–30,000 | 15–30 days | 10–300 people, brand differentiation, marketing, baseline SEO | Provider quality varies widely; put SEO, performance, and support in acceptance |
| High-end / multilingual / integrated | RMB 30,000–200,000+ | 1–3 months | Groups, multilingual sites, exporters, payments, membership, system integration | Higher budget and project risk; scope changes cause overruns |
| AI-native multi-site platform | Project-scoped | Scoped by content, sites, and interfaces | Multi-brand groups, content teams, centralized permissions and SEO | Needs a content owner and ongoing operations; not a one-page purchase |
For reference, public list prices on 24 October 2026 included a Chinese template builder at RMB 698–4,998 per year depending on tier, and a cloud AI builder starting at RMB 360 per year. These are page prices, not contract prices; promotions, renewals, and tiers change.
Why quotes range from RMB 360 to 200,000+
The gap is the delivery boundary: who designs, who writes, who hosts, whether functionality is custom, how many languages, and whether SEO/GEO and integration are included. Two quotes for “a website” may not describe the same work.
| Variable | Low end | High end | Effect on budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design originality | Existing template, new logo and images | Brand strategy, original UI, motion, illustration | More design hours and revision cycles |
| Page count | 1–5 display pages | 10–30+ pages: products, cases, insights, campaigns | More content, design, and testing |
| Content and assets | Client supplies copy and images | Planning, interviews, photography, translation, proofreading | Commonly underestimated; drives trust and conversion |
| Functionality | Display, forms, basic articles | Membership, payments, booking, multilingual, APIs | Development, testing, and security |
| Deployment and operations | Platform-hosted | Own servers, CDN, WAF, backups, monitoring | Higher first-year and annual cost |
| SEO / GEO | Basic titles, descriptions, sitemap | Information architecture, structured data, content strategy, ongoing optimization | The difference between launching and being found |
Five costs that are easy to miss
Low quotes usually cover only two or three of these. Content and maintenance are the most common omissions.
- Domain: typically RMB 50–150 per year for .com or .cn; premium names cost more.
- Hosting: included in SaaS fees, or RMB 300–5,000+ per year for a custom site, before CDN and backups.
- SSL and China ICP filing: free certificates are common; business certificates and compliance work cost more. ICP filing is free but takes time; agency help is usually RMB 100–300.
- Content: RMB 0–5,000 for a template site, or RMB 3,000–10,000+ for custom copy, photography, translation, and proofreading.
- SEO/GEO and maintenance: RMB 3,000–10,000+ per year for ongoing work, plus RMB 500–2,000+ per year for backups, patches, monitoring, and support.
Functionality is a separate line: membership, payments, booking, APIs, and multilingual routing can add anything from zero to RMB 40,000+ depending on scope.
A five-year view is more honest than a first-year quote
Use first-year cash plus four years of running cost. The examples below come from the same scope assumptions; they are editorial estimates, not quotes.
| Scenario | First year | Each following year | Five-year TCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template / SaaS | RMB 9,098 | RMB 9,098 | RMB 45,490 |
| Standard custom | RMB 30,600 | RMB 10,600 | RMB 73,000 |
| High-end / multilingual | RMB 131,100 | RMB 31,100 | RMB 255,500 |
These assume stable prices and exclude internal labor, redesigns, plugin price increases, and migration. A template site starts cheap but accumulates content, SEO, and plugin fees. A custom site starts high and can still cost more over five years if content, SEO, and maintenance are neglected. Compare the same scope, not the same label.
How to choose without betting on the wrong boundary
- Under RMB 5,000, display only, speed matters: use a template or AI builder. Validate the market before commissioning custom work.
- 10–30 pages, brand and lead generation: standard custom build or an AI-native platform. Avoid a pure template reskin.
- Multi-brand or multi-site: a platform such as LingCMS makes sense when permissions, style, content, and SEO must stay consistent across sites.
- Export or multilingual: budget for translation quality, local proof, overseas performance, and Google SEO — not just an English page. A translated brochure is not a localized site.
- Sensitive data or complex integration: custom work or a contract that explicitly covers private deployment. Do not assume a multi-tenant SaaS will meet your data boundary.
What to put in the contract
Ten items prevent the “cheap signing, expensive delivery” pattern:
- Deliverables: design source files, page templates, feature list, admin account, deployment documentation.
- Asset ownership: domain, server, ICP filing entity, analytics, and ad accounts in the client’s name.
- Data export: articles, products, cases, members, and form submissions exportable in a usable format.
- SEO control: titles, descriptions, canonical, robots, sitemap, 301 redirects, structured data, and stable URLs.
- Acceptance: mobile, first-screen performance, forms, payments, multilingual behavior, and admin permissions.
- Annual fees: what renewal includes, price-increase limits, and whether SMS, storage, or traffic is metered.
- Change pricing: new pages, redesigns, and features quoted by day or project before work starts.
- Exit: how the site, source code, database, and content move if the relationship ends.
- Support and security: response time, backups, vulnerability fixes, and incident handling in an SLA.
- AI terms: ownership of AI-generated content, review responsibility, and whether client data is used for training.
FAQ
Can I build a corporate website for RMB 3,000?
Yes, usually as a template or SaaS display site: a standard template, a few pages, a basic form, and simple SEO. Domain, content, ICP filing, and maintenance are separate. Original design, brand differentiation, complex functionality, or strict SEO/GEO typically need more.
Will AI replace agencies?
Not wholesale in the short term. AI accelerates prototypes, pages, copy, and code, but brand strategy, editorial judgment, visual review, integration, SEO acceptance, and operations still need an owner. The question is who is accountable for the result, not who generates faster.
Is template SEO always worse than custom SEO?
No. It depends on whether the platform lets you set titles, descriptions, canonical, robots, sitemap, 301s, structured data, and custom URLs, and whether the main copy is in the initial HTML. A template can do baseline SEO; a controlled build usually gives more room.
Is custom always better?
No. A custom site without SEO architecture, performance work, content maintenance, and acceptance can be more expensive and harder to use. Compare delivery lists, initial HTML, mobile behavior, Core Web Vitals, content models, data export, and support.
What about an export website?
Official SaaS export plans commonly run RMB 2,998–4,998 per year; standard custom work often starts around RMB 10,000–30,000; multilingual or multi-channel projects can reach RMB 30,000–200,000+. Translation, local content, overseas performance, Google SEO, and payment integration need separate budget lines.
Decide the boundary before comparing prices: who owns content, who can change code, can the data leave, and who accepts SEO/GEO. Then choose a template, a custom build, or an AI-native platform.
Sources and caveats
Research cut-off: 24 October 2026. Official prices came from public pages of 凡科建站 and Alibaba Cloud; the third-party range came from a 2026 quote article. These sources may have commercial interests, and prices and features change. All prices are in RMB. Tax, invoicing, filing, content, and third-party services depend on the current quote. Five-year TCO, launch times, the selection matrix, and the acceptance list are editorial judgments, not guarantees.
- 凡科建站, “网站建设价格与套餐,” accessed 24 October 2026. jz.fkw.com/proFunc.html.
- Alibaba Cloud Wanwang, “AI建站/企业官网,” accessed 24 October 2026. wanwang.aliyun.com/website/index.
- Alibaba Cloud Help Center, “什么是万小智AI建站,” accessed 24 October 2026. help.aliyun.com.
- 蒲公英传媒科技, “做一个企业官网大概多少钱？2026 年最新建站价格全解析,” 15 April 2026. pgy.yzpgy.com.