You can create a website in Moldova in two to three weeks. The order is: decide what the site has to do, register a domain, choose a platform, prepare the design and content, connect payments and delivery, and only then work on SEO. Collecting the content usually takes longer than writing the code.
When people in Moldova search for «create a website» or «website development», they almost always mean a site that brings orders: a catalog, a request form, payments, delivery. A standalone business-card page is rarely enough these days — Facebook and Instagram have long taken that role. So this guide is about websites that sell: what to decide before you order one, what makes up the price, and how long a launch really takes.
Step 0. Decide what the site has to do
Half of all website problems start here: the client describes how the site should look instead of what it should do. Answer four questions and the conversation with any contractor becomes concrete.
- What the visitor should do on the site: buy, leave a request, compare products, download a price list.
- How many products or services the catalog will hold now and a year from now.
- Who will update the site after launch — you, an employee or an external contractor.
- Whether you need card payments, courier delivery and data exchange with 1C or another accounting system.
Which type of site you need: four options
Business-card site
One to five pages: who you are, what you do, contacts and a map. It is quick and cheap, but it brings few enquiries: there are no prices to look at and nothing to put in a cart. It makes sense for services where the decision happens over the phone — clinics, lawyers, car services.
Landing page
A single long page for one product, service or campaign. It works alongside advertising and lives exactly as long as the campaign does. As a company's main site it is a poor fit: landing pages rarely rank for product queries.
Catalog site
Products and specifications are there, but there is no cart: the customer calls or writes on a messenger. A reasonable first step for B2B and for goods where the price is always negotiated. The downside is that every order goes through a person, so sales are capped by the sales rep's working hours.
Online store
Catalog, search and filters, cart, card payments, delivery, a customer account and analytics. This is what most people actually mean when they search for «create a website»: sales run around the clock and do not depend on whether someone picked up the phone. It is the most complex option feature-wise, but on a ready-made platform it launches no slower than an ordinary corporate site.
Domain and hosting
The domain is the site's address; hosting is where the site lives. The national .md zone is registered through accredited registrars: the annual fee to register or renew a .md domain is published on nic.md and, as of July 2026, is 450 lei. Ordinary shared hosting in Moldova starts at around 54 lei a month on annual billing (host.md rate, VAT not included). For Moldovan buyers a .md address looks more trustworthy than .com, but if you plan to sell abroad, reserve both.
- Register the domain in your own or your company's name, not the contractor's: otherwise the address stays with them when you part ways.
- Check who holds the credentials for the domain, the hosting and the admin panel — they should be yours.
- An SSL certificate, daily backups and DDoS protection are the baseline, not a paid extra.
- Clarify whether hosting is part of the support fee or billed separately.
Builder, web agency or platform
There are three ways to get a website, each with its own economics.
Website builder
Wix, Tilda, Shopify and the like: you pay a subscription and assemble the site yourself. Cheap to start and fine for simple tasks. The weak spot in Moldova is local specifics: accepting payments through maib, Moldindconbank or victoriabank, courier services, accounting requirements and 1C exchange are all on you, via intermediaries and custom work.
Web agency
The site is built to order, usually on WordPress or OpenCart. You get a unique project, but you pay a large one-off sum, and support, updates and security then become a separate line of costs. The main risk: in a year or two the engine and plugins go stale while the developer is busy with other projects.
Subscription platform
A ready-made core configured for your brand and developed further by the platform team. You pay a subscription that covers hosting, updates, security and support, and you get new features as they ship. That is how ECOM works: integrations with Moldovan banks, courier services and 1C are already built in and running for 60+ companies.
How much it costs to create a website in Moldova
There is no single price, and anyone who quotes one before discussing your tasks is probably selling a template. The cost is made up of six parts:
- The domain — an annual payment to the registrar.
- Hosting and protection — monthly or as part of a subscription.
- Design and front-end — one-off; depends on whether it is a template or work in your brand.
- Content — copy, photos, uploading products; the most underestimated part of the budget.
- Integrations — payments, delivery, accounting system, marketplaces.
- Support and development — what you pay every month after launch.
To get your bearings, here are the public prices of Moldovan studios and website builders as of July 2026 — the figures come from their own sites:
- A landing page — from 50 to 1,000 euro, depending on whether it is a template or a design made for you.
- A business-card or corporate site — roughly 150 to 3,000 euro.
- An online store — from 450 to 12,000 euro; a typical offer with card payments and integrations runs 1,200–4,500 euro.
- An hour of an experienced developer in Moldova — 25–45 euro, and an average project takes 30–80 hours.
- Builders: Tilda from $10 a month on annual billing, Wix from $17, Shopify from €27 a month.
The twentyfold spread has a simple explanation: at the cheap end you get a template and cope on your own; at the expensive end you get a unique design, integrations and ongoing help. And what matters more than the launch price is almost always what the site will cost over the next three years: domain renewals, hosting, support, changes.
At ECOM it looks like this: the Standard subscription is 1,500 MDL a month, Premium is 3,000 MDL a month, and both already include hosting, updates, protection and support. Turnkey implementation is a one-off 20,000 MDL: we fill the site with content, set up the integrations and launch everything for you. Implementation is optional — you can configure the site yourself. Paying for a year gives a 20% discount. A mobile app is +3,000 MDL a month, a B2B portal +2,000 MDL a month. The exact figure for your set of modules is easiest to work out in the calculator on the pricing page.
Worth asking upfront: how much migrating products from the old site costs, whether small changes are covered by support, who pays to renew template and module licences, and what happens to the site if you move to another contractor.
How long a launch really takes
Moldovan studios themselves quote these timelines: a landing page in 3 to 10 days, a corporate site in 2–4 weeks, an online store from 3 weeks up to 2–4 months for complex projects. A standard launch on a ready-made platform takes about two weeks. That does not include waiting for materials from your side — copy, photos, the price list. Those, rather than the development, are what usually stretch a project into months.
What the site must have from day one
- A mobile version: most traffic comes from phones, and that is the version Google judges.
- Loading speed — a slow site loses buyers before they even reach the catalog.
- Readable page addresses, title and description tags, a sitemap and robots.txt.
- Analytics connected before launch, not six months later.
- Catalog search and filters once you have more than a hundred products.
- Forms that actually work: a request has to reach an inbox or a messenger, not disappear.
What the law requires
A site that sells falls under several Moldovan laws. E-commerce is governed by law 284/2004 and consumer rights by law 105/2003: the site must show the seller's company details, the full price, and the payment, delivery and return terms. From 23 August 2026 law 195/2024 on personal data protection applies — the Moldovan equivalent of the GDPR: you need a privacy policy, a lawful basis for processing and consent for analytics and advertising cookies. We covered the requirements and fines in detail in a separate blog article.
In short
- First decide what the site has to do, and only then choose who builds it.
- In most cases «create a website» means «create a website that sells».
- Keep the domain and all credentials in your own hands.
- A builder is cheap but leaves local payments and accounting to you; an agency is a large one-off cost with no ongoing development; a platform is a subscription that covers everything.
- A realistic launch on a ready-made platform is about two weeks; content takes the longest.
- Budget not only for the launch but for support: a site that is not developed goes stale within a year.
If you need a website in order to sell, take a look at what ECOM Shop includes or build your configuration in the calculator — it shows the development and subscription cost in a minute.