TYPO3 agency
What a TYPO3 website costs and how long it takes depends less on page count and design than on the structure behind them: how many content types the editors maintain, how many languages, brands or locations the system carries, what comes across from the old system and which systems are connected. Sharpness Solutions GmbH in Oldenburg has used TYPO3 since 2004 for websites that must do more than a brochure: as a new build, a relaunch of an older TYPO3 or a move from another CMS. This page is for the time before the quote. It explains when TYPO3 fits and when it does not, how we build, and how to recognise an implementation that survives the next major upgrade. New websites start on TYPO3 v14 LTS.
Hardly any TYPO3 project starts on a green field. There is usually a website that has grown over the years, several departments with a say, content in a system nobody enjoys touching any more, and a deadline that keeps getting closer. Six starting points come up again and again. What they have in common: the expensive decisions are made in the structure, not in the design.
One quote counts pages, the second counts templates, the third names a lump sum that leaves out content migration. Without a list of page types, content elements, languages and interfaces, you are comparing assumptions, not prices. Whatever the quote leaves out comes back later as a change request.
Free support for TYPO3 v12 ended in April 2026, and earlier still for older versions. From then on, security updates cost money through Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) — or are not available at all. Whether an upgrade is enough or a new build is cheaper depends not on the version number alone but on the state of code, extensions and frontend.
A second language, a third brand, departments that should only edit their own pages: in WordPress this regularly ends in a collection of role and translation plugins. That is not a fault of WordPress. It is a sign that the website has grown organisationally and the system has not grown with it.
Every page is assembled from the same generic elements with dozens of fields, of which a handful are needed. Anyone who wants to change something copies an old page and hopes for the best. That is rarely the editors’ fault; it comes down to how the content elements were built: around layout instead of content.
The old website has built up rankings over the years, and a new page tree changes addresses. Without a complete redirect list, the very pages that used to bring in visitors are missing on switch-over day. That loss is avoidable — if the list is drawn up before go-live, not after.
Public bodies have been obliged to provide accessible websites for some time. Since 28 June 2025, Germany’s Accessibility Strengthening Act (Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz, BFSG) has also covered consumer offerings in electronic commerce. Retrofitting a grown template is laborious. A relaunch is the cheapest moment to plan accessibility in from the start.
TYPO3 pays off when a website is more complicated organisationally than technically. A company with several brands, an association with regional chapters, a welfare organisation with facilities and counselling centres: each unit maintains its own area, and none should be able to change anything in someone else’s. TYPO3 has a permission system for this at its core, with backend user groups, page permissions and separate file mounts. Diakonisches Werk Oldenburg brings facilities, services and counselling centres together under one roof; its TYPO3 website maps that branching structure, stays maintainable for many editors and is accessible to all users. Whether TYPO3 fits is therefore an organisational question first: how many people maintain the website, and are they allowed to do different things?
The second reason is multilingual content that amounts to more than switching on translation: separate language trees, fallback rules, content that exists in only one country, editorial teams working in different languages. Add to that several page trees in one installation, for brands, locations or separate organisations, each with its own domain and site configuration, but with shared content elements and a single update. At M&S Armaturen, a manufacturer of industrial valves, products, sustainability, careers and service sit in one multilingual structure that the company maintains itself. TYPO3 also copes with large page structures that have grown over years, as long as templates and extensions stay cleanly separated. Accessibility can be planned in here from the start rather than retrofitted later.
For a company website with a manageable number of pages, one language and one person who posts the occasional news item, TYPO3 is oversized. The system has a learning curve, in the backend as well as in development. In that case we recommend WordPress with a custom theme, which we build and run just as well: quicker to finish and, day to day, closer to what small teams expect. The second limit is the shop. TYPO3 has shop extensions, but pricing rules, payment methods, returns and ERP integration belong in a shop system; if a TYPO3 website is meant to sell, we couple it with Shopware 6. And a campaign one-pager needs no editorial structure, just something that can be switched off again without effort. A content management system nobody likes to open is the most expensive kind there is.
The price of a TYPO3 website is set by structure and existing content, less by the number of pages. Structure means: how many page types and content elements do the editors need, how many languages and page trees does the system carry, how finely graded are the editorial permissions, and is accessibility to EN 301 549 required? Existing content means: what comes across from the old system, in what state, and can it be imported automatically or only by hand? Then there are the interfaces. At Autohaus Brüggemann — six locations from Rheine to Rostock, eight franchised brands, stock in the four-digit range — the TYPO3 website brings all vehicles together in one shared search, fed from the dealer management system, not by the editors. Many pages with few content types are quicker to build than few pages with many.
Sharpness calculates in person-days, not package prices. Concept, templates, content elements, interfaces, content migration, accessibility and testing are separate items in the quote, so you can see what you are paying for and move or drop individual items. There is no licence fee for TYPO3: the system is open source, and extensions are published under the GPL. There are running costs all the same, and they belong in every budget: hosting, maintenance with security updates, upkeep of the extensions and, every few years, a major upgrade. If the old website runs on TYPO3 v12 or older until the relaunch, paid ELTS from TYPO3 GmbH may be needed to bridge the gap. Ask us for the hourly rate and prices.
Duration follows the same logic, plus one factor only you control: how quickly content, decisions and approvals arrive from your side. A TYPO3 project is planned in months, and texts, images and translations that nobody has written yet hold things up more often than the technology does. We give a reliable schedule and a price after the assessment, not on the phone. For an existing website that means a crawl of the old site and an inventory of its content types, plus the version and extension list if it runs on TYPO3. For a new build, it starts with clarifying page types, languages and roles. Clearly bounded parts we offer at a fixed price. A launch date fixed before that clarification is a wish, not a schedule.
We set up every TYPO3 website as a Composer installation. Core, extensions and our own packages are pinned to versions, and each environment — development, staging, live — can be built from the same description. The site configuration with domains, languages and fallback rules is a file in the project; Site Sets, available since TYPO3 v13, bundle TypoScript and settings per site. That way the configuration lives in Git rather than scattered across database fields in the backend. It sounds like developer convenience, but it is a question of operation: whatever is in the repository can be compared, reviewed and rolled back. Whatever lives only in the database is something someone stumbles across during the next upgrade.
We build content elements around the content, not the layout. Instead of a generic page builder in which every element can do everything, we create dedicated elements with the Content Blocks extension or with our own data structures via TCA, rendered through Fluid templates. A contact person has a name, a role, a phone number and a photo — and those are exactly the fields the editors see, not dozens of layout options. At Eschen Nutzfahrzeuge, a dealer in used trucks and commercial vehicles, the vehicle stock is set up as structured records that the editors maintain and that work on mobile; at Manotura, range and applications are structured rather than stored as running text. On TYPO3 v14, plugins are also registered as a content type of their own from the start. The list_type migration that holds up many existing systems on v14 never arises in a new build.
We use third-party extensions as sparingly as possible. For many tasks there are maintained extensions in the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER), and building our own alongside them would be waste. But every installed extension is an item that has to be re-checked at every major upgrade: is there a release for the new version, does it still have a maintainer, is it used at all? Our own extensions use the interfaces TYPO3 provides — Extbase, PSR-14 events, Symfony dependency injection, backend modules, Symfony Console commands for imports. Sharpness has delivered more than 250 projects since 1999; the code sits in a Git repository that belongs to you and goes live via a staging system. The reason for all this is the next major upgrade: a website built to TYPO3’s conventions turns it into a manageable project. One built against them turns it into a rebuild.
If the current website runs on an older TYPO3, the relaunch starts with a decision: upgrade, or a new build with the data carried over. Starting version, number of in-house developments, state of the frontend and whether the information architecture still holds all weigh in. From TYPO3 v8 or v9, an upgrade to v14 is technically a rebuild anyway: the code is written anew, while content, page structure, files and URLs come across. If the design is to be replaced and the structure tidied up as well, a new build is usually the cheaper answer. If the structure is sound and only the technology is old, an upgrade is enough. In our assessment, both routes appear side by side with both figures. The thresholds in detail are on our TYPO3 upgrade page.
If the website comes from WordPress or another CMS, content migration is the largest single item. Content that used to be running text with embedded images is translated into content elements; whatever maps cleanly is handled by an import, the rest is moved by hand and tidied up on the way. In parallel, the redirect list is drawn up — from a crawl of the entire old site, covering addresses, titles and texts, not from memory. Every old address Google knows forwards with a 301 to the page carrying the matching content. The list is checked on the staging system before go-live; afterwards we evaluate Search Console and the log files and close any remaining 404 errors. Nobody can guarantee rankings. The redirects make sure you keep what you already have.
A relaunch is the cheapest moment for accessibility. Public bodies have been obliged to provide it for some time, at federal level under BITV 2.0, the German regulation on accessible information technology; since 28 June 2025 the BFSG has also covered consumer offerings in electronic commerce. Testing follows EN 301 549 and with it WCAG 2.1 at level AA. Pure B2B offerings are generally outside the BFSG, and services have an exemption for micro-enterprises; whether your case is covered is for a lawyer to decide. Technically, it means contrasts fixed in the colour system, headings in a clean order, every function operable by keyboard and forms with labels. Retrofitting is possible: for the Bünting Group we raised the existing TYPO3 corporate website to BFSG level, with skip links, a contrast mode, adjustable text sizes and full keyboard operation. Planned in, it still costs less than retrofitted.
After go-live, a TYPO3 website needs an underlying platform that is maintained along with it: PHP, database, web server, backups, staging. At Sharpness this runs on our own servers, a Proxmox VE cluster in the Hetzner data centre in Falkenstein, Germany, with each customer environment kept separate and its own staging system, where every update lands first. The specialist trade website of Manotura is operated the same way. TYPO3 v14 requires PHP 8.2 or later, Composer 2.1 or later and MariaDB from 10.4.3 or MySQL from 8.0.17. Because PHP 8.2 reaches end of life on 31 December 2026, we start new websites on PHP 8.3 or 8.4 straight away — otherwise the next migration would be due shortly after go-live. Whoever built the system knows it best in operation, too.
After go-live we run and maintain the website under a service level agreement (SLA): 24, 8 or 4 hours’ response time, as a flat monthly fee, net. Without an SLA, requests are handled first come, first served, within 48 hours during our business hours, Mon–Thu 9:00–16:00, Fri 9:00–13:00 (CET); on-call cover outside those hours exists only with an SLA. Maintenance covers the maintenance releases, which appear roughly every four weeks, and security releases whenever they are needed — each tested on staging before it goes live. On top come upkeep of the extensions, PHP and database kept on supported versions, and backups. Our TYPO3 maintenance page sets out what ongoing maintenance covers in detail. A website that nobody is responsible for after go-live ages faster than it was built.
The source code belongs to you and sits in a Git repository; the domain is always registered in your name, and licences and accounts to your company. With us that is the standard, not the result of negotiation. Go-live also starts the clock towards the next major upgrade: free support for TYPO3 v14 runs until 30 June 2029, for v13 until 31 December 2027. A website built to the conventions takes that step as a project of weeks; one that works against TYPO3 takes it as a rebuild. Because we run your website ourselves, we plan the upgrade in good time instead of discovering it when a deadline expires. That is why we build from the first day with an eye on the day the next version comes out.
Process
Send us the address of your current website or a few sentences about the project: languages, page trees, editorial teams, interfaces, target date. You get an initial assessment of whether TYPO3 fits and what the effort depends on in your case — before the quote, not after it. Phone +49 441 21 21 63 0, Mon–Thu 9:00–16:00, Fri 9:00–13:00 (CET). We work remotely across Germany, with meetings in Oldenburg and the north-west by arrangement.
You describe the project: new build, relaunch or move, which system runs today, how many languages, page trees and editorial teams there are, which date is fixed. We tell you whether TYPO3 fits. If WordPress is the better choice, we say so — and then build it in WordPress.
If there is an existing website, we crawl it completely and record page types, content elements, languages, permissions and interfaces; for an older TYPO3, the version and extension list as well. For a new build we clarify page types, roles and systems — ideally with the people who will maintain the site later at the table.
You receive a list of page types and content elements, a concept for languages and permissions, and the migration route for the content. Plus the effort in person-days per item and a schedule with milestones. Clearly bounded parts we offer at a fixed price.
The website is built in iterations on a staging system you can reach at any time. Approvals happen on the running system, not on screenshots. From day one the code sits in a Git repository that belongs to you; configuration and content elements are created as files inside it.
Content migration runs in trial runs, checked against the old content. The redirect list comes from the crawl and is tested on staging. Before acceptance: forms, search, interfaces, permissions per editorial group and accessibility, checked automatically and by hand.
The switch-over happens in the agreed window, with a backup immediately beforehand. Afterwards we keep an eye on Search Console and the log files and close any remaining 404s. From then on we run and maintain the website under an SLA on our servers in Germany.
Projects on this system
A selection — not the full client list.
Across the north-west
We work for companies from Wuppertal and Münster via the Emsland and East Frisia to Hamburg and Hanover. Meetings on site by arrangement, the ongoing work remotely. Each region has a page of its own.
The cost follows the structure of the website, not the number of pages, which is why Sharpness has no package prices. The drivers are the number of page types and content elements, languages and page trees, the permission and editorial structure, content migration from the old system, interfaces and the accessibility requirements. We calculate in person-days, with separate items you can see individually and move. On top come running costs for hosting and maintenance; there is no licence fee for TYPO3 itself. We name a price after reviewing the current state; ask us for the hourly rate.
A TYPO3 project takes months; how many depends on the same drivers as the cost and on how quickly content and approvals arrive from your side. Texts, images and translations that still have to be written hold things up more often than the technology does. In a relaunch, content migration sets the pace: whatever can be imported automatically goes quickly, whatever has to be moved and tidied up by hand does not. We fix a reliable schedule with milestones in the concept. A date promised before the current state has been reviewed is an estimate without a basis.
TYPO3 suits websites with several languages, several page trees or brands and editorial teams with different permissions; WordPress suits leaner websites with one editorial team and a manageable structure. The question is organisational more than technical: how many people maintain the website, in how many languages, and are they allowed to do different things? For a company website with one language and one person posting the occasional news item, TYPO3 is oversized. Sharpness builds and runs both systems and so has no reason to steer the answer either way. We say so in the first conversation, even when the answer is not TYPO3.
An upgrade pays off when structure, content and editorial processes still work and only the technology is out of date; a new build, when the information architecture no longer fits or the design is being replaced anyway. From TYPO3 v8 or v9, an upgrade to v14 is technically a rebuild with the data carried over: the code is written anew, while content, page structure, files and URLs come across. From v12 or v13, by contrast, v14 is a normal upgrade project. In our assessment both routes appear side by side with both figures. The thresholds in detail are on our TYPO3 upgrade page.
A new TYPO3 website starts on TYPO3 v14, the current long-term support (LTS) version since 21 April 2026, with free support until 30 June 2029. TYPO3 v13 is the previous LTS and receives free support until 31 December 2027; building on it today means planning the next upgrade for 2027 already. One reason for v13 would be a business-critical extension with no v14 release and no replacement. In a new build that is rare, because the choice of extensions is still open. A new build on v14 also registers plugins as a content type of their own from the start.
Yes, that is what TYPO3 is built for: one installation carries several page trees, each with its own domain, its own languages and its own site configuration. Languages get fallback rules, which define what appears when a translation is missing, and country-specific content is possible. Through backend user groups, page permissions and file mounts, each editorial team maintains only its own area. Content elements, templates and updates stay shared — a security release is applied once, not once per brand. How finely languages and permissions are cut belongs in the concept, because it determines both effort and upkeep.
Yes, but not inside the CMS itself: if a TYPO3 website is meant to sell, we couple it with a Shopware 6 shop instead of building the shop in TYPO3. TYPO3 has shop extensions, but pricing rules, payment methods, returns and ERP integration belong in a shop system. The website stays responsible for content, the shop for selling. At M&S Armaturen, the multilingual company website runs on TYPO3 and the Shopware shop is connected to it. Sharpness is a Shopware Extension Partner and builds and runs both systems — so the interface between them sits with the same team.
Not if every old address Google knows forwards with a 301 to its counterpart in content and the redirects have been checked on the staging system before go-live. The list comes from a crawl of the entire old website, not from memory. Most at risk are pages whose path changes with the new page tree, and content that is merged during the relaunch. After the switch-over we evaluate Search Console and the log files and close any remaining 404 errors. Nobody can give you a ranking guarantee; the redirects secure what you already have.
For public bodies, yes — at federal level under BITV 2.0, the German regulation on accessible information technology. For companies it depends on the Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG), which has applied to consumer offerings in electronic commerce since 28 June 2025. Pure B2B is generally outside its scope, and services have an exemption for micro-enterprises; whether your case is covered is for a lawyer to decide. Testing follows EN 301 549, i.e. WCAG 2.1 at level AA. TYPO3 does not meet this automatically; templates, contrasts, forms and editorial practice decide. In a new build we plan it in from the start.
TYPO3 itself has no licence fee; running costs arise for hosting, maintenance and the updates the system needs. Maintenance releases appear roughly every four weeks, security releases as required; each is assessed, tested on staging and applied. Every few years a major upgrade is due, at the latest when free support for the LTS line ends — for v14 on 30 June 2029. Anyone who keeps an old version running pays TYPO3 GmbH for ELTS to get security updates, or stays unprotected. We offer hosting and maintenance as a flat monthly fee, net, with an SLA; prices on request.
You recognise a good implementation by the fact that the next major upgrade remains a manageable project and does not turn into a rebuild. In concrete terms: a Composer installation, configuration in files and in Git instead of scattered across the backend, dedicated content elements instead of a generic page builder, Fluid templates without business logic, as few third-party extensions as necessary and custom extensions built against the interfaces TYPO3 provides. Add a staging system and a repository that belongs to you. Ask about this when you discuss the quote. Anyone without a concrete answer is pushing the cost into the next upgrade.
After go-live, Sharpness runs and maintains the website on its own servers in Germany, under a service level agreement. The levels range from 24 through 8 to 4 hours’ response time, as a flat monthly fee, net; without an SLA, requests are handled first come, first served, within 48 hours during our business hours, Mon–Thu 9:00–16:00, Fri 9:00–13:00 (CET). The source code belongs to you and sits in a Git repository; the domain is always registered in your name, and licences and accounts to your company. Whoever built the website still knows it when the next security release arrives.
Enquiry
A few sentences are enough: new build or relaunch, which system runs today, how many languages and editorial teams. We come back with questions and an initial assessment — before anyone talks about a quote.