Polyoxomolybdates have been intensely investigated, but their mechanisms of formation are not completely understood. The complex equilibrium of different species is affected by concentration, pH, ionic strength and temperature. It is a challenging system to model using computational chemistry. In the present work, density functional calculations were carried out using the polarizable continuum method to include solvent effects in an effort to provide insight into the mechanism of polyoxomolybdate formation in aqueous solution. We establish a possible sequence of reactions for the formation of small polyoxomolybdates containing up to 8 Mo by addition of the monomeric unit [MoO4]2−.