“How much does a website cost?” is usually the first question people ask. The honest answer is that it depends, but that’s not much help when you’re trying to plan a budget. So in this guide we’ll explain what you’re actually paying for, what affects the price and what ongoing costs to expect, so you can make an informed decision.
The short answer
Website prices in the UK vary enormously, from free DIY website builders to tens of thousands of pounds for large, complex sites. As a rough guide for small businesses:
- DIY website builders such as Wix or Squarespace cost a monthly subscription, but you do all the work yourself and are limited by their templates and performance.
- Template-based sites from a freelancer are usually the cheapest professional option, but often rely on heavy themes and plugins that can be slow and hard to maintain.
- Bespoke small business websites from an agency typically sit somewhere in the low thousands of pounds, depending on the number of pages and features.
- E-commerce websites usually cost more, because of product setup, payments, shipping and the extra testing involved.
- Custom web applications and large sites with complex functionality cost the most.
These are broad ranges, and the right answer for your business depends on what you need the website to do.
What are you actually paying for?
When you pay for a professional website, you’re not just paying for a few pages of design. A good website project includes:
- Planning: understanding your business, customers and goals, and planning the right pages and structure.
- Design: creating layouts that look professional, reflect your brand and guide visitors towards getting in touch.
- Content: writing or editing the text, sourcing images and making sure every page has a clear purpose.
- Development: building the website so it’s fast, secure, mobile-friendly and accessible.
- SEO foundations: page titles, descriptions, headings, structured data and a sitemap so Google can understand your site.
- Testing: checking everything works on phones, tablets and desktops, in every major browser.
- Launch and training: going live safely and showing you how to manage your site.
A cheaper website usually cuts corners on some of these, most often planning, content, accessibility and SEO, which are exactly the parts that make a website bring in business.
What affects the price?
Number of pages
A five-page website takes less time than one with twenty service pages, location pages and a blog. But more pages isn’t always better. A focused site with fewer, stronger pages often performs better than a large one built in a hurry.
Design complexity
Clean, well-structured designs are efficient to build. Custom illustrations, complex animations and unusual layouts take longer.
Functionality
Features such as online booking, payment, product catalogues, quote calculators, member areas and integrations with other software all add development time.
Content
If you supply finished text and good photos, the project moves faster. If you’d like your agency to write copy, source imagery or arrange photography, that’s extra work, but often worth it.
SEO and migration
If you already have a website with good rankings, moving to a new one needs careful planning and redirects to protect your visibility. That’s an extra step, but skipping it can be very costly.
Ongoing costs to budget for
The price of building a website is only part of the picture. You’ll also need to budget for:
- Domain name: usually around £10 to £20 a year for a .co.uk or .com.
- Hosting: where your website lives. Cheap hosting is available, but speed, security and support vary widely.
- Maintenance: updates, backups, security monitoring and fixes.
- Changes: updating prices, adding services, new photos and so on.
- Email: professional email such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace is charged per user per month.
Our care plans combine hosting, backups, security, monitoring and updates from £25 a month, with content changes included on the Business and Growth plans.
Why the cheapest option can cost more
A cheap website can look like a bargain, but it often comes with hidden costs: slow loading that loses visitors, poor SEO that means nobody finds it, security problems, or a site that’s so hard to update it needs replacing within a couple of years.
The question to ask isn’t “what’s the cheapest website?” but “what will bring in the most business for my budget?” A website that brings in even a handful of extra customers a month usually pays for itself quickly.
How to get an accurate quote
To get a useful quote, it helps to have a rough idea of:
- What your website needs to achieve (enquiries, bookings, sales)
- The main services or products you want to show
- Any features you need, such as booking or payments
- Whether you have content and photos ready
- Your budget and timescale
Don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers. A good agency will help you work them out.
Our approach to pricing
We quote every project individually after a free, no-obligation conversation, and once we’ve agreed what’s included, the price is fixed. If you have a budget in mind, tell us and we’ll recommend what can realistically be achieved. You can read more on our pricing page, or simply get in touch for a quote.
