Most UK pricing guides about websites are written by the people selling them, which is why they are vague on purpose. This one names numbers, explains what genuinely moves the price, and is clear about which of those things are worth paying for.
We build websites, so we have an interest here. You should read it with that in mind and check the arithmetic, which is all checkable.
The short answer: three variables
Price is driven by three things, in descending order of importance.
- Who builds it. By a distance the biggest variable, and the one people assume is the smallest.
- How much the site has to do. A site that shows information is cheap. A site that takes payments, holds accounts or talks to other software is not.
- How custom the design is. A template is cheap and looks it. Something designed around your business costs more.
Notice that page count is not on the list. It matters a little, and far less than people expect.
What the UK market actually quotes
These are typical advertised ranges from UK builders, studios and agencies. It is a guide to what each tier tends to quote, not a survey of what every business paid.
| Tier | Typical price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself builder | Around £200 a year | A template, and your own weekends |
| Cheap freelancer | £200 to £800 | Often a reskinned template, quality varies enormously |
| Small studio, custom built | £395 to £3,000 | Built for you, fast, structured for search |
| Mid sized agency | £3,000 to £15,000 | Brand led process, an account manager, a longer timeline |
| Large agency | £15,000 upwards | Strategy, a custom CMS, integrations, months of it |
If you are a small or mid sized UK business, you almost certainly belong in the first three rows. The top two exist for funded companies and large retailers, and paying those prices for a trade website is simply an expensive mistake.
Our own prices, since it would be odd not to say
We charge £395 for a focused site for a single trade or service, £650 for something with more depth and more pages, and £1,200 for a bigger build with an online shop or a booking tool. Paid once. You own the result, files and all.
A build can be split into three payments, same price, no interest and no fees, within twelve months. It is not finance and there is no credit agreement, it is us taking the money in parts because for some businesses that is the difference between doing it and not.
Care plans are £45, £85 and £150 a month with no minimum term, and they are optional. A lot of one van trades do not need one and we say so rather than sell it.
What actually changes the price
1. Who is building it
The same scope of work might be £800 from a small studio, £3,500 from a mid sized agency and £12,000 from a London brand agency. The output is often comparable. The difference is overhead: account managers, sales teams, offices, project managers. Some projects genuinely need that machinery. A five page site for a local business does not.
2. What the site has to do
A site that shows information is the cheap case. Adding online sales, customer accounts, bookings that write into a real diary, or a connection to software you already use, all add real work. Online selling in particular tends to add several hundred to a few thousand pounds depending on how it is built, plus whatever the platform charges you every month afterwards.
3. Custom design versus a template
A templated site can be live in days for a few hundred pounds, and it will look like the other sites built on that template. A design built around your business takes longer and costs more, and it is most of the difference between looking like a business and looking like somebody who bought a subscription.
4. Whether anybody is thinking about being found
A site that ranks costs more up front, because somebody is working out what your customers search for, writing a real page per service and making the thing fast. We include it rather than selling it separately, because a site nobody finds is not finished.
The question that tells you most about a quote. If I stop paying you, what do I still have? If the answer is a website and a domain, it is a purchase. If the answer is nothing, it is rent, whatever the invoice calls it. Ask it early and the rest of the conversation gets simpler.
Running costs, realistically
- Domain: roughly £10 to £20 a year for a .co.uk or .uk.
- Hosting: often free or a few pounds a month for a static site. More for anything that runs software on a server.
- Business email: a few pounds per mailbox per month.
- Maintenance: optional. Ours are £45, £85 and £150 a month with no minimum term, and worth it when the site changes often, takes money, or when you would rather somebody noticed it was down before a customer did.
- SEO retainer: £200 a month upwards, and for most local businesses it is not justified. The local work that matters is largely a one off effort plus a review habit.
Worth paying more for
- Something built rather than assembled. Faster, lighter, and it does not look identical to your competitor's.
- Search done properly at build time. Structure, speed, real content per service. Retrofitting it later costs more than including it.
- Talking to the person doing the work. Fewer people in the chain means faster answers and fewer things lost in translation.
- Owning it. Worth a premium on day one that you will not think about again for five years.
Not worth paying more for
- A brand workshop you did not ask for. Fine if you need a brand. Not necessary for a website.
- Six weeks for a five page site. The weeks are usually queue rather than work.
- An account manager. They exist to sit between you and the developer. If you can talk to the developer, you do not need one.
How we do it, and why it makes the price easy to judge
We build the site first. Within 48 hours you get a link to a real working site built for your business, not a mock-up and not a template with your logo dropped in. You look at it on your own phone, and if it is not right you say so and there is no cost and no chase.
That is a harder offer to make than a free consultation, and it is deliberately harder, because it moves the risk from you to us. It also means the price conversation happens with the thing in front of you, which is the only sensible way to judge whether a number is fair.
Everything we have live is on our work page, where concept builds are labelled as concepts rather than presented as clients. Our pricing page has the full detail.
The honest summary
For a UK small business in 2026, a good website costs between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds, and the spread is mostly about who you buy it from. Spend enough to own something built properly, skip the process that exists to justify a bigger invoice, and ask the ownership question before you sign anything.
Common questions
What is a fair price for a small business website in the UK?
For a small business with a handful of pages and no online selling, somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds, depending almost entirely on who builds it rather than on what gets built. Our own builds are £395, £650 and £1,200. The same scope quoted by a mid sized agency will usually land several times higher, and the difference is overhead rather than quality.
Why do quotes for the same job vary so much?
Because you are not comparing the website, you are comparing the business behind it. A studio with two people has almost no overhead. An agency with account managers, a sales team and an office has to cover all of that before anybody writes a line of code. The output is frequently comparable.
Is a cheap website a false economy?
It can be, and the tell is not the price, it is what you end up owning. A cheap site you own outright, built on something maintainable, is a bargain. A cheap monthly deal that switches off when you stop paying is not cheap, it is rent with a low first payment.
What should I budget for running costs?
A domain is about ten to twenty pounds a year. Static hosting is often free or a few pounds a month. Business email is a few pounds per mailbox. A maintenance plan is optional and ours are £45, £85 and £150 a month with no minimum term. Be careful with SEO retainers: for a local business with a handful of competitors, a permanent monthly fee is rarely justified.
Do I have to pay the whole build fee up front?
No. Any build can be split into three payments at the same price, with nothing added for splitting and everything paid inside twelve months. We agree the dates with you in writing before any work starts, and the first payment is only due once you have seen the finished preview and want it live.
See what your site would look like, then judge the price
We build a real working preview in 48 hours, free. Builds from £395, care plans from £45 a month with no minimum term. No card and no sales call.
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