How much does a tradesman's website cost?
A few hundred pounds, once, for a site you own. Ours are £395, £650 and £1,200, and any of them can be split into three payments at the same price.
Below is what each price buys, what the wider market tends to quote, what the running costs are afterwards, and the questions that tell a fair quote from a poor one.
A few hundred pounds, once, for a site you own
A tradesman's website is one of the simpler kinds of website to build. It needs to show what you do, where you work, proof that you are good at it and an easy way to get hold of you. It does not need a shop, a login or a twelve-week design process, and it should not be priced as if it did.
Our own prices are £395, £650 and £1,200, paid once, and each can be split into three payments at the same price. The rest of this page explains what moves the price, what the wider market tends to quote, and what the running costs are afterwards, so you can judge any quote you are given, ours included.
What each of our builds buys a trade
Fixed prices, the same for every trade. You see the site working before you pay anything.
Starter, £395
One to four pages for one trade and one area. Built for phones first, with click-to-call, WhatsApp, a contact form and the Google basics done. Right for most sole traders.
Business, £650
Around eight pages, one for each service or area, with online booking or quote requests, your Google Business Profile set up, email on your own domain and the words written for you.
Premium, £1,200
For a firm whose site is part of the operation: bookings with deposits, a price or stock list you edit yourself, a customer area, more pages and more locations.
If you are between two, start on the smaller one. Pages and features can be added later and we quote only the extra. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
What other routes tend to cost
General ranges of what is typically advertised in the UK, given as a guide. They are not a survey and not a quote from anybody.
Doing it yourself on a website builder. Usually a subscription in the region of a couple of hundred pounds a year, plus your own time. Cheap in money and expensive in evenings.
A low-cost freelancer. Commonly a few hundred pounds, somewhere around £200 to £800. Quality varies a great deal, and it is worth asking whether the site is built for you or is a template with your name on it.
A small studio building from scratch. Roughly £395 to £3,000. This is where we sit, at the lower end, because there are two of us and no office to pay for.
A larger agency. Generally £3,000 and upwards. You are paying for account managers and a longer process, which a five-page trade site rarely needs.
A pay monthly deal. Little or nothing at the start and a monthly fee for a fixed term. Work out the total over the term and check who owns the site at the end. We have set out how pay monthly websites compare on its own page.
Four things that change a quote, and one that does not
Who builds it
The largest factor by some distance. The same site can be quoted several times higher by a business with more overheads to cover.
What the site has to do
Showing information is the cheap case. Taking bookings, deposits or payments, or connecting to other software, is real extra work.
Who writes the words
Copy written for you costs more than pasting in what you send. For most trades it is worth it, because the words are what get found.
Photographs
Your own job photographs are free and better than anything bought. A site that needs a photographer costs more.
The one that matters less than people expect is the number of pages. Going from four pages to six changes very little. What the pages have to do changes a lot.
The running costs, in plain figures
A website is not quite a one-off cost, and anybody who says it is has left something out. These are the things that recur.
The domain name. Typically around ten to twenty pounds a year for a .co.uk. Make sure it is registered in your name, whoever sets it up.
Upkeep. Prices change, services get added, opening hours move at Christmas. Either you make those changes, you pay somebody per change, or you take a plan. Our care plans are £45, £85 and £150 a month, include hosting, have no minimum term and are optional. The £45 plan covers changes whenever you ask, a monthly report, and your Google listing kept accurate. What each plan includes is set out here.
A directory, if you use one. A separate cost with its own terms. Whether it is worth keeping next to a site of your own is covered in Checkatrade against your own website.
As a worked example using only our own prices: a £395 Starter site with no plan costs £395 in total. The same site with the £45 plan costs £935 in the first year and £540 a year after that, for as long as you choose to keep the plan.
Five questions to ask before you pay anybody
They work on us as well as on everybody else.
- Is this a one-off price or a monthly one, and what is the total over three years?
- Do I own the site and the domain, and can I take them elsewhere?
- Can I see the actual site before I pay, or only a mock-up?
- What does a change cost once it is live, and how long does it take?
- Can you show me live sites you have built for businesses like mine?
Our answers: one-off, yours, yes, included on a care plan or quoted if not, and they are all on our work page. If you want a broader view than trades, our article on what a website costs in the UK covers every kind of business.
What trades ask us about cost
How much should a tradesman pay for a website?
For a sole trader or a small firm, a few hundred pounds for a site you own is a fair price, and you should not need to spend thousands. Ours are £395 for one to four pages, £650 for around eight pages with booking and your Google Business Profile set up, and £1,200 for a site that is part of how the business runs. Each is a one-off price.
What are the running costs after it is built?
A domain name, which for a .co.uk is typically around ten to twenty pounds a year from a registrar. Somewhere for the site to live, which some builders include and others charge for. Business email if you want an address on your own domain. And upkeep, if you want somebody else to make changes and keep it found. Our care plans cover hosting and upkeep from £45 a month, and they are optional.
Is a free website builder good enough for a trade?
It can be, if you have the time and are willing to learn it. The cost is your evenings rather than your money, and the usual result is a site that is half finished because paid work got in the way. If you would lose a day's earnings building it, that day is the real price. Our comparison of a website builder against a custom site goes through it.
Can I pay for the build in instalments?
Yes. Any of our builds can be split into three payments at the same price, with no interest and no fees, all paid within twelve months. Nothing is due until you have seen the finished preview and want it. How paying in parts works is explained here.
Do I need to pay monthly for SEO?
Most one-van trades do not need a separate SEO retainer. A well-built site, an accurate Google Business Profile and a steady flow of real reviews do most of the work for local searches. Be cautious of any monthly fee that cannot tell you, in plain words, what will be done each month.
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