A small business website in the UK usually costs between £500 and £5,000 to build, plus £10 to £100 a month to keep running. That is a wide range, and the price you are quoted depends far more on who builds it and what it has to do than on how it looks.
This guide breaks down what you can expect to pay in 2026, what drives the price up or down, and the questions to ask before you hand over any money.
Website Costs at a Glance
| Option | Typical upfront cost | Typical monthly cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace) | £0 | £10 to £40 | Testing an idea on a tight budget |
| Freelance web designer | £500 to £3,000 | £0 to £50 | Simple brochure sites |
| Small agency | £1,500 to £5,000 | £30 to £150 | Businesses that need leads from their site |
| Online shop (any provider) | £2,000 to £10,000+ | £30 to £300 | Selling products online |
| Large agency or bespoke build | £10,000+ | £200+ | Complex sites, integrations, big brands |
These are typical UK ranges. Plenty of quotes fall outside them, in both directions.
What Pushes the Price Up (or Down)
1. Number of pages
A five-page site (home, about, services, contact and one more) is a very different job from a 30-page site with a page for every service and area you cover. More pages means more design, more writing and more setting up. For most small businesses, 5 to 15 pages is the sweet spot.
2. Template or custom design
A good template, adapted to your brand, is quicker and cheaper. A fully custom design takes longer but lets you do exactly what you want. Neither is wrong: what matters is whether the site loads fast, works on a phone and makes it easy for customers to contact you.
3. Who writes the words
Copywriting is the cost most people forget. If you supply the text, the price drops. If you want it written for you, expect to pay more, but well-written pages also rank and convert far better.
4. Features
Each of these adds time and cost:
- Online booking or appointment systems
- Taking payments or selling products
- Member logins and private areas
- Connecting to other tools such as your CRM or accounting software
- Multiple languages
5. SEO setup
A website nobody can find is an expensive brochure. A proper build includes page titles, descriptions, headings, a sitemap, clean URLs and fast load times, so Google can find and understand every page. Some cheaper quotes leave this out entirely, and fixing it later costs more than doing it right first time.
6. Moving from an old website
Rebuilding an existing site needs redirects from the old page addresses to the new ones. Skip this and you can lose the Google rankings you already have overnight. It is a small job if planned in, and a painful one if forgotten.
The Ongoing Costs Nobody Mentions
The build is only part of the bill. Budget for these too:
- Domain name: around £10 to £20 a year for a .co.uk or .com.
- Hosting: from about £5 a month for basic hosting up to £30 or more for faster, managed hosting.
- Maintenance and updates: WordPress and its plugins need regular updates to stay secure. Care plans typically cost £30 to £100 a month.
- Email: business email through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is usually a few pounds per user per month.
- Your time: a DIY builder is cheap in money but not in hours.
Is a Cheap Website a False Economy?
Not always, but often. The warning signs to look out for:
- You don’t own it. Some providers keep the site, the domain or both, and charge you to leave.
- No SEO at all. The site looks fine but never appears on Google.
- Slow on a phone. Most of your visitors are on mobile. A slow site loses them before it loads.
- No way to get in touch. A contact form that doesn’t work, or no clear call to action, means the site never brings in work.
A website should pay for itself in enquiries. If it doesn’t, it was expensive whatever it cost.
Questions to Ask Before You Pay
- Is the price fixed, and does it include VAT?
- Will I own the website and the domain?
- Is hosting included, and what does it cost after the first year?
- What SEO is included as standard?
- Who writes the content?
- What happens if I want changes after launch?
- If you are replacing my current site, how will you protect my Google rankings?
Any good web designer will answer all seven without hesitating.
What We Charge
We publish our prices because we think you should know before you get in touch:
| Package | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Starter Website | £900 | 5 to 8 pages, mobile-friendly, contact form, SEO set up properly |
| Business Website | £1,500 | 10 to 15 pages, built-in blog, lead capture, structured data, analytics |
| Premium / Online Shop | from £2,000 | E-commerce, booking systems or custom features, fixed quote after a free call |
| Website Care Plan | £39 a month | Hosting, updates, security and edits, rolling monthly |
All prices are final. We are not VAT registered, so there is no VAT to add. Once your site is built and paid for, it is yours.
You can see sites we have built for training providers, clinics, engineers and online shops, and the full details of each package on our web design page.
What to Do Next
Write down what you need the website to do: the pages, the features and the one action you most want visitors to take. Then get two or three quotes and compare them against the questions above.
If you would like a quote from us, book a free 15-minute call. We will tell you honestly which package fits, or whether you need a website at all yet.