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What a website actually costs. No hidden fees. No "contact us for a quote" runaround.
We believe you should know what you're paying before you pick up the phone. Here's every cost, explained honestly, so you can make a decision that fits your budget.
Every website we build is a one-off investment. You pay once, you own the site, and there are no monthly platform fees. Pick the level that fits what you need right now.
£500–£800
One-off payment. No monthly fees.
Ideal for:
Sole traders, startups, and tradespeople who need a professional online presence quickly. Perfect if you want a single page that covers who you are, what you do, and how to get in touch.
What's included:
£1,200–£1,800
One-off payment. 5-10 pages.
Ideal for:
Growing businesses that need dedicated service pages, a portfolio or gallery, and stronger local SEO. This is the sweet spot for most small businesses who want to rank for multiple search terms.
Everything in One-Page, plus:
From £2,000
Scoped to your requirements.
Ideal for:
Businesses with specific technical needs: e-commerce, booking systems, membership areas, or complex integrations. We scope every custom project individually so you only pay for what you actually need.
Everything in Multi-Page, plus:
Not sure which tier fits? Our guide to website costs in the UK walks through every factor, or try the website cost calculator to compare UK market averages.
Web design isn't like buying a product off a shelf. The cost depends on what you need, and these are the factors that move the number up or down. We're laying them out so there are no surprises.
| Factor | Impact on Cost | Typical Range |
|---|---|---|
| Number of pages | More pages means more design, more content, and more SEO work. A one-page site and a ten-page site are fundamentally different projects. | £100-£500 per page |
| Custom design vs template | A bespoke design built from scratch costs more than adapting a pre-built template. Custom work looks better and performs better, but it takes longer. | 50-200% premium |
| Copywriting | Good copy sells. If you can write your own content, great. If you need a professional copywriter, that's an additional cost worth paying. | £200-£500 per page |
| Photography | Stock photos are cheap but generic. A professional shoot of your actual business, team, or products makes a real difference to trust and conversions. | £300-£1,500 per shoot |
| E-commerce | Selling products online adds payment processing, product management, inventory, and checkout flows. The complexity scales with the number of products. | £2,000-£10,000+ |
| CMS / content management | If you want to update your own blog posts, news, or product pages without calling a developer, you'll need a content management system. | £500-£2,000 |
| SEO scope | On-page SEO is included as standard. Ongoing SEO campaigns with content marketing, link building, and monthly reporting are a separate investment. | £300-£2,000/month |
| Ongoing maintenance | Security updates, backups, performance monitoring, and content changes. You can do this yourself or pay someone to handle it. | £50-£200/month |
Sources: pricing ranges aggregated from ProfileTree, Red Eagle Tech, and Web Cardiff UK pricing guides (2026).
There's a massive range in what you can pay for a website. Here's an honest look at every option, including when a cheaper one might be the right call.
£0-£300/year
Wix starts at £9/month for a basic site (billed annually). Squarespace starts at £12/month. WordPress.com has a free tier but you'll want the Premium plan at £8/month minimum to remove adverts and use a custom domain.
Honest take: If you're testing a business idea, need a simple personal site, or genuinely enjoy building things yourself, a DIY builder is fine. Where they fall short is speed, SEO flexibility, and looking like every other site built on the same template. You also can't export your site if you want to move later.
£300-£3,000
UK freelance web designers charge an average of £390/day according to the YunoJuno 2025 Freelancer Rates Report, based on 261,000+ freelance records. The IPSE Freelancer Confidence Index puts the broader average at £457/day.
Honest take: Great freelancers exist. The risk is availability, consistency, and what happens if they disappear. There's no team behind them, so if they get ill or busy, your project stalls. Check portfolios carefully and ask for references.
£500-£2,000+
You get the quality and reliability of an agency without the overheads that inflate mid-size agency pricing. We handle design, development, SEO, and content in-house. No subcontracting, no account manager middlemen.
Why this works: Small agencies keep costs down because there's less overhead. You deal directly with the person building your site, not someone who then relays your feedback to a developer you never meet. That means fewer misunderstandings and a faster turnaround.
£3,000-£15,000
A five-page brochure site from a mid-size agency typically costs £3,000-£6,000. A more complex build with e-commerce runs £10,000-£25,000. These are well-documented UK pricing ranges.
Honest take: You're paying for a larger team, project management processes, and sometimes a nicer office. If you're a larger business that needs those structures, the premium is justified. For small businesses and sole traders, you're often paying for things you don't need.
£10,000-£50,000+
Honest take: At this level you're building web applications, not websites. Enterprise agencies handle complex integrations, multi-language sites, custom software, and projects with hundreds of pages. If that's what you need, that's what it costs. Most small businesses reading this page don't need anything close to this.
Some agencies charge extra for things that should be standard. We don't. Whether you pick the £500 one-page site or a £2,000+ custom build, all of this is included.
Your site works on every screen size. Not just "mobile-friendly" as an afterthought, but designed mobile-first and then scaled up. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so this directly affects your rankings.
Title tags, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, image alt text, schema markup, clean URLs, and fast page speed. The technical foundations that give you a fighting chance of showing up in search results.
We make sure your site runs on HTTPS. Most modern hosts include free SSL via Let's Encrypt. We'll set it up or guide you through the process so your visitors see the padlock, not a security warning.
GA4 installed and configured so you can see who visits your site, where they come from, and what they do. Actual data to make decisions with, not guesswork.
A walkthrough of your finished site so you know how to update text, swap images, and make basic changes yourself. We record it so you can refer back whenever you need to.
Tweaks, text changes, and minor adjustments for 30 days after launch at no extra charge. If something isn't right, we fix it. No support ticket queue, no waiting.
The sticker price of a website is only part of the story. These ongoing costs catch people out every year, and most agencies conveniently forget to mention them during the sales pitch.
£10-£15/year
Your .co.uk or .com domain needs renewing annually. First-year promotional pricing can be as low as £1, but renewal is typically £10-£15/year. Set it to auto-renew so you don't accidentally lose your domain.
£36-£180/year
Shared hosting with a UK provider like Fasthosts or IONOS costs £3-£6/month. Managed WordPress hosting with Krystal or 20i runs £8-£15/month. Watch out for promotional first-year pricing that jumps 3-5x on renewal.
£55-£63/year per mailbox
Professional email (you@yourbusiness.co.uk) usually isn't included with your website. Google Workspace costs £5.20/user/month. Microsoft 365 Business Basic costs £4.60/user/month. Free email bundled with hosting exists but it's often unreliable.
£0-£70/year
Most modern hosts include free SSL via Let's Encrypt. If your host doesn't, a basic domain validation certificate costs £30-£70/year. Extended Validation certificates for e-commerce sites can cost up to £270/year, though free SSL is sufficient for most small business sites.
£10-£50 per image
Individual stock images cost £10-£50 each. Subscriptions to Shutterstock or Adobe Stock run £20-£150/month. Using your own photos costs nothing and looks far more authentic. We always recommend real photography where possible.
£300-£950/year
A typical WordPress site needs 4-6 premium plugins for security, backups, SEO, forms, and performance. Each one renews annually. According to Splendid Web's analysis of hidden WordPress costs, the total plugin stack alone can cost £300-£950/year.
A £3,000 website build typically costs £4,000-£5,500 in total for the first year once you add hosting, domain, email, plugins, and stock images. After that, budget roughly £1,000-£2,000/year to keep everything running properly. We tell you this upfront because you deserve to know the full picture before you commit.
Most web design agencies hide their pricing behind a contact form. They want to get you on a call before they tell you what it costs. We think that's backwards.
Research from the Stanford Web Credibility Project found that 75% of consumers judge a business's credibility based on its website design. And according to Google's own research, people form aesthetic judgements about a website in as little as 50 milliseconds. That first impression matters enormously.
But credibility isn't just about how a site looks. It's about how the business behind it behaves. Showing you our prices before you ask builds trust. Explaining the hidden costs that other agencies leave out builds trust. Being honest about when a DIY builder might be the better option builds trust.
That's the kind of agency we want to be. And based on Clutch's 2025 research, 17% of small businesses still don't have a website at all. For many of them, the first barrier is not knowing what it will cost. This page is for them.
No. You pay a one-off project fee and you own the finished website outright. There are no monthly platform charges, no licence renewals, and no "website rental" payments. The only ongoing costs are domain registration and hosting, which you pay directly to the providers you choose.
Domain registration typically costs £10-£15 per year for a .co.uk or .com. Hosting ranges from £3-£6 per month for shared hosting up to £8-£15 per month for managed WordPress hosting with a UK provider like Krystal or 20i. We help you pick the right setup. Budget roughly £60-£100 per year for both combined.
Yes. We ask for 50% upfront when we start the project and the remaining 50% on completion, before the site goes live. For larger custom projects over £2,000, we can split the payment into three stages: deposit, mid-project milestone, and launch. No credit checks, no interest.
Every project includes 30 days of post-launch support for tweaks, text changes, and minor adjustments at no extra cost. After that, we offer ad-hoc updates at an hourly rate or a monthly care plan that covers regular updates, security monitoring, and backups. Most clients manage their own content day-to-day and only need us for structural changes.
On-page SEO is included with every website we build: proper title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, image optimisation, schema markup, and fast loading times. This gives you a solid foundation for ranking in Google. Ongoing SEO campaigns, content marketing, and link building are separate services with their own pricing.
We publish our prices. Most large agencies don't, and that tells you something. According to multiple UK industry pricing guides, a five-page brochure site from a mid-size agency costs £3,000-£6,000, and from a large agency £8,000-£15,000. We deliver the same quality of work for £1,200-£1,800 because we keep overheads low and don't charge for account managers, project managers, and office space you'll never visit.
Tell us what you need and we'll give you an exact price. No hourly estimates, no 'it depends' waffle. Just a clear number you can budget for.
Or call us: 07770 580125