Short answer: how much a website costs in the UK depends mostly on who builds it. A small business website usually costs between £500 and £3,000 from a freelancer or fixed-price studio, and between £3,000 and £12,000 from an agency. London agencies often charge more. A DIY website builder costs roughly £9 to £120 a month (more for an online shop), but you do all the work. On top of the build, budget for yearly running costs such as your domain, hosting and plugin licences.
Those ranges are wide, and that’s the honest answer. Two quotes for “a five-page website” can be £600 and £6,000, and both can be fair. This guide explains what you actually get at each price, where the hidden costs are, and how to compare quotes without being an expert.
A note on VAT: many UK web designers don’t say whether their prices include VAT. In this guide we say so wherever the source does. If a quote doesn’t, ask. On a £1,000 job the difference is £200.
How much does a website cost in the UK? Prices at a glance
| Route | Typical UK price | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify) | About £9–£260 a month, ex VAT | Templates and hosting. You write, design and maintain everything yourself. |
| Freelancer, basic brochure site (about 5 pages) | £500–£1,500 | A template-based site. Copy and SEO are often extra. |
| Freelancer or small studio, 5–10 pages | £1,000–£3,000 | More pages, some custom design, usually basic SEO set-up. |
| Agency brochure site | £3,000–£12,000 | A team, a discovery phase, custom design, project management. |
| London agency brochure site | Roughly £8,000–£25,000 | As above, with London overheads. |
| Fixed-price package from a small studio | About £500–£1,500 | A set number of pages, set timescale and a clear list of what’s included. |
Sources: builder prices and freelancer and agency bands, including London, from kwiboo’s 2026 UK breakdown; SpotDev puts the general London premium at 20 to 40 per cent. We also checked the published prices of more than 20 UK web designers in October 2026.
Why website quotes vary so much
The price of a website is mostly the price of people’s time. A few things decide how much time a project needs.
- Custom design or a proven framework. A fully bespoke design goes through mock-ups, revisions and sign-off before anything is built. A site built on a well-tested framework skips most of that.
- Who writes the words. Professional copywriting is often quoted separately, and for an agency it can add thousands. Writing it yourself saves money but often delays the project by weeks.
- The number of pages. Not just the count, but how different they are. Ten service pages that share a layout take far less time than ten unique pages.
- Features. Online booking, payments, a members’ area or links to other software all add design, set-up and testing time.
- Overheads. An agency with an office, account managers and a sales team has to cover those costs in every quote.
- Research and SEO. Some quotes include keyword research and competitor analysis. Others just install an SEO plugin and call it done.
None of this makes cheap prices bad or high prices a rip-off. The question is whether the price matches what your business actually needs.
DIY website builders: cheap to start, costly in time
Wix, Squarespace and similar builders cost roughly £9 to £120 a month, and Shopify for online shops runs from about £19 to £260 a month before transaction fees. That looks cheap, and for a hobby or a very new business it can be the right choice.
The real cost is your time. You’ll be choosing a template, writing every page, sourcing photos, working out SEO settings and fixing things when they look wrong on a phone. If an hour of your time is worth £40, a site that takes you 30 hours has cost £1,200 before the monthly fees. We compare the platforms in more detail in Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress.
Freelancers: good value, but check what’s included
A UK freelancer will typically charge £500 to £1,500 for a basic five-page site and £1,000 to £3,000 for a larger small business site. Day rates vary a lot with experience.
The best freelancers are excellent value. The risks are capacity and continuity: one person can only work on so much, and if they’re ill or move on, you need to know who has your logins. Check whether copywriting, SEO set-up, hosting and support after launch are in the price, because they often aren’t.
Agencies: more people, more process, more cost
An agency brochure site usually starts around £3,000 and can go well past £10,000. In London, expect to pay more. What you’re paying for is a team: a strategist, a designer, a developer and a project manager, plus a discovery phase that a freelancer usually skips.
That’s worth it if your website needs to connect to other systems, handle complex bookings or serve a large organisation. For a clinic, a therapist, a trade or a local service business, it’s usually more than you need.
Fixed-price packages: what they cut, and what they don’t
A newer option is the fixed-price package: a set price for a set number of pages, delivered in a set time. Prices for small business packages in the UK commonly sit between £500 and £1,500.
A good package is cheaper because the process is repeatable, not because corners are cut. The trade-off is less bespoke design: you get a professional layout adapted to your brand rather than a one-off design invented from scratch. Packages differ a lot in what they include, so check whether copywriting, SEO research and hosting are in the price or charged on top.
We sell fixed-price packages ourselves, so we’re not neutral here. If you want a benchmark to hold other quotes against, our package prices and what they include are published in full.
The costs people forget
The build price is only part of the bill. These are the extras that most often catch people out:
- Copywriting, if it isn’t included.
- Photography. Real photos of your team and premises beat stock images, but someone has to take them.
- Premium plugin or theme licences, which renew every year.
- Hosting and domain renewals, which are often much higher after a cheap first year.
- Maintenance and updates, from a few pounds a month to several hundred.
- Changes after launch, often charged by the hour.
We break these down line by line, with a three-year comparison, in how much to spend on a website, including running costs.
How to compare two website quotes fairly
Put the quotes side by side and ask each provider the same questions:
- How many pages are included, and what counts as a page?
- Who writes the text? Is it included?
- What SEO work is included, beyond installing a plugin?
- How many rounds of changes are included?
- When will the site be live, and when does the clock start?
- How much do I pay upfront, and what happens if I’m not happy?
- Who owns the domain, the hosting account and the website?
- What will I pay every year after launch?
A quote that looks expensive often turns out to include things the cheaper one leaves out. Our guide to choosing a web design agency goes through these questions in more depth.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a small business website cost in the UK?
For most small businesses, between £500 and £3,000 for the build from a freelancer or fixed-price studio. Agencies usually start around £3,000.
How much does a website cost per month?
If you build it yourself on a website builder, roughly £9 to £120 a month. If a designer builds it, the monthly cost is mainly hosting, domain and maintenance, which can be anything from about £15 a month to several hundred for a full management plan.
How much does a WordPress website cost?
WordPress itself is free. You pay for hosting, a domain, any premium plugins and the time to build it. A professionally built small business WordPress site typically costs the same as any other: £500 to £3,000 from a freelancer or studio.
How much does an online shop cost?
Usually more than a brochure site, because of products, payments and delivery rules. Published UK prices for small online shops often start somewhere around £1,000 to £2,000, and agency shops cost much more. Platform and payment fees come on top.
Do web designers charge VAT?
VAT-registered businesses must charge VAT at 20%. Many smaller freelancers aren’t VAT-registered. Always check whether a quote is “+ VAT” or “inc VAT”.
Is a cheap website a false economy?
Not always. A cheap website is a problem when it’s slow, hard to update, invisible on Google or locked to one provider. If a low price comes with clear pages, written copy, basic SEO and a site you control, it can be excellent value.