TL;DR
A small business website in the UK costs anything from a few pounds a month on a builder you set up yourself to £10,000 or more through an agency. One agency's guide puts a freelancer-built site at £2,000 to £6,000 and an agency site at £5,000 to £10,000. On top of the build, budget for a domain, hosting and someone to keep it working. The price gap is mostly the words, the planning and what happens after launch.
Why trust this page: I'm a freelance website designer, so I have an interest here, and I'll say where you shouldn't pay someone like me. Builder and hosting prices come from the makers' own pages in October 2026. Build prices come from a business guides site and a web design agency, which I've labelled, because nobody publishes an independent UK survey.
How much does a website cost in the UK?
A typical small business website costs between about £2,000 and £10,000 to have built, depending on who builds it. A website builder you set up yourself costs £1.99 to £259 a month for the plan. Bigger sites with shops, logins or custom features run from £10,000 upwards. Then add yearly running costs. The figures below show where each number comes from, because most price guides are written by firms selling websites.
You pay in three places, whichever route you take:
- The build: planning the pages, writing the words, the design, the build itself, and the basic search set-up.
- Running costs: domain, hosting, and any platform or plugin fees.
- Upkeep: updates, fixes, new pages, and checking the forms still send enquiries to someone.
Three costs to budget for
Planning, words, design, pages and basic search set-up.
Domain, hosting and any platform or plugin fees.
Updates, fixes, new pages and checks that enquiries get through.
Prices by route
The main routes are doing it yourself on a builder, hiring a freelancer, or hiring an agency. The ranges overlap a lot, and sources disagree: one guide puts a basic site from a designer at £300 to £1,000, while an agency guide puts a freelancer build at £2,000 to £6,000. Both can be true. They describe different sites.
| Route | Typical UK price | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Website builder, set up yourself | £1.99 to £259 a month for the plan | Startups.co.uk, a business guides site |
| Basic site from a web designer | About £300 to £1,000 | The same Startups.co.uk guide |
| Freelancer-built business site | £2,000 to £6,000 | Webpop Design, a London web design agency |
| Agency-built small business site | £5,000 to £10,000 | The same agency guide |
| Ecommerce or feature-rich site | £10,000 to £25,000 | The same agency guide |
| Large bespoke platform | £25,000 to £100,000 or more | The same agency guide |
Read the agency figures as one London agency's view. Other UK guides quote lower ranges, so get more than one quote. If you're comparing day rates instead, Startups.co.uk lists freelance designers at £25 to £50 an hour and small agencies at £50 to £150.
What does a website cost to run?
For a simple business site, running costs can be under £100 a year: a domain at about £8 to £20 a year and hosting from £20 a year, according to Startups.co.uk. A builder platform costs more because the plan includes the hosting and editor. Agency maintenance plans cost the most, but they include someone fixing things for you.
- Domain: £8 to £20 or more a year.
- Hosting: £20 to £300 or more a year, depending on the site and the host. Some static sites can run on a free plan, such as Cloudflare Pages, which allows 500 builds a month on its free tier.
- Builder plans: Squarespace runs from £12 to £89 a month, depending on the plan and whether you pay yearly.
- Maintenance and support: the Webpop Design guide puts this at £80 to £400 a month, plus hosting at £20 to £60 a month.
The cost people forget is time. Someone has to update prices, add case studies, and check the contact form still reaches a real inbox. When I checked small UK firms' sites in October, the same problems kept coming up: case-study menus that led nowhere, old addresses after an office move, placeholder phone numbers, and blogs nobody had touched for years. None of those are expensive to fix. They just need someone to look.
What does a website redesign cost?
A website redesign usually costs about the same as a new site of the same size, because the work is largely the same: planning, words, design and build. The extra job is moving every old page to its new address with a redirect, so you keep the search rankings you already have. Skip that and a redesign can cost you traffic you didn't know you had.
A redesign that only changes the look is cheaper, and often fixes less. If the site already gets visitors but few enquiries, the problem is usually the words, the layout and the next step on each page. That's conversion rate optimisation, and it costs far less than a rebuild. If you do need a new site, my website design page covers how I protect rankings during the move.
Why do quotes vary so much?
Two quotes for "a website" can differ by thousands because they describe different jobs. The biggest differences are who writes the words, how much search planning is done, whether the site needs features like booking or payments, and what happens after launch. Page count matters less than people think. Ask each supplier to list what's included.
- The words. Some quotes expect you to supply all the copy. Writing it is often the slowest part of the job.
- Search planning. Choosing which searches each page should be found for, before the design starts. This is what SEO website design means.
- Features. Booking, payments, job boards, logins and integrations with your CRM all add build time.
- Platform. A template on a builder is quicker than a custom design. WordPress sites need plugins kept up to date.
- After launch. A cheaper quote that bills every later change can cost more over a year than a dearer one with support included.
Freelancer or agency?
A freelancer is usually cheaper for a small business site, because you pay one person rather than an account manager, designer and developer. An agency suits bigger builds that need several specialists working at once. For an owner-led firm that needs a clear site with five to fifteen pages, a good freelancer is normally enough.
The risk with a freelancer is that one person is a single point of failure, so ask who can access the site if they're ill or busy, and make sure you own the domain, hosting account and content. The risk with an agency is paying for layers of management on a small job. My marketing consultant cost guide covers the same trade-off for wider marketing help.
What a website costs with me
I work two ways, and I'll be plain about both. For a one-off site with no help afterwards, 1 Week Sites builds bespoke websites from £1,000, live seven days after the brief is agreed. That's my fixed-price build business. For a site that keeps being improved, it's a monthly plan on garethrswray.com.
On the monthly plan, a full website is a big build. It's included on Growth Desk at £1,950 a month and on Partner at £3,950, and quoted separately on Foundations at £995. Smaller jobs, such as a landing page or a page rewrite, are standard requests on any plan. You own the code, the content and the domain.
A recent example: I built a 29-page site for Unlimitely, a lead-generation agency, live on 23 September 2026 after two sprints. To be clear, that was a service swap, not a paid project. It's written up in the Unlimitely case study.
When I'm not the right fit: if your current site works and only needs new words, start with a page update rather than a rebuild. And if you want a large ecommerce shop, a bigger team will serve you better.
Questions to ask before you pay
- Who writes the words, and how many rounds of changes are included?
- Which searches will each page be planned to be found for?
- Will forms, calls and bookings be tracked from launch day?
- Do I own the domain, the hosting account, the code and the content?
- What will hosting, plugins and the platform cost me each year?
- If it's a redesign, how will old pages be redirected?
- What does a change cost after launch, and how fast is it done?
The practical summary
Expect a small UK business website to cost somewhere between a few pounds a month on a builder and about £10,000 through an agency, with freelancers usually in between. Add a domain, hosting and someone's time to keep it right. Spend the money on the words, the search planning and the tracking, because that's what turns visitors into enquiries. If you're comparing a quote with a full build-and-improve option, see my website design services in Ipswich page, or read what a sales funnel costs if the site needs to feed one.
Not sure whether you need a new site or a few fixes? Ask for a free 15-minute look and I'll tell you the first thing I'd change.
Sources: Startups.co.uk, "How much does a website cost?", updated 23 March 2026; Webpop Design, "How much does web design cost UK", August 2025 (agency-written); Squarespace pricing page; Cloudflare Pages limits page. All checked 21 October 2026. Prices change; check before you buy.
Fair questions
How much does a website cost in the UK?
For a small business, anything from a few pounds a month on a website builder you set up yourself to £10,000 or more through an agency. One London agency's guide puts a freelancer-built site at £2,000 to £6,000 and an agency-built small business site at £5,000 to £10,000. Then budget for hosting, a domain and upkeep every year.
How much does a web designer charge in the UK?
Startups.co.uk lists freelance web designers at £25 to £50 an hour, small agencies at £50 to £150 and large agencies at £75 to £200 or more. Most quote a fixed price for the project instead. Compare what each quote includes, especially the words, the SEO set-up and changes after launch.
How much does a website cost to run each year?
A domain is about £8 to £20 a year and hosting £20 to £300 or more, according to Startups.co.uk. A builder such as Squarespace costs £12 to £89 a month depending on the plan and billing. Agency maintenance plans add more: one agency puts them at £80 to £400 a month.
How much does a website redesign cost?
Usually about the same as a new site of the same size, because most of the work is the same: planning, words, design and build. Add time for moving old pages to new addresses with redirects, so you keep the search rankings you already have. A redesign that only changes the look is cheaper, and often fixes less.
Is it cheaper to build a website yourself?
In cash, yes. Builder plans start at a few pounds a month. The cost is your time and the risk that the site looks fine but doesn't bring enquiries, because the words, structure and tracking were left until later. For a one-page site with one offer, doing it yourself is often fine.
