Website costs, explained
How much does a business website cost in the UK?
Realistically, a proper small business website starts at around £1,000 and can run well into five figures once you add e-commerce, integrations or a large amount of content. Our own packages start at £1,000 for Launch, £3,000 for Growth and £5,000 for Scale, with Custom quoted individually — and every one includes £49/month Managed Hosting & Care so the site keeps working after launch.
Why the range is so wide
"How much does a website cost?" has no single honest answer.
Ask ten providers and you'll get ten different numbers, because a website isn't a fixed product — it's a combination of design, content, structure, functionality and ongoing support, and each of those can be done at wildly different depths.
A £300 build and a £5,000 build might both technically be "a website with five pages", but one has been assembled from a template in an afternoon and the other has been designed around your business, written from a proper conversation with you, and structured so search engines can actually find it.
Rather than guess in the abstract, here are our actual prices, used as a transparent example of where the money genuinely goes.
What we charge, plainly
Our own pricing, as a worked example.
| Package | One-off build | Ongoing (monthly) |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | £1,000 | £49 Managed Hosting & Care |
| Growth | £3,000 | £444 total (hosting + SEO) |
| Scale | £5,000 | £744 total (hosting + SEO) |
| Custom | Quoted individually | Agreed after a conversation |
These are our figures, not the market rate — the full breakdown of what's included in each is on our pricing page. We're using them here as an honest example of how the elements below actually add up.
Cost factors
What actually moves the price.
Page count
A five-page site and a thirty-page site with a service page for every offering are different jobs, however similar they look at first glance.
Copywriting
Someone has to write the words. Doing it properly — interviewing you, drafting, revising — takes real hours, whoever does it.
Design
A templated layout with your logo dropped in costs less than a design built around your business, your customers and how they actually decide.
Functionality
Booking systems, quote calculators, membership areas and custom forms all add build time on top of a standard brochure site.
Integrations
Connecting a CRM, a booking platform or a stock system is usually more involved than it sounds, and it's easy to underquote.
E-commerce
Products, variants, payment processing, shipping rules and stock levels turn a website into a piece of retail infrastructure.
SEO strategy
Keyword research, page architecture and technical foundations built in from the start cost more upfront and tend to pay that back.
Migrations
Moving an existing site with rankings, redirects and years of content is more careful work than starting from a blank page.
Photography and assets
Professional photography, video or illustration is usually quoted separately, and it shows when it's missing.
Ongoing support
Hosting, security, updates and someone to call when something breaks are recurring costs, whether you pay a specific provider or absorb the risk yourself.
No cheap-shots
A £300 website and a £5,000 website aren't the same product.
We're not going to tell you cheap website providers are a scam — plenty of them do exactly what they say on the tin, quickly and affordably, for businesses that need something simple. That's a legitimate choice.
What differs is time and depth: how long someone spends thinking about your customers, how the content gets written, whether the page structure has been planned for search at all, and whether anyone is looking after the site once it's live.
The question isn't "which is better" in the abstract — it's whether the depth on offer matches what your business actually needs right now.
Budgeting sensibly
What should you actually budget?
A sole trader who needs to look credible
A small, well-structured site that answers who you are, what you do and how to get in touch. This sits close to our Launch package at £1,000, plus £49/month for Managed Hosting & Care.
An established small business chasing more enquiries
Separate pages for each service, proper local search foundations and a site built to convert, not just exist. This is roughly where our Growth package sits — £3,000, plus £444/month covering hosting and ongoing SEO.
A growing business with several locations or a wider offer
More architecture, deeper content and ongoing development. Our Scale package is £5,000, plus £744/month ongoing.
Anything with e-commerce, complex integrations or multiple stakeholders
This is quoted individually once we understand the requirements — sensible providers will rarely give you an accurate number without a proper conversation.
None of this replaces an actual quote — see the full pricing breakdown or read about our approach on the web design page.
Before you ask
Website cost questions, answered plainly.
More on packages and what's included on our pricing page.
Next step
Want an actual number?
Tell us what you need first.
Send us a rough idea of your business and what the website needs to do. We'll tell you honestly which package fits, and why.