Buyer's guide
How much does a business website cost?
Most UK small business websites cost between £3,000 and £10,000 from an agency, or roughly £2,000 to £8,000 for a simpler brochure site. The range is wide because nobody agrees what "a website" includes.
By Claire Donnelly · Last reviewed 11 August 2026 · 5 min read
The short version
- Most small business sites land between £3,000 and £10,000 when built by an agency
- Published ranges disagree wildly, because "a website" is not one defined thing
- Budget roughly 15–20% of the build cost each year to keep it running
- Content is the most underestimated cost and the most common cause of delay
- What happens after launch is where quotes differ most, so compare that first
The honest answer, and why it is a range
Published UK guides put a brochure site at roughly £2,000 to £8,000, a small business website at £3,000 to £10,000, and a small online shop nearer £5,000 to £15,000. Freelancers generally charge £30 to £60 an hour, agencies £50 to £100 outside London and £100 to £200 within it.
Those ranges are broad, and if you read three guides you will get three different sets. That is not evasion on anybody’s part. It is that “a website” describes a one-page site built from a template and a fifty-page site with a booking system, and the same two words are used to quote both.
So the useful question is not what a website costs. It is what decides where in that range yours lands – and that is almost entirely scope.
What actually drives the number
How many designs, not how many pages. Price follows the number of distinct page layouts. Twenty pages sharing four templates is a much smaller job than eight pages each drawn from scratch.
Whether it is bespoke or a theme. Starting from a purchased theme is quicker and cheaper, and constrains what you can do. Drawn from scratch costs more and fits your business properly. Both are legitimate; they are not the same product.
Who writes the content. Words, photographs and structure take real time, and this is where most projects overrun.
What it has to talk to. A contact form is trivial. A booking system, a payment provider, a stock feed or a CRM integration each add work and testing.
Whether anyone is thinking about search. Building structure, speed and headings in from the start costs little. Retrofitting them later costs a great deal.
What to judge a quote on
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1. Who writes the words
Content is the single most underestimated cost and the most common reason a build overruns. A quote assuming you will supply finished copy for every page is cheaper on paper and slower in practice, because the site then waits on you.
Red flag: Content is not mentioned at all, or "client to supply copy" appears with no deadline attached
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2. How many page designs you are actually buying
Price tracks unique layouts rather than page count. Ask how many distinct designs are included and what an extra one costs, so that adding a section later is a known number rather than a negotiation.
Red flag: A quote priced per page with no mention of how many designs sit behind them
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3. Who owns the site, the domain and the hosting afterwards
You should own your domain and your content outright and be able to move the site to another provider. Some builds sit on a proprietary platform you cannot take with you, which only becomes apparent on the day you want to leave.
Red flag: Ownership is not stated, or the site runs on a platform licensed to you monthly
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4. What happens after launch, and what it costs
Hosting, updates, plugin versions, certificates and backups all continue after the invoice. A build price that goes quiet at launch is not the full price, and the ongoing figure is easier to agree before you have committed.
Red flag: No mention of maintenance, or a reassurance that it "won't need much looking after"
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5. How many rounds of changes are included
Revision limits are where fixed-price projects turn into arguments. Two rounds is a normal allowance. Find out what happens on the third, and what counts as a round rather than a passing comment.
Red flag: Unlimited revisions, which in practice tends to mean an unlimited timeline too
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6. Whether search is built in or sold to you later
Page structure, heading hierarchy, load speed and internal links are far cheaper to get right during the build than to correct afterwards. A site delivered without them often needs paid work within the year to fix what should never have happened.
Red flag: Search quoted as a separate project beginning after the site has gone live
The part of the bill that never stops
A website is not a one-off purchase. Hosting, a domain renewal, a certificate, plugin and platform updates, backups and the occasional fix all continue for as long as the site is live. A common rule of thumb is to budget somewhere around 15 to 20 per cent of the build cost each year.
Skipping it is the most expensive saving in this article. An unmaintained WordPress site is how most hacked small business sites get hacked, and a rebuild after that costs more than the maintenance would have.
Get these in writing before comparing
- The number of unique page designs, and the price of one more
- Exactly who writes the copy and who sources the images
- The ongoing monthly or annual cost, itemised
- Who owns the domain, the hosting account and the finished site
- How many rounds of revisions are included
- What the timeline assumes you will deliver, and by when
- What happens if you want to move the site elsewhere in two years
Common questions
Why is one quote £1,500 and another £9,000?
Usually scope rather than quality. The cheaper one is often a theme with your logo and colours, your own copy, and no ongoing support. The dearer one is typically drawn from scratch, written for you, and maintained afterwards. Both can be the right answer - but they are not the same purchase.
Is a template site a false economy?
Not necessarily. For a small business that needs a credible presence and a contact form, a well-chosen theme built properly is sensible. It becomes a false economy when the business needs something the theme cannot do, and the cost of forcing it exceeds what bespoke would have been.
Should we pay monthly instead of up front?
Monthly plans spread the cost, which genuinely helps cash flow. Check what happens at the end: whether you own the site, whether the payments stop, and what the total is over three years. Sometimes it is good value and sometimes it is a rental with no finish line.
How long should a website take?
Most business sites take a couple of months from brief to launch, and the variable is almost always content rather than design or development. Projects that slip nearly always slip waiting for words and photographs.
Do we need to pay for SEO separately?
The structural part should be in the build. Ongoing work - content, links, competing for particular search terms - is a separate, continuing activity, and it is reasonable for that to be quoted apart from the site.
Written by Claire Donnelly
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