Nobody publishes their prices, so every business owner starts this process blind. You get one quote for £400, another for £12,000, and both agencies swear theirs is the right way to do it. Neither is lying, they're just selling completely different things.

Here's the honest breakdown we wish someone had given our clients before they came to us. Real ranges, what's behind them, and the questions that actually determine your number.

The short answer

For a UK small business in 2026:

• £300 to £900, DIY-adjacent: a template site on Wix or Squarespace, set up for you by a freelancer. Fine for a placeholder; rarely generates leads.
• £1,500 to £5,000, a professionally designed brochure site: 5 to 10 pages, custom design, mobile-first, basic SEO foundations. This is where most small businesses should start.
• £5,000 to £15,000, a conversion-focused site with content strategy, proper SEO architecture, copywriting, and custom features (booking systems, calculators, member areas).
• £15,000+, web applications, e-commerce with complex logic, multi-location platforms, or sites where the website is the business.

If a quote sits far outside these bands, ask why. There are legitimate reasons, but you should hear one.

What actually drives the price

Four things move the number more than anything else:

1. Who's doing the work

A freelancer with two years of experience and an agency with a senior team will quote wildly different numbers for the same brief, and deliver wildly different outcomes. You're not paying for pages; you're paying for the judgement of whoever decides what goes on those pages. Cheap judgement is the most expensive thing you can buy.

2. Custom design vs template

A template costs less because the design decisions were made by someone who has never heard of your business. That's fine for some businesses. But if your market is competitive, looking like three of your competitors is a real cost, it just doesn't show up on the invoice.

3. Content: who writes it?

The biggest hidden variable. "Website" quotes often assume you will supply all the copy. Most businesses can't, not well, anyway, and the project stalls for months waiting on words. If copywriting is included, the price goes up and the site actually launches. Ask explicitly.

4. What "SEO included" actually means

Every quote says SEO is included. For some, that means title tags and a sitemap (an afternoon's work). For others, it means keyword research, search-intent mapping, page architecture designed around what your customers search for, and content written to rank. The first is table stakes. The second is why some sites get found and others don't. The price difference is real and justified.

The trap: paying twice

The most expensive website is the one you have to build twice. We see this pattern constantly:

1. Business buys the £600 site to "get something up"
2. Eighteen months later, it's generated zero enquiries
3. Business pays properly the second time, but has now spent the cheap site's cost plus eighteen months of lost leads

If the website matters to how you win customers, the cheap option isn't a saving, it's a deferral with interest. If it genuinely doesn't matter (you win all your work by referral and just need to exist online), say so out loud and buy accordingly. Both are valid. Mixing them up is what hurts.

Ongoing costs nobody mentions

The build price is not the whole price. Budget for:

• Hosting: £10 to £50/month for most business sites. (Modern platforms like Vercel or managed WordPress hosting. If someone quotes £200/month for hosting a brochure site, ask hard questions.)
• Domain: £10 to £30/year.
• Maintenance: software updates, security patches, small content changes. Either a monthly plan (£50 to £250/month) or pay-as-you-go.
• Growth work: SEO, content, paid ads, if you want the site to actively generate leads rather than just exist. This is a separate budget, and for most businesses it should eventually exceed the build cost. That's not upselling; that's how the sites that dominate local search got there.

Questions to ask before you sign anything

• Who owns the website, domain, and content when we part ways? (The answer must be you.)
• Is copywriting included, or am I supplying the words?
• What does "SEO included" mean, specifically?
• What does a typical project of mine look like in month 6, after launch?
• Can I see a site you built two years ago that still performs?

We wrote more about choosing the right partner in our guide to picking a design agency, and if your current site exists but isn't producing, start with why your website isn't generating leads before you commit to a rebuild you might not need.

What we'd tell a friend

Decide what the website is for before you ask what it costs. "More enquiries from people who've never heard of us" is a different project from "somewhere to send people who already know us", the right budget for one is the wrong budget for the other.

If you want a straight answer on your specific situation, talk to us. We'll tell you what we'd build, what it costs, and, just as honestly, if you don't need us yet.