How Much Do Professional Websites Cost? UK Breakdown
A professional small business website in the UK usually costs £1,500 to £8,000 as a one-off project, or a setup fee followed by a monthly fee that covers hosting and upkeep. Simple brochure sites can come in under £1,000 from a freelancer. Custom work and shops run higher, and the figure that matters is the build plus what you keep paying after launch.
What you are actually paying for
A professional website is not a template with your logo dropped in. You pay for planning, structure, design that fits the business, a build that works on a phone, working forms, analytics, and a handover you can run. Labour is most of the bill. Hosting and software licences are the smaller part.
In the UK a competent freelancer or small studio typically charges £250 to £550 a day. A straightforward small business site takes 8 to 20 days once you include planning, design, build, content fitting, testing and launch. That is why most owners pay £2,000 to £8,000. Larger agencies with account managers sit higher. A marketplace quote of £300 is usually a template reskin, not a planned site.
Typical UK price bands
These are market ranges I see quoted to small businesses, excluding VAT. Use them as a sense check, not a menu.
| Type of site | Typical one-off (ex VAT) | Monthly-style alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Simple brochure, 4 to 6 pages | £800 to £2,000 | Setup fee, then about £30 to £70 a month |
| Small business site, 8 to 12 pages, forms, news | £2,000 to £5,000 | Setup fee, then about £50 to £120 a month |
| Booking, quotes or directory features | £3,000 to £7,000 | Higher monthly, because the upkeep is real work |
| Small shop, under 50 products | £3,500 to £10,000 | Varies; platform fees often sit on top |
If a quote sits far below the band, ask what was left out: original layout, a real mobile version, forms, basic on-page SEO, handover, or file ownership. If it sits far above, ask what extra is in: illustration, complex booking, membership, or links to a till or CRM.
One-off builds and pay-monthly plans
A one-off build means a project fee, you own the site, and you buy hosting and updates separately. That suits you if the budget is there now and you want a defined end.
Pay-monthly plans take a setup fee, then a monthly price that includes hosting, updates and ongoing management. That suits small businesses without a large upfront budget, and it stays hands-off if you do not want to touch hosting panels. Before you sign, check who owns the domain, whether you can take a copy of the site if you leave, and the notice period.
I offer both a one-off website build and a pay-monthly plan. Current figures are on arlowebstudio.com.
Costs that sit outside the design fee
- Domain name: typically £8 to £15 a year for a .co.uk or .com.
- Hosting: £8 to £30 a month for a small business site that is not a huge shop. Shared hosting at £2 a month often buckles once you add a CMS and backups.
- Business email: £5 to £12 per mailbox per month on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Free forwarding from your host is fine for a catch-all, not for running a business.
- SSL certificate: usually included with decent hosting. Do not pay a separate £50 to £90 a year unless you have a specific reason.
- Copy: if you cannot supply words, budget £200 to £1,000 for a copywriter, depending on page count.
- Photos: a half-day shoot often runs £200 to £500. Stock is cheaper but looks like stock.
- Ecommerce extras: card fees around 1.4% to 2.9% plus about 20p per transaction, product photos, and often a higher hosting tier.
- VAT at 20% if the designer is VAT-registered. Many sole traders are not. Always ask.
Over three years, hosting, email and small updates often add £1,000 to £3,000 on top of a one-off build. A cheap build with neglected hosting is rarely the saving it appears to be.
What pushes a quote up or down
Page count matters less than people think. Ten thin pages cost less than five pages with booking, logins or a catalogue. The usual cost drivers are:
- Unclear goals. If you cannot say who the site is for and what they should do, the designer has to guess, and guessing takes days.
- No content. Building around placeholder text then refitting real words later is almost a second project.
- Design from scratch versus a solid customised theme. Fully unique art direction costs more. That is justified for some brands and wasted money for a local trade business that needs calls and form fills.
- Integrations. Linking to Xero, a booking tool, an email platform or a shop system adds testing time.
- Ecommerce. Even a small catalogue needs product structure, shipping rules, VAT and payment testing. Budget from about £3,500, not the brochure-site figure.
- Accessibility and speed. Readable contrast, keyboard use, compressed images and clean code take longer than dragging blocks in a page builder. That work also helps search engines and keeps the site usable.
Professional work versus a website builder
Wix, Squarespace and similar tools cost £12 to £40 a month. That is a software subscription, not the cost of a professional website. You still do the design, writing, mobile checks and SEO yourself. Plenty of small businesses run happily on a builder. It becomes expensive when you hit the limits: you cannot export the site cleanly, extra apps stack up at £8 to £20 each per month, and hiring someone later to tidy it often means a rebuild.
A professional build should leave you with something you can move. Ask who the hosting account is in, where the domain is registered, and whether you get the files or CMS access. If the answer is vague, you are renting a shopfront, not buying one.
How to get quotes you can compare
Send the same brief to two or three people. Keep it short and specific:
- What you do, where you trade, and who you want to reach.
- The pages you know you need, listed.
- What a visitor should do (call, book, buy, enquire).
- Whether you have a logo, photos and words ready.
- Any tools it must connect to.
- Whether you want a one-off project or a monthly managed plan.
- Your deadline, if you have a real one.
Ask each quote to split design, build, content and anything monthly. Ask what is excluded. Ask for examples of sites at a similar budget, not the designer's showpiece from a much larger project. A useful quote names the CMS, who owns the domain, how updates work, and what support looks like in the first 30 days.
Frequently asked questions
Can a professional website really cost under £1,000?
Sometimes, if the site is four or five simple pages, you supply all the words and photos, and you accept a customised theme rather than unique art direction. Below about £600 you are usually buying a template skin. Check what you own at the end.
Is paying monthly cheaper than a one-off build?
Over one year, monthly often costs less cash up front and a similar or slightly higher total. Over three to five years a one-off build plus ordinary hosting is often cheaper, provided you actually keep the site updated. Monthly wins if you want hosting, updates and management included and you do not have the capital now.
Should the design quote include hosting?
Only if it says so. Many one-off quotes are design and build only. Hosting is then £8 to £30 a month extra. Pay-monthly plans usually wrap hosting into the monthly fee. Get that split in writing so you can compare like with like.
Why do online shops cost more than brochure sites?
A shop needs product structure, shipping, tax, payment testing and a more careful hosting setup. Card fees then take a cut of every sale. In the UK, a small catalogue often starts around £3,500 to £10,000 to build, not the brochure-site band.
If I pay monthly, do I own the website?
It depends on the contract, not the payment method. Ask who the domain is registered to, whether you can export the site, and what you pay if you cancel. If those answers are fuzzy, assume you are renting.
How many quotes do I need?
Two or three is enough if they are based on the same brief. More than that and you will spend a week comparing unlike scopes. Ignore the cheapest and the most expensive until you know what is in them.