I’ll be straight with you. I’m a freelance web designer who earns his living building websites, so I have an obvious interest here. But that’s exactly why I’m the right person to write this. I’ve been building WordPress websites for over a decade, I’ve completed 55+ projects, and I see the real invoices — not the inflated agency quotes or the misleading “from just £99” ads.
Every article about how much a website costs starts with “it depends.” And yes, it does. But unlike most of those articles, I’m going to give you actual numbers. My numbers. What I charge, what other freelancers charge, what agencies charge, and what you’ll really spend once you factor in the bits nobody mentions upfront.
By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly how much you should expect to pay for a website in the UK in 2026 — and more importantly, what you should actually get for that money.
The Quick Answer: How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026?
Here’s a straightforward breakdown of what a website costs in the UK right now, depending on who builds it:
- DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace): £10 – £40 per month (plus your own time)
- Freelance web designer: £800 – £5,000
- Small agency: £3,000 – £15,000
- Large agency: £10,000 – £100,000+
I sit firmly in the freelancer bracket. My WordPress websites start at £800 and the most complex ecommerce projects come in around £2,000 to £3,000. For most small businesses in the UK, that freelancer range is the sweet spot — you get a custom, professional website without paying for an agency’s office rent, account managers, and project coordinators.
Those agency costs aren’t inflated for dramatic effect, by the way. I regularly speak to business owners who’ve been quoted £8,000 to £12,000 for a 10-page WordPress site that I’d build for a fraction of that. The work is the same. The overheads are not.
But the headline cost of building the website is only part of the picture. Let me break down everything that actually affects what you’ll pay.
What Affects How Much It Costs to Build a Website
When I quote for a project, these are the factors that move the price up or down. Understanding them will help you work out a realistic budget before you speak to any designer.
Number of Pages
This one’s obvious but worth stating. A five-page brochure site for a local plumber costs less than a 30-page site for a multi-service construction company. More pages means more design, more content, and more time. My starter package covers five pages, which is enough for most small businesses — a homepage, about page, services page, portfolio or gallery, and a contact page.
Custom Design vs Templates
There’s a significant difference between a designer starting from a blank canvas and a designer installing a pre-built theme and swapping in your logo. Custom design costs more because it takes more skill and more time, but the result is a site that actually looks like your business rather than a template shared with thousands of other websites.
All of my projects use custom design. I don’t reskin templates and call it a day.
Ecommerce Functionality
The moment you need to sell products online, the complexity jumps. An ecommerce website requires product page design, a shopping basket, a checkout process, payment gateway integration, shipping configuration, inventory management, and tax calculations. That’s why ecommerce sites cost more than brochure sites — there are simply more moving parts to build and test.
Content Creation
This catches a lot of people out. A web designer builds and designs your site, but someone needs to write the content and provide the images. If you can supply well-written text and decent photographs, you’ll save money. If your designer needs to write all the copy from scratch or source professional photography, expect to pay more.
I always advise clients to have a go at writing their own content first. You know your business better than anyone. I can then tidy it up and optimise it for search engines as part of the build.
SEO Setup
A website that nobody can find on Google is an expensive business card. Basic SEO setup — page titles, meta descriptions, heading structure, image optimisation, XML sitemap, Google Search Console — should be included as standard in any professional website build. If a designer quotes you for a website and then charges extra for “SEO” to make it show up on Google at all, that’s a red flag.
Ongoing SEO work — content strategy, link building, technical improvements — is a separate monthly service and a separate cost. But the foundations should be baked in from the start.
Complexity of Features
Booking systems, member login areas, property search tools, customer portals, integrations with third-party software — every additional feature adds development time. If you’re a restaurant that needs an online reservation system linked to your table management software, that’s going to cost more than a basic contact form.
Be honest with yourself about what you actually need at launch versus what would be nice to have later. You can always add features down the line.
Ongoing Maintenance and Hosting
Your website isn’t a one-time purchase. It’s more like a house — you pay to build it and then you pay to maintain it. Hosting, domain renewal, security updates, plugin updates, backups, and occasional content changes are all ongoing costs. I’ll cover these in detail further down.
My Pricing Explained: What You Actually Get
I believe in being transparent about what I charge. Here are my three main packages with a full breakdown of what’s included in each.
Starter — £800
This is a five-page WordPress website. It includes custom design (not a reskinned template), mobile responsive layout that works on every device, a contact form, basic SEO setup so Google can find and index your site, and one round of revisions after the initial build.
Who it’s for: Sole traders, tradespeople, and small businesses that need a professional online presence without the bells and whistles. If you’re a plumber who needs a simple five-page site that shows your services, your area, your reviews, and your phone number — this is the one. It’s also ideal for new businesses that need to get online quickly with a solid foundation they can build on later.
Professional — £1,500
This is my most popular package. It covers 10+ pages with custom design throughout, advanced SEO setup including keyword research and optimised page structure, Google Analytics integration so you can track your visitors, a blog setup ready for content marketing, and two rounds of revisions.
Who it’s for: Established small businesses that want a website capable of genuinely generating leads. If you’re a law firm with multiple practice areas, a construction company covering several service types, or any business where you need dedicated pages for different services and locations — this is the right level. The SEO work included here means you’re building a site designed to rank, not just exist.
Ecommerce — £2,000+
This is a full ecommerce build on WooCommerce. It includes custom product page design, payment gateway setup (Stripe, PayPal, or both), shipping configuration with rate calculation, inventory management, and everything from the Professional package. The “plus” reflects the fact that ecommerce complexity varies — a shop with 20 products is a different proposition to one with 500 products and variable pricing.
Who it’s for: Anyone selling physical or digital products online. If you’re running a handmade jewellery business, a specialty food shop, or any retail operation that needs a proper online store — not a bolt-on afterthought — this package covers it.
You can see examples of all three tiers in my portfolio.
Website Builder vs Freelancer vs Agency: An Honest Comparison
I could just tell you to hire me and be done with it. But the truth is, different solutions suit different situations. Here’s my honest take.
When a DIY Website Builder Is Fine
Squarespace and Wix have got genuinely good in recent years. If you fall into any of these categories, a website builder might be all you need:
- You’re testing a business idea and aren’t sure it’ll last
- You have more time than money right now
- You only need a very simple one-page or portfolio-style site
- You enjoy designing and are happy to spend the time learning the platform
- You don’t rely on Google search traffic for leads
Squarespace in particular produces attractive websites if you’re willing to work within their templates. There’s no shame in starting here. Plenty of successful businesses began with a DIY site and upgraded later when they could afford to.
When You Need a Freelance Web Designer
If your business depends on its website generating leads, enquiries, or sales — and you don’t have the budget for an agency — a freelancer is the right call. You should consider hiring a freelancer when:
- You need a custom design that reflects your brand, not a template
- You want your site to appear in Google search results for relevant terms
- You need ecommerce functionality that actually works properly
- You want a single point of contact who knows your project inside out
- Your budget is roughly £800 to £5,000
Working with a freelancer means you talk directly to the person building your site. There’s no game of telephone through account managers and project coordinators. When you email me, you get me — not a junior developer I’ve delegated to.
When You Might Need an Agency
Agencies make sense for larger projects with genuine complexity. If you need a website integrated with enterprise software, a custom web application (not just a website), a large team working on design, development, copywriting, and video production simultaneously, or ongoing retainer work with a full team available — then an agency might be the right fit. But for the vast majority of small businesses in the UK? An agency is overkill, and the cost reflects that.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Tells You About
The price of building the website is the big number everyone focuses on. But there are a handful of other costs that catch people by surprise. None of them are extortionate, but they add up if you don’t budget for them.
Domain Name
Your web address (yourbusiness.co.uk or yourbusiness.com) costs roughly £10 to £15 per year. You buy it once and renew it annually. My one piece of advice: register the domain yourself so you own it. Don’t let a designer register it on their account — I’ve seen businesses lose access to their own domain name because it was tied to a developer they’d fallen out with.
Hosting
Your website needs to live on a server somewhere. Hosting costs typically range from £5 to £30 per month depending on the type and quality. I’ll cover this in more detail in the hosting section below.
SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is what makes your site show “https” and the padlock icon. The good news: with any decent hosting provider in 2026, SSL is included for free via Let’s Encrypt. If someone is trying to charge you £50 to £100 per year for an SSL certificate, question it.
Premium Plugins
WordPress is free. Many plugins are free. But some of the best ones charge annual licences. A premium forms plugin might cost £50 per year. A good SEO plugin (like Rank Math Pro) might be £60 per year. An advanced page builder licence could be £50 to £100 per year. Your designer should tell you upfront which premium plugins they’ll be using and what the ongoing licence costs are.
Stock Photography
If you don’t have your own professional photos, you’ll need stock images. Individual stock photos typically cost £5 to £20 each, or you can get a subscription to a stock library. Better still, invest in a professional photographer to shoot your premises, your team, and your work. It costs more upfront but looks significantly better than generic stock imagery.
Email Hosting
A professional email address (you@yourbusiness.co.uk) is separate from web hosting. Google Workspace starts at around £5 per user per month. Microsoft 365 is similar. This is a small cost but one that new business owners often overlook.
Future Updates and Changes
Your website will need changes over time. New services, updated pricing, staff changes, seasonal promotions. Some designers include a certain number of updates per month in a maintenance plan. Others charge per change. Clarify this before you sign anything. My maintenance packages are designed to cover exactly this — I’ll explain them below.
How Much Does Website Hosting Cost?
Hosting is the ongoing monthly cost of keeping your website online and accessible. Think of it as renting the space your website lives in. Here’s what the different tiers look like in the UK:
Shared Hosting: £3 – £10 per month
Your website shares a server with hundreds or thousands of other websites. It’s cheap and fine for low-traffic brochure sites, but performance suffers when the server is busy. Providers like SiteGround, Starter plans from Krystal, and others offer shared hosting in this range.
Managed WordPress Hosting: £10 – £30 per month
This is the level I recommend for most of my clients. Managed WordPress hosting means the hosting company handles WordPress-specific optimisation, security, automatic backups, and updates. The server environment is tuned specifically for WordPress, so your site loads faster and runs more securely. Providers like 20i, Krystal, and SiteGround all offer managed WordPress plans in this price range.
For most small business WordPress websites, managed hosting at around £15 to £25 per month hits the right balance of speed, reliability, and value.
Premium/Dedicated Hosting: £50+ per month
High-traffic ecommerce sites, membership platforms, and websites with thousands of daily visitors may need dedicated server resources. Unless you’re processing hundreds of orders a day or running a media-heavy site with serious traffic, you probably don’t need this.
One thing to watch out for: some designers offer “free hosting” bundled into a monthly fee. Read the fine print. If you’re paying a designer £50 per month for hosting and maintenance, find out what happens to your website if you stop paying. Can you take the site and host it elsewhere, or are you locked in? I always make sure my clients fully own their website and can take it wherever they like.
How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost in the UK?
A WordPress website isn’t a “build it and forget it” product. WordPress itself, your theme, and your plugins all receive regular updates. Ignoring these updates leads to security vulnerabilities, broken features, and eventually a site that stops working properly.
Website maintenance in the UK typically costs between £30 and £100 per month, depending on what’s included. Here’s what maintenance should cover:
- WordPress core updates — applied promptly and tested to make sure nothing breaks
- Plugin and theme updates — same as above, checked for compatibility
- Security monitoring — firewall management, malware scanning, brute force protection
- Regular backups — daily or weekly, stored offsite so you can recover from any disaster
- Uptime monitoring — so you know immediately if your site goes down
- Minor content changes — updating text, swapping images, adding new team members
- Performance checks — making sure your site continues to load quickly as content grows
If you’re comfortable updating WordPress yourself and have basic technical confidence, you can handle some of this on your own. But most of my clients prefer to hand it off. They’d rather focus on running their business than worrying about whether their plugins need updating.
My own maintenance packages start at a level that covers all the technical essentials — updates, backups, security, and a set number of content changes each month. Get in touch if you want the specifics for your situation.
How Long Does It Take to Build a Website?
Since we’re talking about costs, timelines are directly relevant. A five-page brochure site typically takes me two to three weeks from start to finish. A more complex 10-15 page professional site usually takes three to five weeks. An ecommerce build can take four to eight weeks depending on the number of products and complexity of the setup.
The biggest variable isn’t the design or development — it’s content. The single most common cause of project delays is waiting for text, images, and feedback from the client. If you have your content ready when the project kicks off, the whole thing moves significantly faster.
Is a Cheap Website Worth It?
This is the question I get asked more than any other, usually phrased as “my mate knows someone who’ll do it for £200” or “I found someone on Fiverr for £150.”
Here’s my honest answer: sometimes a cheap website is fine.
If you’re launching a side project and just want a basic online presence to point people to, a £10 per month Squarespace site will do the job. If you need a simple landing page for an event, there are tools that’ll create one for free. Not every situation demands a £1,500 custom build.
But if your business depends on your website to generate leads, sell products, or build credibility with potential clients — a cheap website will cost you more in the long run. Here’s why:
- Cheap sites don’t rank on Google. If no thought has gone into SEO, your site is invisible. You’ll end up paying for ads to get the traffic that a properly built site would generate for free.
- Cheap sites don’t convert visitors into customers. A poorly designed site with a confusing layout, slow loading times, and generic stock photos doesn’t inspire trust. Visitors leave and find a competitor with a more professional online presence.
- Cheap sites break. Inexperienced developers often use poorly coded themes and plugins. Six months in, something stops working, and the developer who charged you £200 isn’t answering emails.
- You end up paying twice. I’ve lost count of how many clients have come to me after spending money on a budget website that didn’t work, only to spend again on a site that does. If you’d invested properly the first time, you’d have spent less overall.
A website is a business investment, not an expense. A £1,500 site that brings in even one new client per month has paid for itself within weeks for most businesses.
What About WordPress Website Costs Specifically?
Since I build exclusively on WordPress, here’s a quick breakdown of WordPress-specific costs in the UK:
- WordPress software: Free. Always has been, always will be.
- WordPress theme: Free themes are available, premium themes cost £30 to £80 (one-time purchase). If your designer builds a custom theme for your site, the cost is built into the design fee.
- Essential plugins: Many are free. Premium plugins (SEO tools, form builders, page builders, security) typically cost £30 to £100 per year each. A typical professional WordPress site might use three to five premium plugins, costing £100 to £300 per year in total.
- Managed WordPress hosting: £10 to £30 per month as discussed above.
- Professional design and development: £800 to £5,000+ with a freelancer, depending on complexity.
WordPress powers over 40% of websites globally. It’s not the only option, but it’s the one I recommend for small businesses because it’s flexible, well-supported, and you genuinely own your content. Unlike Wix or Squarespace, if you want to move hosting providers or switch designers, you can take your WordPress site with you.
How to Get the Best Value When Investing in a Website
After building 55+ websites over the past decade, here’s my practical advice for getting the most from your budget:
1. Know What You Need Before You Ask for Quotes
The more specific you can be about what you want, the more accurate the quote will be. “I need a website” is too vague. “I need a five-page site with a contact form, a services page, and integration with my Google reviews” gives a designer something to price accurately.
2. Prepare Your Content Early
Write your page text, gather your photos, and organise your portfolio images before the project starts. This saves time, which saves money. It also prevents the project dragging on for months while content trickles in.
3. Don’t Pay Monthly for Something You Can Own
Some designers charge £50 to £100 per month for a website on a rolling contract. Over three years, that £50 per month “affordable” website costs you £1,800 — and you don’t own it at the end. I charge a one-off fee, build you a site you own outright, and then you choose whether you want ongoing maintenance separately. No lock-in, no hostage fees.
4. Invest in SEO From Day One
Building a website without thinking about search engine optimisation is like printing business cards and leaving them in a drawer. Every page should be structured with relevant keywords, proper headings, and meta descriptions. This should be standard practice, not an expensive add-on.
5. Ask to See Portfolio Work
Before you hire anyone, look at their previous projects. Do the sites load quickly? Do they look professional on mobile? Are they actually live and working? A designer’s portfolio tells you everything you need to know about what you’ll get for your money.
6. Check Reviews
Genuine client reviews are the best indicator of what it’s actually like to work with a designer. Not testimonials on their own website that could be fabricated — look for Google reviews, Trustpilot, or similar platforms. I’ve got 51 five-star reviews from real clients, and every single one is verifiable.
The Bottom Line: What Should You Budget?
If you’re a small business in the UK looking for a professional website in 2026, here’s what a realistic total budget looks like in the first year:
For a starter brochure website:
- Website design and build: £800
- Domain registration: £12
- Hosting (12 months): £150 – £300
- Email hosting (12 months): £60 – £100
- Total first year: roughly £1,000 – £1,200
For a professional business website:
- Website design and build: £1,500
- Domain registration: £12
- Hosting (12 months): £180 – £300
- Premium plugins: £100 – £200
- Email hosting (12 months): £60 – £100
- Maintenance (12 months): £360 – £600
- Total first year: roughly £2,200 – £2,700
For an ecommerce website:
- Website design and build: £2,000+
- Domain registration: £12
- Hosting (12 months): £240 – £360
- Premium plugins: £150 – £300
- Email hosting (12 months): £60 – £100
- Payment gateway fees: varies by provider
- Maintenance (12 months): £480 – £720
- Total first year: roughly £3,000 – £3,500+
Year two onwards is significantly cheaper because you’re only paying the ongoing costs — hosting, maintenance, and plugin renewals.
These are genuine numbers. Not the lowest possible, not the highest. Just what it actually costs to have a properly built, professionally designed website that works for your business.
Ready to Find Out What Your Website Would Cost?
If you’ve read this far, you’re serious about getting your website right. I respect that. Here’s what I’d suggest as a next step.
Get a free mockup of your new website. No commitment, no sales pitch. I’ll put together a visual concept of what your site could look like so you can see the quality before you spend a penny. If you like it, we’ll talk about the project properly. If you don’t, no hard feelings.
Or if you’d prefer to have a straightforward conversation about your project and what it would cost, drop me a message. I reply to every enquiry personally — usually the same day — and I’ll give you an honest quote with no surprises.
I’m Spencer Thomas, a freelance web designer based in Brighton. I’ve built 55+ WordPress websites, I’ve got 51 five-star reviews, and I don’t do agency fluff. Just honest work at honest prices.
