A small business website in the UK usually costs between £500 and £5,000 to build, plus somewhere between £10 and £50 a month to keep online. Where you land depends on two things: who builds it, and how much it has to do.
That’s a wide range, so here’s what sits behind it, what the monthly costs actually cover, and what to ask before you pay anyone.
The short answer
| Option | To build | Each month |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself (Wix, Squarespace) | £0, plus your time | Wix is £9 to £25 for most small businesses, paid yearly |
| Freelancer | Around £500 to £3,000 | £10 to £50 for hosting, sometimes more with support |
| Small agency | Around £3,000 to £10,000 or more | Often £50 or more for hosting and support |
These are typical ranges, not quotes. A one-page site for a plumber sits at the bottom of any of them. A site with online booking, forty pages and two languages sits at the top.
What you’re actually paying for
The price of a website is mostly time. The main things that take it:
- Pages. Each service, location or product page needs writing, laying out and checking on a phone. Five pages is roughly five times the work of one.
- Design. A template with your logo dropped in is quick. A design made around your business, your photos and your customers takes longer and usually converts better.
- Words. If you write the text yourself, it’s cheaper. If the designer writes it, it’s usually better for Google, because they know what people search for.
- Getting found. Page titles, descriptions, a Google Business Profile and the technical setup Google needs. Some people include this, some charge extra, some skip it.
- Extras. Online booking, a shop, a members area or a second language all add time.
How much does a website cost per month?
This is the part that catches people out. Once the site is built, you’ll pay for some or all of these:
- Domain name. Your .co.uk or .com address, usually around £10 to £20 a year.
- Hosting. The server your site lives on. Cheap shared hosting can be a few pounds a month; managed hosting with backups and support costs more.
- Email on your domain. An address like you@yourbusiness.co.uk. Sometimes included with hosting, sometimes a separate subscription.
- Security certificate. The padlock in the address bar. Usually free now, but someone has to make sure it renews.
- Updates and small changes. New prices, opening hours, photos. Either you do it, or someone does it for you.
On a website builder like Wix, most of this is bundled into the plan. Wix’s UK plans run from about £9 to £25 a month for most small businesses, and more for their top plan, when paid yearly. Paying monthly costs a bit more.
How much does a website cost per year?
Add the monthly cost times twelve to the domain renewal. For a typical small business site, that’s somewhere between £150 and £600 a year once it’s built. If someone quotes you a lot more than that for hosting a simple site, ask what’s included.
What a website really costs over three years
The build price is the number everyone compares, but it’s only part of the bill. Most small business sites run for three to five years before they need a rebuild, so it’s worth adding it all up over that time.
Here’s a five-page site at my prices, over three years:
| Cost | |
|---|---|
| Build, up to five pages | £1,500 |
| Hosting and care, 36 months at £25 | £900 |
| Domain renewal, three years at about £15 | £45 |
| Total over three years | £2,445 |
That works out at about £68 a month for a site you own outright, with someone keeping it running and making your changes. Do the same sum for any quote you’re given. A £500 build with £50 a month on top comes to £2,300 over the same three years.
Watch out for “nothing upfront” deals
Some companies offer a website for £0 upfront and a monthly fee, often £50 to £150 a month on a two-year contract. It sounds easier on cash flow, and sometimes it is. Check three things before you sign:
- What happens when the contract ends. With many of these deals the site stays theirs. Stop paying and it goes offline, and you start again.
- Who owns the domain. If it’s registered in their name, so is your web address, your email and everything Google knows about you.
- The total. £99 a month for 24 months is £2,376, often for a template site.
If the answer to the first two is “you own it”, it can be a fair deal. If not, you’re renting.
Costs that get missed
A few things rarely appear on the first quote:
- Photos. Good photos of your work, your premises and you make more difference than almost anything else on the page. Stock photos are cheap or free, but they look like everyone else’s.
- Paid plugins and themes. WordPress sites often rely on premium plugins with yearly licences. They add up, and if they lapse, things stop updating.
- Booking or shop systems. Tools like booking calendars and online shops usually have their own monthly fee or a cut of each sale, on top of the website.
- Your own time. Writing the words and gathering photos is the part that slows most projects down. A designer who writes the words with you saves more time than it sounds.
Why the cheapest option often costs more
A £200 website can be a good deal. It often isn’t, for three reasons.
-
You don’t own it. Some cheap packages keep your domain in their name, or build on a system you can’t move away from. When you want to leave, you start again.
-
It isn’t set up for Google. A site nobody finds is a brochure in a drawer. If the price doesn’t include the basics for search, you’ll pay for them later.
-
It doesn’t work on a phone. Most people looking for a local business are on their phone. A site that’s fiddly on a small screen loses them in seconds.
A cheap site that brings in nothing is the most expensive website you can buy.
What to ask before you pay anyone
- Who owns the domain name, and is it registered in my name?
- If I leave, can I take the site with me, or do I start again?
- What exactly does the monthly fee cover?
- Is the Google setup included, or extra?
- How will it look on a phone?
- How long will it take, and what do you need from me?
Any good designer will answer all six without hesitating.
Websites in Wales: what’s different
Most of this applies anywhere in the UK, but two things are worth knowing if you’re in Wales.
A Welsh version costs extra, and it’s usually worth it. A bilingual site needs every page translated and both versions set up properly for Google, so it costs more than an English-only site. How much depends on how many words you have. For businesses serving Welsh speakers it’s often the thing that sets you apart, because very few small business sites in Wales are fully bilingual. I’ve written more about it on the bilingual websites page.
Free help with Welsh exists. The Welsh Government’s Helo Blod service helps businesses use more Welsh, including free translation of short pieces of text. It won’t translate a whole website, but it’s useful for signs, menus and social posts.
What I charge
I’d rather be upfront, so these are my prices. A one-page website is from £900. A small business site with up to five pages is from £1,500. A larger site with up to ten pages is from £2,200, and extra pages are £150 each. Welsh translation for a bilingual site is quoted separately.
Hosting and maintenance is £25 a month, with no minimum term. That covers hosting, email on your own domain, the security certificate, nightly backups, monitoring, and small text and photo changes each month. Your domain renewal is charged separately once a year, and you own your domain and your site. Most sites are live within a week of getting your content. The full list is on the pricing section.
Not sure what your current site needs? Run the free website check. It tests your site’s speed on a phone and a computer, and shows what’s worth fixing before you spend anything.
If you’re still deciding whether a website is worth it at all, read do I need a website for my business? And if you already have one that nobody seems to find, start with why your website isn’t showing up on Google.
