An honest guide
First, a disclosure: I'm Gordon Hill, I run a one-person web studio in Wiltshire, and I sell one of the options below. I'd rather tell you that in the first sentence than let you work it out by paragraph six. The numbers here are the market's, with sources, and they're the same numbers I'd give a friend.
The short answer: anywhere from about £100 a year to £15,000+, depending on who builds it. The longer answer is that the build price is only half the story - websites also cost money to run, and that's the half most quotes leave out.
Website builders like Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy run from about £3.99 to £30 a month (Startups.co.uk keeps a current comparison). The subscription is honest; the hidden cost is your evenings. If you enjoy this sort of thing and your needs are simple, it's a perfectly good route. Most business owners I meet started here and stopped updating the site within six months - not because the tool failed, but because they have a business to run.
The standard range for a small business site from a UK freelancer (GoDaddy's UK guide and others put it at £500–£3,000). You get a custom site and a human relationship. The risk isn't the build, it's year two: freelancers move on, and an unmaintained WordPress site ages badly. If you go this route, agree up front who looks after it later.
Red Eagle's 2026 guide puts a professional small-business site from a regional agency at £2,000–£6,000, with London and complex builds going well past £10,000. For established companies with brand work, integrations or serious ecommerce, this is the right tool. For a five-page site for a local business, you're paying for the agency's overheads as much as your website.
A newer model: no upfront build cost, one monthly fee covering design, hosting and upkeep. The UK market runs from about £24.99 to £249 a month. It solves the real problem with routes 2 and 3 - the site actually gets looked after - but the small print varies wildly. Before signing anything, check three things: contract length (some lock you in for 12–24 months), ownership (some plans are rentals forever), and setup fees (a "£25 a month" plan with a £299 setup fee is not £25 a month).
Whatever route you take, a website costs money to keep alive.
| Running cost | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Hosting | £5–£50 a month |
| Domain name | £8–£20 a year |
| Email at your own domain | £0–£6 a month per inbox |
| SSL certificate | Free–£100 a year |
| Maintenance & updates | £50–£300 a month if bought separately |
That last line is the one that surprises people: UK agencies charge £40–£150+ a month just for maintenance - on a site you already paid to build. So a "£1,500 website" is really £1,500 plus £600–£1,800 a year to run properly, or it's £1,500 and quietly rotting.
A good provider on any model answers all six without flinching.
Vague answers to question 2 are the single biggest red flag in this industry.
My version is the pay-monthly model with the small print removed: £30 a month (or £300 a year) covering design, hosting, email, domain, security and every day-to-day change - and you see a free preview of your site before you pay anything at all. No setup fee, no minimum term. It's not for everyone: if you need an online shop or a bespoke platform, that's a properly quoted project instead, and I'll tell you so.
For a straightforward small-business site in the UK: £500–£3,000 upfront from a freelancer, £2,000–£6,000 from a regional agency, or £25–£90 a month on a pay-monthly plan. Pay more than that only when the site does more - selling, booking, integrating.
Budget £150–£700 a year for a DIY or freelancer-built site (hosting, domain, email, SSL) - plus either your own time or £50–£300 a month for professional maintenance. All-in monthly plans bundle these, which is usually cheaper than buying the parts separately.
Shared hosting from £1–£5 a month - fine for a simple site if someone keeps an eye on it. Cheap hosting with nobody watching it is how sites end up slow, hacked or offline, which is why hosting is better bought as part of someone's job than as a line item. Hosting & care →
Your business name is enough to start a free preview. A rough brief is enough to start a quote.