How much does a website cost for a small business in the UK?

Guide · Updated 3 July 2026 · Written by James

Ask five web designers for a quote and you'll get five wildly different numbers, anywhere from £150 to £15,000. None of them are necessarily wrong. This guide explains what sits behind those numbers, what a small local business actually needs, and how to spot a quote that's going to cost you more than it says.

The short answer

For a typical UK small business in 2026, a professionally built brochure website (home, services, about, contact) usually lands between £250 and £1,500 as a one-off, plus running costs of roughly £10 to £40 a month for hosting and upkeep. Below and above that range, you're trading something: your own time at the bottom end, or agency overheads at the top.

What you're actually paying for

A website quote bundles several jobs into one number: design, the build itself, writing or shaping your content, setting up your domain and hosting, and making sure Google can find the thing. Cheap options make you do most of those jobs yourself. Expensive options add project managers and meetings. The price differences make a lot more sense once you see it that way.

Option 1: DIY website builders (£0 to £30 a month, plus your evenings)

Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and friends. The adverts say free; in practice a usable plan with your own domain runs £10 to £30 a month, which is £360 to £1,000 over three years.

The real cost is time. Expect a weekend or three of fighting templates, and an ongoing niggle that it never quite looks right. That trade can be worth it if you're pre-revenue and need something up this week. It stops being worth it the moment your time is better spent running the business.

Option 2: A freelancer or small studio (£250 to £1,500)

This is the sweet spot for most local businesses. You get a site designed around your business rather than a template, someone accountable for the result, and usually a faster, lighter site than a builder produces. At this level the person quoting is often the person building, so ask them direct questions: who writes the copy, who sorts the domain, what happens after launch.

Within the range, page count and features move the number. A five-page site with a contact form sits at the lower end. Online booking, a gallery, a blog, or ten-plus pages push it up.

Option 3: An agency (£2,000 to £10,000+)

Agencies are built for bigger jobs: e-commerce with hundreds of products, brand strategy, custom web applications, marketing retainers. They do good work. But a big chunk of an agency invoice pays for the agency itself, and a four-page site for a plumber does not need a discovery workshop. If your requirements fit on a page of A4, you're probably paying for process you don't need.

The ongoing costs nobody mentions up front

• Domain name: £10 to £20 a year. Always register it in your own name, whoever builds the site.
• Hosting: £5 to £30 a month depending on how managed it is. Managed hosting means someone else worries about SSL certificates, backups, and downtime.
• Maintenance: optional but sensible. Content tweaks, security updates, and small fixes, either pay-as-you-go or £30 to £100 a month on a care plan.
• Email: a professional address (you@yourbusiness.co.uk) via Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is £5 to £12 per user per month, and worth every penny for credibility.

Five red flags when comparing quotes

• The domain isn't registered to you. Some providers hold your domain hostage. If you leave, you lose your web address. Refuse this.
• "Free website" with a long contract. £40 a month for 36 months is a £1,440 website. Do the multiplication before signing anything.
• No mention of who owns the site. When the invoice is paid, the code and content should be yours. Get it in writing.
• Vague deliverables. "A stunning modern website" is not a spec. Page count, features, revisions, and timescale should all be written down.
• Nothing about mobile or speed. Most local traffic is on phones. If a quote doesn't mention responsive design or performance, the builder isn't thinking about it.

Where we sit, for transparency

Brava Digital is a one-person Norwich studio. A complete five-page site is £249, a larger build with booking and extra features is £499, and managed UK hosting starts at £30 a month. Those numbers are on the pricing page rather than hidden behind a "request a quote" form, because guessing games help nobody. You own the site and the domain outright, whichever package you pick.