Search “how much does a website cost?” and you’ll find answers from £12 a month to £60,000. Both are technically true. Neither is much help, and you end up asking which one is right.
If you’re a founder, an SME owner or a charity manager trying to set a budget, that’s maddening. So here’s a plain-English guide: typical ranges, what actually moves the price, and what to ask before you sign anything.
Why is there such a huge range?
Because “a website” isn’t one product. It’s closer to “a vehicle”. A bicycle and a delivery van both get you somewhere, yet you wouldn’t compare the invoices.
The price depends on what you’re asking the site to do, who builds it, and how long it needs to keep working for you. Let’s take a deep dive into it, shall we?
What are the main options, and what do they cost?
These figures come from published UK guides, so treat them as ballparks, not quotes. Most were written for the market in early 2026, and prices vary by region and by studio.
| Route | Typical cost | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify) | Roughly £12 to £20 a month at the entry level; plans run up to £119 (Wix) and £259 (Shopify) a month | Testing an idea, very simple needs, tight budgets |
| Freelancer | £1,000 to £3,000 for a 5 to 10 page small business site; £2,000 to £5,000 for a custom WordPress or WooCommerce build | Clear, contained projects with someone you trust |
| Agency | £3,000 to £12,000 for a brochure site; £5,000 to £15,000 for standard e-commerce | Sites that need strategy, design, build and marketing working together |
Source figures are from Kwiboo’s January 2026 breakdown. Other guides publish wider ranges (one puts web designer builds at £4,000 to £60,000+), which tells you how much depends on scope.
What actually drives the price up?
Four things do most of the damage:
- Custom functionality and integrations. A contact form is cheap. A booking system that talks to your CRM, your payment provider and your email tool is not.
- E-commerce. Products, stock, shipping rules, tax, discount codes and checkout testing all add up.
- Who you hire, and where they are. One guide reports London agencies charging 65% to 280% more than regional ones for comparable work. Same pixels, different postcode.
- How important the site is. If it brings in most of your revenue or donations, you’ll want proper testing, performance work and support. That costs more than a brochure you update twice a year.
Notice what’s not on the list: how many pages you have. Page count matters less than people think. A tidy 30-page site built from reusable components can cost less than a fiddly 8-page one full of bespoke animations.
What are the costs nobody mentions?
The build is the headline. The running costs are the small print.
- Domain: around £10 to £15 a year for a .co.uk.
- Hosting: roughly £7 to £12 a month for shared hosting, or £9 to £18 a month for managed WordPress.
- Maintenance and support: £25 to £50 a month for the basics, or £100 to £500 a month if you want security monitoring, content updates and performance work.
- Overall: one guide puts a typical small business site at around £500 to £2,500 a year to run.
And if you’re moving off a free platform, migration can start from around £500. Budget for it.
I’ve lost count of the times someone has told me, “We got a great price on the build, and then discovered nobody was looking after it.”
Quick wins vs bigger changes
Want to keep costs sensible without cutting corners? Here’s how we’d split it.
Quick wins (cheap, immediate)
- Write your brief down. Even one page. Vague briefs produce padded quotes.
- Decide what the site is for. Enquiries? Sales? Donations? One main job beats five vague ones.
- Gather your content early. Delayed words and photos are a classic cause of overruns.
- Ask for itemised quotes. You can’t compare two numbers you can’t see inside.
Bigger changes (worth planning for)
- Phase the project. Launch a lean, well-built version first and add features once real visitors tell you what they need.
- Choose a platform you can actually run. A CMS your team can edit saves you paying for every typo fix.
- Budget for care after launch. A site is a working tool, not a poster.
- Build in performance and accessibility from day one. Retrofitting is almost always dearer. We’ve written about accessibility and website carbon if you want the detail.
Is the cheapest option ever the right one?
Sometimes, yes. If you’re validating an idea and need something live this week, a website builder is a perfectly sensible choice. No shame in it.
The trouble starts when a “temporary” site quietly becomes the thing your whole business relies on. At that point you may be rebuilding anyway, so the cheap option cost you twice. Pick for where you’re heading, not just where you are today.
What should you ask before you accept a quote?
A short checklist you can steal:
- What exactly is included? Pages, design rounds, content, training, testing.
- What’s not included? Photography, copywriting, migration, integrations.
- Who owns the site and the code when we finish?
- What will it cost to run each year? Hosting, support, updates.
- How will you measure whether it’s working?
- How do changes get priced once we’re mid-project?
A good studio will answer these happily. If you get fog, that’s information too.
Progress, not perfection
You don’t need a perfect budget before you start talking to people. You need a rough shape: what the site must do, what you can spend, and what can wait. Everything else gets sharper in conversation.
How we handle pricing at Duology
We quote transparently, itemise what’s in and out, and tell you plainly when a cheaper route would serve you better. One small team, one invoice, no surprises. Every quote is tailored to you - see our services for what we offer.
Want a straight answer for your project?
If you’d like a realistic range for your site, book a free 30-minute call. No pitch, no pressure. We’ll ask a few questions, tell you what we’d expect it to cost and where you could save, and you can take that away whether or not we work together.
Sources
- How much does a website cost in the UK? A 2026 breakdown, Kwiboo (22 January 2026)
- How much does a website cost for a small business?, Startups.co.uk