Why quotes vary so much
Two businesses can ask for “a website” and need completely different things. One wants five pages that explain what they do and make the phone ring. The other wants online booking, a customer login and a hundred product pages. The price follows the work, so the first thing any honest quote does is pin down what the site actually has to do.
The main things that move the price are:
- Number of pages, and how much of each page is unique design rather than a repeated template.
- Whether the design is custom or adapted from a theme. Custom work costs more and looks like you; themes are cheaper and look like everyone else using them.
- Who writes the words and takes the photos. Copywriting and photography are often the slowest, most underestimated parts of a project.
- Features: booking, quotes, payments, customer portals, integrations with software you already use.
- Search set-up: proper titles, structured data, local pages and speed work, or just “a site that is online”.
- What happens after launch: hosting, backups, updates, security and small changes.
Rough UK ranges, by type of build
These are broad market ranges rather than a price list, and they move with location and the size of the company you hire. A London agency with a project manager and a studio of ten will quote differently from a one or two person studio. Treat them as a sanity check for whatever quote you are looking at.
| Type of build | Typical range | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Do-it-yourself builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy) | £10–£40 a month, plus your time | Testing an idea; very small budgets; you enjoy fiddling with it |
| Template site set up by a freelancer | £500–£2,000 | A simple presence quickly, where looking distinctive matters less |
| Custom-designed small business site (5–15 pages) | £2,000–£8,000 | Trades, clinics, local services and professional firms that want to win enquiries |
| Larger or more complex sites (booking, portals, e-commerce, many pages) | £8,000–£25,000+ | Businesses where the website does real operational work |
The jump from the second row to the third is mostly about design quality, speed, and how seriously search is taken. The jump to the fourth row is about software: once a site has to take bookings, hold customer data or process payments, it becomes a small application and is priced like one.
The ongoing costs people forget
- Domain name: usually £10–£20 a year for a .co.uk, renewed annually. Make sure it is registered in your name, not your designer’s.
- Hosting: anything from a few pounds a month for a small, fast static site to £50 or more for sites with databases and heavy traffic.
- Care and maintenance: updates, backups, security monitoring and small content changes. Commonly £30–£150 a month depending on what is included.
- Email: a professional mailbox on your own domain is typically £5–£10 a month per user.
- Renewals for any paid plugins, themes or licences the site depends on. Ask for a list before you sign off.
Questions to ask before you pay anyone
- Will I own the domain, the website files and every account (Google, hosting, analytics) at the end? The answer should be an unqualified yes.
- What exactly is included in the price, and what counts as an extra?
- Who writes the copy and sources the photos, and is that time in the quote?
- Will it be fast on a mobile phone? Ask to see a Lighthouse or PageSpeed score for a site they built recently.
- What search work is included: titles and descriptions, structured data, local pages, a sitemap, Search Console set-up?
- What happens after launch if something breaks or I need a change?
- Can I see three sites you built, and can I talk to one of the owners?
Warning signs
- A price before anyone has asked what the site needs to do.
- Monthly plans where you never own the site and lose it if you stop paying.
- “SEO included” with no detail about what that means.
- A portfolio that all looks the same, or that is made of templates with the demo content barely changed.
- No written scope. If the brief changes, the price will too; that is fair, but only if the original scope was written down.
How we quote
We give a fixed price in writing after a short call, itemised so you can see what each part costs and take parts out if you need to. Everything is set up in your name from day one, and ongoing hosting and care is a separate monthly fee you can stop at any time. If you want a number for your own project, the quickest way is to tell us what you need and we will come back with a quote.