The honest answer is: anywhere from nothing to £50,000+, and both ends of that range can be the right answer depending on what you actually need.
Most "how much does a website cost" articles bury the numbers under endless caveats. This one won't. Here's a plain breakdown of what you'll pay, what you'll get, and where the hidden costs sit.
Option 1: DIY website builders (Wix, Squarespace, etc.)
Cost: £0–30/month ongoing, roughly £200–360/year
If you've got a simple business — a local service, a sole trader offering one or two things — a Wix or Squarespace site is completely legitimate. You'll pay nothing upfront and somewhere between £10 and £25/month depending on the plan. That's it.
What you get: a template-based site you build yourself, with your own domain (which you'll need to buy separately, around £10–15/year), basic SEO tools, and hosting included in the subscription. It looks decent out of the box and it's live in a day.
The limits hit when you want anything custom. Unique functionality, a specific design that doesn't look like everyone else using the same template, serious performance optimisation, or anything that needs real integrations — the platform either can't do it or locks it behind expensive add-ons. You also don't own the code, so if you want to move away later, you're starting from scratch.
Option 2: A freelancer or small studio (like D4N)
Cost: £1,500–8,000 to build, plus £50–200/year for hosting and domain
This is where most small businesses land when they want something professional without paying agency prices. A one-person shop or small studio will charge per project, scope it properly, and build something custom.
At the lower end (£1,500–2,500), you're getting a straightforward brochure site — typically four to six pages, a contact form, and a solid design. It'll be responsive, load fast, and won't look like a template. Good for service businesses, tradespeople, consultants.
Mid-range (£2,500–5,000) covers more pages, a content management system so you can update the site yourself, blog functionality, booking enquiry forms, or light e-commerce. This is where most small businesses with real requirements end up.
At the upper end (£5,000–8,000), you're getting significant custom functionality — a full e-commerce setup with inventory management, a customer portal, a booking system with payment integration, or an unusually complex design. These take longer to build properly.
Hosting and domain are separate from the build cost. Expect to pay £50–150/year for decent managed hosting, £10–15/year for a .co.uk domain renewal. Some studios roll this into an ongoing retainer; others hand it over and let you manage it.
Option 3: A full-service agency
Cost: £10,000–50,000+
Agencies have account managers, project managers, designers, and developers, all of whom need to be paid. You're funding that overhead. For a large business or a complex build — something with serious e-commerce, custom API integrations, or enterprise-scale content — that overhead can be worth it. For most small businesses, it isn't.
A common mistake is paying agency prices for a job that a good freelancer or small studio handles daily. If you're quoted £15,000 for a five-page website, that's not unusual from an agency. It's also not necessary.
What actually affects the price
Whether you're talking to a freelancer or a studio, these are the things that move the number:
- Number of pages. A ten-page site takes longer than a five-page site. Simple.
- Custom functionality. An enquiry form is cheap. A booking system that syncs with a calendar and takes deposits is not. A full e-commerce shop with product variants, stock management, and discount codes is a significant project in its own right.
- Content management. If you need to update the site yourself — adding blog posts, changing prices, swapping images — you need a CMS. That's extra work to build and configure.
- Design complexity. A clean, professional site built on a solid design system is faster to build than a highly bespoke visual direction with custom animations and illustrations.
- Content. Writing copy, sourcing or creating photos, producing any video — this is often separate from the build cost. If you can't supply it, expect to pay for it.
What should be standard, not a premium
Any competent developer building your site in 2026 should include the following without charging extra for them:
- Responsive design — works properly on phones, tablets, and desktops
- SSL certificate (the padlock in the browser) — free via Let's Encrypt, takes five minutes
- Basic on-page SEO — page titles, meta descriptions, structured headings, image alt text
- Fast loading — compressed images, clean code, a sensible hosting setup
- A contact form that actually delivers emails
If anyone is trying to charge you extra for "mobile-friendly design" or "SSL security" as add-ons, they're selling you something that should be a baseline.
The hidden costs to know about
The build price is only part of what you'll spend. Watch for these:
- Domain renewal. Typically £10–15/year for a .co.uk. Cheap, but it'll lapse and kill your site if you forget to renew it.
- Hosting. Free hosting is usually slow, unreliable, or covered in ads. Budget £50–120/year for something decent.
- Ongoing maintenance. Software needs updating. If your site runs on WordPress, the plugins and theme need regular updates or it becomes a security liability. Some developers charge a monthly retainer (£30–150/month) to handle this; others do it as needed. Know which model you're on.
- Content changes. If you can't edit the site yourself, every change costs you an hourly rate. Either get a CMS built in from the start, or expect to pay £50–150 per round of changes.
- Email. A professional email address ([email protected]) isn't usually included in a website build. Google Workspace starts at around £5/user/month.
So what should a small business actually budget?
If you're a small service business wanting a professional site that performs well, looks good, and you can trust: budget £2,000–4,000 for the build, and allow £150–200/year ongoing for hosting, domain, and basic maintenance. That's the realistic number for a job done properly.
If you need e-commerce, start at £4,000 and go up from there depending on complexity. If you genuinely just need a placeholder with your phone number and opening hours, a Squarespace template is fine. And if you're weighing up whether you need a website, an app, or both, that's a separate question worth thinking through.
The mistake most businesses make isn't spending too much — it's spending too little on the wrong thing. A £500 site from someone who'll disappear in six months is worth less than nothing if it looks amateurish or breaks within a year.
Want a straight answer on what your website will cost? Tell us what you need and we'll give you an honest quote — no discovery calls, no inflated day rates, no waffle. Take a look at our work to get a sense of what we build, then get in touch and describe what you're after →