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

Price ranges at a glance

Freelancer and agency ranges are from Bark’s 2026 UK web design price guide. Bark also reports that the average web design job booked through its platform costs £250, and in the South East jobs range from £170 to £1,200.

Building it yourself

Website builders are the cheapest option in cash and the most expensive in time. You choose a template, write the words, add photos and set up the domain, forms and Google listing yourself.

Shopify’s price is from its UK pricing page. The others come from UK review sites because the builders showed us prices in dollars, so check the current price in your own browser. Monthly billing costs more than paying annually, often by 30% to 60%.

Freelancers and agencies

Paying someone means the site is designed around your business, and the setup work is done for you. Prices depend mostly on how many pages you need, whether the design is custom or based on a template, whether you sell online, and whether you supply the words and photos.

Here are published prices from UK web designers, including some local to Sussex:

Our price is low because we use a proven page structure, a fast build process and a monthly plan that covers our ongoing costs. Larger custom projects are priced the normal way.

Running costs every year

• Domain name: often £0.01 to £5 in the first year, then about £7 to £19 a year to renew. Check the renewal price, which is what you pay every year after.
• Hosting: basic shared hosting from about £4 to £7 a month; managed hosting from a freelancer usually starts around £10 a month.
• SSL certificate: free with most builders and hosts.
• Business email: Google Workspace Business Starter is about £5.90 per person a month on an annual plan, and Microsoft 365 Business Basic about £5.40, both excluding VAT.
• Care or maintenance plan: Bark puts these at £50 to £300 a month. Published small business plans start lower, from about £29 to £49 a month.

GoDaddy’s worked example for a designer-built site comes to £5,315 in the first year and about £815 a year after that. A DIY site on a builder might cost £100 to £300 a year in total.

Costs people miss

Who owns the domain

Make sure the domain is registered in your name, or your company’s. For a .uk domain you can check the registrant with Nominet’s lookup tool. If a designer registers it in their own name, moving away later can be slow or expensive.

Minimum contracts and lock-in

Some low upfront prices come with a 12-month minimum, or a rule that the site must stay on the designer’s hosting. That is fine if it is stated clearly. Ask what happens when the term ends, whether you can take the site files, and what it costs to leave.

Words, photos and extra pages

Copywriting and photography are often extra, and extra pages are commonly charged at £20 to £175 each. If you can write a paragraph about each service and take decent photos of your work on a phone, you save money and the site sounds like you.

VAT

Some prices include VAT and some do not. If you are not VAT registered, you cannot claim it back, so compare the full price.

Which option suits you

• DIY builder if you have more time than money, enjoy setting things up, and are happy to handle Google, forms and updates yourself.
• A fixed-price starter site if you are new or small, need something professional quickly, and want someone else to host and maintain it. This is what our Founders’ Offer is for.
• A freelancer or agency custom project if you need an online shop, bookings, integrations, lots of pages or a design built from scratch.

Whichever you choose, get the price, the renewal costs, the contract length and domain ownership in writing before you start. Our free website brief template helps you get quotes you can compare.