How much does a website cost?

The short answer

Anywhere from £600 to £50,000+.

That’s what our websites cost, and we know how unhelpful it sounds. It’s a bit like asking how much a van is. Are we talking about a tidy second-hand runabout, or a fleet with your name down the side?

In the UK, a small, simple site can cost a few hundred pounds. A large site that sells online and talks to the rest of your business can run well into five figures. The gap comes down to how much the site has to do, and how much of people’s time it takes to do that properly.

This little book covers what moves the price, what you’re really paying for, what it costs after launch and how to avoid being overcharged. There’s a finder in the middle to show you roughly where you’d sit.

By the ZERO FAFF team, Durham. Updated November 2026.

Contents

What’s in the book

1. Why are website prices all over the place?3
2. Seven things that move the price6
3. Find your place on the scale8
4. What are you actually paying for?10
5. What does a website cost after launch?12
6. DIY, freelancer or agency?14
7. Is a cheap website a false economy?16
8. Eight questions to ask before you pay18
9. Good questions, straight answers20
10. What happens next22

Chapter one

Why are website prices all over the place?

Because “a website” can mean a market stall or a department store.

Both are shops and both sell things, but nobody would expect them to cost the same to open. One needs a table and a sign. The other needs a building, a team and a stock system.

Websites are the same. That’s why you can ask three companies for a price and get answers thousands of pounds apart. Sometimes one of them is overcharging, but more often they’re each picturing a different website, because nobody has pinned down what it needs to do.

So before you compare prices, compare what’s included. A quote that’s half the price might be for half the website.

Try it

Drive down the high street

Four sizes of website

Which one are you?

• The market stall

  A page or two: who you are, what you do and how to reach you. Quick to set up, and often all a new business needs. This is the £600 end.

• The corner shop

  A handful of pages about your services, designed around your brand, with an enquiry form and the basics set up for Google. Plenty of local businesses need nothing bigger.

• The high street store

  A bigger site that does more of the work: taking bookings, selling online, publishing articles and linking up with the tools you already use.

• The department store

  Thousands of products or pages, customer logins, custom features and several systems joined up, with a team working on it for months. This is the £50,000+ end.

Chapter two

Seven things that move the price

1. 1. What it has to do

   This is the big one. A site that tells people about you is simple. A site that takes bookings, payments or logins is doing a job, and every job has to be built and tested.

2. 2. How many different pages

   It’s the different layouts that cost money, not the page count. Fifty service pages sharing one layout can be simpler than ten that are all unique.

3. 3. Template or designed from scratch

   A template gets you going quickly and for less, but others may look much the same. A design from scratch fits your brand and customers, and takes far longer to make.

4. 4. Words and pictures

   Are you supplying them, or do you need a copywriter and a photographer? Good words often do more for enquiries than anything else on the page.

5. 5. Selling online

   Shops bring payments, delivery, stock, refunds and tax, and all of it needs testing with real orders. A few products is one job. Thousands of them is quite another.

6. 6. Connecting your other tools

   Linking the site to your CRM, bookings, stock or accounts saves time every day. More systems, or older ones, mean more work.

7. 7. Who’s building it

   Doing it yourself, hiring a freelancer and hiring an agency all cost different amounts, and include different things. Chapter six compares them.

Chapter three

Find your place on the scale

Answer six quick questions, and watch your website build itself as you go. It won’t give you a price, because only a proper conversation can do that, but it’ll show you where you’re likely to sit.

Chapter four

What are you actually paying for?

Mostly, people’s time. A website is seven jobs stacked on top of each other. Hover or tap a layer to pull it out.

Seven jobs in one website

1. Working it out

   Who’s it for, what should they do, and what goes on each page? Skip this and you pay for it later.

2. The words

   What it says, and how it answers what your customers are really asking.

3. The pictures

   Photos, graphics and illustrations: new, stock or your own.

4. The design

   How it looks on a phone and a laptop, and how easily people find their way around.

5. The build

   Turning the design into a fast, working site, plus any bookings, shop or connections.

6. Getting found

   Page titles, speed, structure and tracking, so Google can read it and you can see what’s working.

7. Testing and launch

   Checking it on real phones and laptops, then going live without losing your place on Google.

Chapter five

What does a website cost after launch?

The build is rarely the last bill. A website is more like a van than a painting: it needs a bit of looking after to keep running.

For a small site, these running costs are usually modest. A busy online shop will pay far more. Either way, they should be in the conversation before you sign, not a surprise a year later.

Our ledger has the usual suspects, with rough UK guides where we can give them. These are general figures, and they’ll vary by provider.

Tick each one your quote already covers. Whatever’s left unticked is worth a question.

Chapter six

DIY, freelancer or agency?

Good and bad come in all three. A great freelancer beats a poor agency every time, so judge the work and the answers you get, not the label.

The honest bit

Too small for an agency?

Not for us. We’d rather build you the right size of website than talk you into a bigger one.

• You’re testing an idea. A website builder is a cheap way to find out if anyone wants what you’re selling. Or we can build you something simple at the £600 end, so you can get on with the selling.
• You love tinkering, and have the time. Those builders are good now, so just count your hours honestly. If it stops being fun, we’re happy to take it on.
• Most of your work comes through word of mouth. A simple one-pager may be all you need for now, and we’ll happily build that too.

Chapter seven

Is a cheap website a false economy?

Not always. A simple site at the £600 end can be exactly right if it’s fast, clear and says the right things. We’d rather you spent the rest on getting customers.

Cheap turns expensive when the site looks fine but doesn’t bring in work, when you can’t change it without paying again, or when you don’t really own it and have to start from scratch to leave.

An expensive website isn’t automatically better either. Every pound should be doing a job, whether that’s saving staff time, selling more, or winning bigger customers.

Warning signs in a quote

• No list of what’s included
• Promises of first place on Google
• You don’t own the domain or the site
• A monthly fee with no end date or exit
• No examples of real, working sites

Try it

Will it pay for itself?

The better question isn’t what a website costs, but how many new customers it takes to cover it. Put your own numbers in.

20 new customers and it’s paid for itself.

These are your numbers, not a quote. Remember to allow for running costs too.

Chapter eight

Eight questions to ask before you pay

Ask these of anyone quoting for your website, including us. Tick them off as you go.

1. What exactly is included?Get it page by page, with the words and photos spelled out.
2. Who owns the website and domain?The answer you want is you, in writing.
3. What will it cost each year after launch?Ask for a figure, not “not much”.
4. How many rounds of changes do I get?And what do extra ones cost?

5. Can I see sites you’ve built?Open them on your phone. Are they quick and easy to use?
6. What will you do for Google?Ask for specifics. Run from anyone promising first place.
7. Can I update it myself?If not, how much and how quickly will you do it?
8. What happens if I want to leave?Can you take the site with you, and is there a fee?

0 of 8 asked.

Good questions, straight answers

What people ask us

The final chapter

What happens next

You’ve read the book. Getting an actual figure for your website takes three steps, and the first one is just a chat.

1. A quick chat

   Tell us about your business and what you need your website to do. No hard sell, no faff.

2. A plan and a fixed price

   We come back with what we’d do and what it costs, up front, so there are no surprises.

3. We build it, you check it

   Nothing goes live until you’re happy. Then we can look after it, so you can get back to running your business.