How much does a website cost in the UK? Honest numbers for 2026.
Quotes for the same website can range from £300 to £30,000. Here is what actually drives the price, what each bracket really buys you, and the questions that save you thousands.
Ask five agencies what a website costs and you will get five numbers that have nothing to do with each other. That is not because anyone is lying. It is because 'a website' can mean anything from a one-page template to a custom online store with booking, payments and a content plan behind it. So here are the real brackets, with no fog.
The brackets, honestly
- Under £500: a template, your logo dropped in, and very little thought about how work actually reaches you. Fine as a placeholder. Rarely wins customers.
- £850 to £1,500: the sweet spot for most small businesses. A properly designed site, copy written for you, SEO foundations in place, live in days not months. This is where our Launch (£850) and Core (£1,500) builds sit.
- £2,500 to £5,000: brand-led builds, online stores, booking systems and client portals. Our Signature builds and online stores start at £2,750.
- £10,000 and beyond: custom platforms and large agency teams. Real costs at this level are mostly meetings. Very few small businesses need this.
What actually moves the price
Four things: how many pages genuinely need designing, whether you sell online, who writes the copy, and who is accountable after launch. Everything else, animations, fancy footers, the lot, is detail work inside those four. If a quote cannot explain itself in those terms, it is a number pulled from the air.
The questions that save you money
- Is the price fixed in writing before work starts? Day rates are how £2,000 becomes £6,000.
- Who owns the site, domain and accounts? The answer must be you, from day one.
- What happens after launch? Hosting, security and updates should be a clear monthly figure, not a mystery invoice.
- When will it go live? Weeks is a normal answer. Months is a warning sign for a small business site.
A cheap website that wins no work is the most expensive kind there is.
Our own numbers, for the record: Launch sites are £850 fixed, Core is £1,500, Signature builds and online stores start from £2,750, and care plans run from £79 a month. Every figure is agreed in writing before we start and does not move. If you want a straight answer on your specific project, a 15-minute call costs nothing.