How Much Does a Website Cost in the UK? 2026 Prices for Small Businesses

The usual website cost UK small businesses face, as of October 2026, is £100 to £600 a year if you build it yourself on a website builder, £500 to £3,000 for a freelancer, and roughly £1,500 to £8,000 or more for an agency. An online shop usually starts around £2,000 to £3,000 and can pass £20,000. Those ranges come from UK web design firms that publish their pricing (The Sequence, Vooba, Devnwork), and they line up closely with each other.

The build price is only half the answer. Every website also has running costs: a domain, hosting, security updates and someone to make changes. Over three years those can cost more than the build itself. This guide puts the upfront and yearly costs of each route side by side, lists the extras that catch people out, and shows what you should expect to get for your money.

Website cost in the UK at a glance

All figures are in pounds, usually excluding VAT, and were checked in October 2026. Follow the links for each source's details.

Route	Upfront cost	Ongoing cost	Best for
DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)	£0 plus your time	£100 to £600 a year (Devnwork)	Sole traders, a simple first site
Freelancer, template-based site	£500 to £3,000 (Vooba)	Hosting and care, about £360 to £600 a year (The Sequence)	A 3 to 10 page brochure site
Agency, professional small business site	£1,500 to £4,000 (The Sequence), up to £8,000+ (Vooba)	£360 to £1,800 a year, depending on how often you need changes (The Sequence)	Businesses that rely on the site for enquiries
Pay-monthly website	Often little or nothing	£49 to £199 a month (Healy Web Design)	Owners who prefer a predictable monthly bill
Ecommerce website	£2,000 to £20,000+ (The Sequence)	Platform fees, apps and card fees (see below)	Selling products online
Bespoke or complex site	£5,000 to £15,000+ (Vooba)	Usually a support contract	Bookings, integrations, customer accounts

Treat these as budgeting ranges, not quotes. Two sites with the same number of pages can differ a lot in price because of copywriting, photography, integrations and how much design work is custom.

How much does it cost to pay someone to build a website?

If you pay someone to build it, expect £500 to £3,000 for a freelancer and £1,500 to £8,000 for an agency for a typical small business site. Here is roughly what changes the price within those bands.

Freelancer: £500 to £3,000

A freelancer usually starts from a theme (often WordPress) and adapts it to your brand. At the lower end you get 3 to 5 pages built from content you supply. Healy Web Design lists a basic five-page brochure site at £500 to £1,500. Devnwork puts a straightforward freelancer site at £800 to £3,000.

Freelancers are good value, but ask who will host the site, who will update it, and what happens if they become unavailable.

Agency: £1,500 to £8,000+

An agency adds a process: discovery, design mock-ups, copy help, testing and a launch plan. The Sequence puts most professionally built small business sites at £1,500 to £4,000, with larger custom sites at £4,000 to £15,000. Vooba's range for a professionally designed small business site runs from £2,000 to £8,000+.

WordPress website cost in the UK

Most freelancer and agency sites in the brackets above are built on WordPress, so the same ranges apply. The software itself is free; you pay for the build, premium themes or plugins, hosting and updates. A WordPress site that nobody updates is a security risk, so budget for maintenance from day one.

How much does a website cost per month in the UK?

Once the site is live, these are the recurring costs to plan for:

• Domain name: typically £10 to £25 a year. Watch renewal prices, which can be higher than the first-year offer.
• Hosting: shared hosting starts from a few pounds a month. GoDaddy UK lists shared plans from £3.99 to £7.49 a month and VPS plans from £7.49 to £179.99 a month (April 2026).
• Hosting, security and support together: about £30 to £50 a month from an agency.
• Content changes and updates: about £100 a month on top of hosting if you want regular changes, according to The Sequence. Devnwork puts fuller small business support at £80 to £250 a month.
• Business email: £4.60 to £18.40 per user per month on annual billing.

How much should I pay someone to host my website?

For a small brochure site, cheap shared hosting is technically enough, but price alone is the wrong measure. The value is in what comes with it: backups, an SSL certificate, security updates, someone who answers when the site goes down. Paying £30 to £50 a month for managed hosting and support is normal in the UK. Paying £5 a month and doing it yourself also works, as long as you actually do the updates and backups.

Ecommerce website cost in the UK

An online shop costs more because there is more to build and test: product pages, a basket, checkout, payments, delivery rules, stock and order emails. UK ranges run from £2,500 to £10,000+ for a WooCommerce or Shopify build to £20,000+ for larger shops.

Then come the running costs, which grow with your sales:

Cost	Example (as of October 2026)
Platform plan	Shopify UK: Basic £19, Grow £49, Advanced £259 a month on annual billing (Shopify)
Online card fees on the platform	Shopify UK: 2% + 25p on Basic, 1.7% + 25p on Grow, 1.5% + 25p on Advanced (Shopify)
Card fees with a payment provider	Stripe: 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards, 2.8% + 20p for premium UK cards, 2.5% + 20p for EEA cards, 3.15% + 20p for international cards (Stripe)
Apps, themes and plugins	Varies by app; check each listing's monthly price and renewal

On £5,000 of monthly UK card sales at 2% + 25p with 100 orders, for example, card fees alone come to £125 a month. Run that sum with your own numbers before choosing a plan.

What is the cheapest way to get a website in the UK?

The cheapest option is a DIY website builder: roughly £8 to £50 a month, or £100 to £600 a year, plus your own time. That suits a sole trader who needs a few pages and a contact form.

The trade-offs are real, though. You write the content, choose the layout, handle the search basics and keep it current. Many builders also make it hard to move your site elsewhere later, and the cheapest plans can show the builder's branding or limit features such as online payments. If your time is worth more than the saving, or the site is how most customers find you, a professionally built site usually pays for itself.

Hidden website costs to budget for

These are the items that turn a £1,500 quote into a £3,000 first year:

1. VAT. Many UK quotes, hosting plans and email plans are given excluding VAT.
2. Copywriting and photography. Often not included. Good words and real photos matter more than design flourishes.
3. Premium themes and plugins. Many need a yearly licence renewal to keep receiving updates.
4. Change requests after launch. Ask how small edits are priced: per hour, per request or included.
5. Domain and email renewals. First-year discounts often end at renewal.
6. Payment processing. Card fees on every sale (see the table above).
7. Search engine work. Ongoing SEO retainers are separate from the build; Devnwork puts fuller retainers at £500 to £2,500+ a month.
8. Moving or rebuilding later. If you don't own the site's files and data, leaving a provider can mean starting again.

What you should get for your money: a checklist

Whatever you pay, make sure the quote answers each of these in writing:

• How many pages, and which ones (home, services, about, contact, and so on)
• Who writes the content and supplies the photos
• Whether the site works well on mobile and loads quickly
• A contact or enquiry form that reaches you reliably
• Basic search setup: page titles, descriptions, a sitemap, Google Business Profile linked
• SSL certificate, backups and security updates, and who handles them
• Hosting: included or separate, and the price after year one
• How changes after launch are handled and priced
• Who owns the domain, the design, the code and the content, and when
• What happens if you want to leave

Pay-monthly websites: upfront fee or subscription?

Pay-monthly websites spread the cost: instead of a large build fee, you pay a monthly amount that covers the site, hosting and some support. UK pay-monthly sites typically cost £49 to £199 a month.

The question to ask about any pay-monthly offer is what you own at the end. With some providers, you never own the site and it disappears when you stop paying. Check the minimum term, what is included each month and whether ownership passes to you.

Having it built for you on a subscription

Buildly is one example of the subscription route. It designs, builds, hosts and maintains a custom website for a monthly fee. Prices are in US dollars. The Essential plan, which suits a focused business website with a small number of pages, is $35 a month (or $420 a year), with a $100 setup fee. The initial build is included at no extra charge, along with shared hosting (upgradeable), 5 GB of storage and 2 change requests a year. You own the source code and database after 12 months, and after that commitment the contract is month to month.

Scoping is free: you send a brief, get a written scope and price, and approve each stage (scope, wireframes, design, build, launch). Sites that need customer sign-in, a shop or several connected features move to the larger plans, which you can compare on the pricing page. You can see what a business website from Buildly includes, and what hosting covers, before you send a free brief.

How to set your website budget

1. Decide what the site must do. Show who you are and bring enquiries? Take bookings? Sell products? Each step up changes the price band.
2. Count the first three years, not just the build. Add the build, hosting, domain, maintenance and changes for 36 months, then compare routes on that total.
3. Get two or three written quotes against the checklist above, so you are comparing like with like.
4. Ask about ownership and exit before you sign.
5. Keep a little in reserve for content, photos and the first round of changes after launch.

A realistic budget for most UK small businesses that want a professional brochure site is £1,500 to £4,000 upfront plus £360 to £1,800 a year, or a monthly plan that covers both. A DIY builder costs less in money and more in time, and an online shop costs more on both counts.