Ask what a website costs and you'll get a number between £240 and £10,000. Both are real prices being charged in the UK right now for something described as "a website for a small business", which tells you the question is doing no work at all.
So here's the honest version: what the spread is actually made of, what each option really gets you, and the one question I'd ask before I asked about price.
Why the range is that wide
A website isn't one thing. When someone quotes you, they're pricing some combination of four separate jobs, and the gap between quotes is usually a gap in which of the four they're doing.
There's the design, which is either yours or a template with your logo dropped in. There's the content, which is either written for you from your actual work and reviews, or a paragraph of filler with your trade swapped into it. There's the setup, meaning the domain, the email, the security certificate, getting you on Google properly. And there's what happens afterwards, when you want a price changed or a new phone number on it.
A £400 quote and a £4,000 quote can both be honest. They're just quoting different amounts of that list. The trouble is nobody tells you which parts they've left out, so you compare two numbers as if they're the same thing.
The four options, honestly
Doing it yourself on Wix or Squarespace: roughly £240 to £360 a year once you've added a domain and a business email address, which the base plans don't include.
This genuinely works, and I won't pretend otherwise. If you've got an eye for it and a free weekend, you can get something decent up. The real cost isn't the money, it's that the weekend becomes three weekends, and the site ends up 80% finished because you're running a business. I've lost count of the half-built Wix sites I've found with a placeholder still on the About page.
A freelancer: £500 to £2,000, with most straightforward five-page builds landing around £1,200 to £2,000.
This is the sweet spot for most small businesses and it's where I'd point most people. The variable isn't the price, it's the person. A good freelancer will ask about your customers before they ask about your colour scheme. Ask to see three sites they've built for businesses like yours, and ask what happens when you need something changed in six months.
An agency: £2,500 to £10,000, or £2,000 to £6,000 from a regional firm rather than a London one.
For a plumber or a salon this is usually more than you need. Agencies earn that money on bigger jobs with e-commerce, bookings, integrations and a team behind it. If someone's quoting you five grand for a five-page site, ask what the extra four grand is buying, and expect a specific answer.
Done-for-you services: from about £360 one-off. Fast and cheap, and the trade-off is that it's a template. That's fine for some businesses and wrong for others, and it depends entirely on whether your work is the sort people look at before they buy.
The bit that catches people out
The build price is the number everyone compares. The ongoing cost is the one that actually decides whether you're still happy in two years, and it's almost never on the quote.
You need hosting, a domain renewed every year, an SSL certificate, and someone to fix it when something breaks. Budget somewhere between £100 and £300 a year if you're managing it yourself, plus £3 to £10 a month if you want a business email address rather than a Gmail one.
Then there's the part nobody warns you about: changes. Your prices go up. You take on a new service. Your mobile number changes. With a DIY site you do it yourself, which is fine. With a freelancer it's usually an hourly rate, and a five-minute change can carry a call-out minimum. With a care plan it's included, and you pay monthly whether you use it or not.
None of those is wrong. But they're wildly different deals, and the cheapest build can easily be the most expensive site by year three.
The build price is what you compare. The ongoing cost is what you live with.
The question worth asking before the price
Here's the thing I'd want to know if I were buying, and almost nobody asks it: is this a one-off purchase or a relationship?
Both are legitimate. A one-off means you own it, you pay once, and when something needs doing you find someone and pay them. A monthly arrangement means it's looked after, changes are handled, and you're paying for that whether or not you need it in any given month.
The mistake is buying one while thinking you're buying the other. I speak to a lot of business owners who are annoyed about a monthly fee, and when we get into it, the annoyance is almost never about the amount. It's that nobody explained what it was for, so it feels like a subscription to something they already own.
So ask it directly. What am I paying once, what am I paying every month, what does the monthly actually cover, and what happens if I stop paying it? A straight answer to those four is worth more than a lower number.
What I do
I build the site first and show it to you finished, before you've paid anything or agreed to anything. You can look at your actual website, with your actual photos and your actual reviews on it, and decide from there. If it's not right, you've lost nothing.
If you want to keep it, it's £899 to build it and set it live, then £69 a month for the hosting, your domain, the security and any changes you need doing. You find that out after you've seen the work rather than before.
That's not generosity, it's just how I'd rather sell. Every other option on this page asks you to imagine what you're buying and pay for it up front. I'd rather show you.
So, what should you spend?
If you're a sole trader with a handful of regulars and you like it that way, spend £240 a year on a DIY site and get on with your life. Genuinely.
If you're a trade or a salon and you want the customers who are searching right now, expect to spend somewhere between £500 and £2,000 for something proper, plus £100 to £300 a year to keep it running. Anything much below that and you're buying a template. Anything much above and you should be asking what the extra is for.
And whatever you spend, get the four questions answered first. The businesses I've seen regret a website almost never regret the price. They regret not knowing what they'd signed up for.
I build websites for local businesses across the UK, usually before they've asked. If you want to see what yours would look like, have a look at the work and get in touch.