How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in the UK? (2026)
Ask five people what a website should cost and you’ll get five wildly different answers — “£10 a month!”, “at least three grand!”, “my nephew did mine for free!”. They can all be right, because “a website” covers everything from a DIY page thrown together in an evening to a custom build from a design agency.
Here’s an honest breakdown of what UK small businesses actually pay in 2026, what you get at each level, and the hidden costs that catch people out.
Option 1: DIY website builders — £10–£40/month
Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and friends. You pick a template, drag things around, and pay monthly.
Typical cost: £10–£40/month depending on plan and features, so roughly £120–£480 a year — plus your domain on top with some plans.
The real cost is your time. The adverts show someone building a beautiful site in minutes. The reality for most business owners is evenings and weekends lost to fiddling with layouts, and a result that often still looks DIY. Your time has value — twenty hours spent wrestling a template is twenty hours not earning.
Good fit if: you enjoy this sort of thing, you have more time than money, and you’re comfortable being your own designer, copywriter and tech support.
Option 2: A freelancer — £300–£1,500
A freelance web designer will typically build a small business site (home, about, services, contact) for somewhere in the £300–£1,500 range, depending on experience and how much you need.
Watch for: ongoing costs after handover. Hosting, domain renewal, and updates are usually your problem afterwards, and “small tweaks” often bill by the hour. Quality also varies enormously — ask to see recent work and speak to a past client if you can.
Good fit if: you want something better than DIY, you’ve found someone with a solid portfolio, and you’re happy managing hosting and updates yourself afterwards.
Option 3: An agency — £1,500–£10,000+
Agencies bring a team: design, copy, development, project management. For a small business site, quotes commonly land between £1,500 and £5,000, with more complex builds (booking systems, e-commerce, custom features) going well beyond that. Ongoing care plans typically add £50–£200+ a month.
Good fit if: the website is central to how you win business, you need custom functionality, and the budget genuinely exists. For a new local service business that mostly needs to look credible and be contactable, an agency build is usually more than you need — at least to start.
The hidden costs nobody mentions
Whatever route you choose, budget for the extras:
| Item | Typical UK cost |
|---|---|
| Domain name (.co.uk) | £5–£15/year |
| Hosting | £5–£30/month |
| SSL certificate | Free–£50/year (should be free — walk away if it isn’t) |
| Business email (e.g. Google Workspace) | from ~£5/user/month |
| Stock photos, plugins, extras | £0–£200 one-off |
| Updates and maintenance | Your time, or £30–£100+/month |
Prices vary by region and provider — expect the top end in London and the South East — but the pattern holds everywhere: the sticker price is rarely the full price.
Option 4: The one that costs £0 to build
Here’s where we declare our interest, openly: we’re Ready Set Web, and we build websites for new UK businesses completely free.
Not “free trial” free. Not “free but £40/month forever” free. The design and build genuinely cost nothing. We create your site from your Google Business Profile — your services, photos, opening hours and reviews — plus anything else you’d like included, and launch it on a free .co.uk domain.
The only thing you pay is hosting at £20/month (12-month minimum term). That’s £240 for your first year, all-in — less than most DIY builders once you add their extras, with none of your evenings sacrificed to a drag-and-drop editor.
Why would we do that? Because we’re a marketing studio, and free websites are how we introduce ourselves. When you’re ready to grow — ads, SEO, more reviews — we hope you’ll think of us first. There’s no obligation to ever buy anything else. Here’s how it works.
So what should you spend?
- Just starting out, need to look credible and be contactable: our free build (£20/month hosting) or a DIY builder if you’d rather do it yourself.
- Established, with specific needs (booking, e-commerce, custom features): a good freelancer or agency is worth the money — get three quotes and ask what’s not included.
- Whatever you choose: make sure the domain is registered to you or clearly yours to keep, that SSL is included, and that you know the total first-year cost before signing anything.
A website shouldn’t be the thing that stops a good business getting online. In 2026, it doesn’t have to be.