Soundings

What a small business website costs in 2026

Real price ranges for a UK small business website, what moves the number, and the costs nobody mentions until the invoice. Our own prices included.

By Nick Halden, Founder · 1 October 2026 · 9 min read

People ask what a website costs and get told it depends. That is true, and no use to anyone trying to set a budget. So here is the longer answer, with numbers where I can stand behind them and plain language where I can't.

I started building websites at fifteen, for surf shops and bands in Newcastle. Nine years in London agencies taught me how quotes get put together, and three years of running Hare & Arch from Maidenhead have shown me how they land with the people who have to pay them. Everything below is in pounds, and ours is quoted before VAT.

The short version

A website is a stack of decisions about pages, words, pictures and features, and the price follows the stack. The bands below are rules of thumb. They describe what a competent person or studio would be comfortable building properly, which is a different thing from the cheapest quote you will receive.

What you are buying	What it usually looks like	Rough budget
A holding page	One page with your name, contact details and opening hours	A few hundred pounds at most, often free on a builder
A small brochure site	Five to eight pages, one location, local search groundwork done properly	Low thousands
A larger site	Twenty or more pages, service or town pages, a content plan	Mid thousands, creeping into five figures
An online shop	Products, payments, delivery rules, stock levels	Depends on the catalogue and the connections to other software, so it needs its own quote
Something with logins	Bookings, member areas, features built for one business	Scoped like software and priced like software

Our own prices sit inside the second and third rows. They are set out in full further down.

What moves the price

Seven things account for most of the gap between two quotes for what looks like the same website.

Page count. Every page has to be designed, written, checked on a phone and wired into the navigation. Ten pages cost more than five, and the later pages tend to be the hard ones, because they cover the services that need explaining.
Template or custom design. A template gets you a respectable site quickly. Custom design costs more and earns it back when the site has to do something particular, such as take enquiries for dated events or look nothing like the competition.
Who writes the words. If you supply good copy, the price drops. If someone has to interview you and write it, the price rises. The second route usually produces the better site.
Photography. Real photographs of your premises and your work do more than any design decision. They also cost money, whether you hire a photographer or give up a weekend.
Features. A contact form is cheap. Bookings, a shop, a members' area, a second language and connections to other software each add real work and real running costs.
What happens to the old site. If your current site has pages that rank, moving to a new one without losing them takes planning, redirects and testing. I wrote that process up in redesigning your website without losing your rankings. It is worth paying for and it is usually missing from the cheapest quotes.
How many people approve it. One decision-maker finishes in weeks. Five people who each want to see the homepage again finish in months. It is the most reliable cost driver I know and it never appears on a quote.

The costs that arrive after the quote

The build is the part everyone budgets for. These are the parts that turn up later.

Domain name. An annual renewal, usually modest. Make sure it is registered in your name and not your web designer's.
Hosting. Somewhere for the site to live, paid monthly or yearly. Cheap hosting tends to be slow hosting, and a slow site loses enquiries on phones.
Business email. Addresses at your own domain usually mean a small monthly fee per mailbox through Google or Microsoft.
Maintenance. Software ages. Plugins, themes and platforms need security updates, and someone has to apply them and notice when something breaks. Skipping this is how small business sites end up hacked or broken in year three.
Content. A site that never changes is quietly out of date. New prices, new staff, seasonal opening hours, a menu that no longer matches the one on the tables. Budget time or money for edits.
Photography and video. Most businesses need fresh pictures every couple of years as the premises, the team and the work change.
Other subscriptions. Booking systems, newsletter software, live chat and form services often carry their own monthly fees.
Search work. A new site gives you foundations. Being found for the right searches in the right towns is ongoing work, and it is a separate line from the build.
VAT. The standard rate is twenty per cent. If you are VAT-registered you can normally reclaim it. If you are not, it is a real cost, so ask for the VAT-inclusive figure before you compare.

How the money spreads over three years

The build is a one-off. The running costs are not, and over three years they can add up to as much as the build itself. Take our own pricing as a worked example. The Form is from £95 a month, which comes to £1,140 over twelve months and at least £3,420 over three, before VAT. A Towpath site built for £2,400–£3,800 therefore costs at least £5,820 to £7,220 over three years once it is hosted and looked after, before any search work.

That is the figure to compare against a builder subscription, a freelancer who also charges for maintenance, or a studio. Compare three-year totals and you will stop being surprised by the second year.

How a price creeps up

Most overruns are not dramatic. They are small additions that nobody priced. A page added after sign-off, a second round of design changes, copy that arrives three weeks late, a booking system that turns out to need connecting to something else, the request that starts with while you are in there.

Agree the scope in writing, with a page list. Name one person who makes decisions for your side. Have the words and photographs ready before the build begins, or agree who will produce them and when. Keep a running list of extras and price them together at the end rather than one at a time. None of this is unusual. It is the difference between a quote and a bill.

DIY builders, freelancers and studios

I am biased, so here is the case for each option as fairly as I can make it.

A DIY builder

This is the cheapest option in cash and the dearest in hours. Platforms such as Wix and Squarespace are fine for a holding page, for a sole trader with a simple offer, or for testing an idea before you spend real money. The trade-offs are speed, control over the search basics, designs that look like everyone else's, and your evenings.

A freelancer

One person doing the design, the build and often the writing. A good one is excellent value and usually costs less than a studio. The risk is dependence. Ask who holds the logins, what happens if they are ill or move on, and whether they have built something like yours before.

A studio

Several roles under one roof, covering design, development, writing and search. It costs more, and it makes sense when the site has to bring in enquiries or bookings and you want someone to own the result afterwards. The bigger the agency, the more you should check who will actually build your site.

None of these is right for everyone. If a builder gets a one-person business with a simple offer to a working site this week, use the builder. I would rather say so than take a booking I cannot improve on.

What we charge

We publish our prices because I would want to see them if I were buying. They are before VAT, and every project is quoted properly after a conversation.

Towpath, £2,400–£3,800. A sharp five-to-eight page site for one location, with local SEO and Google Business Profile set up properly.
Reach, £4,500–£8,500. A larger site with town pages across the valley and a content plan. On the river, a reach is the stretch between two locks.
The Form, from £95 a month. Hosting, security updates, small edits and a monthly health check, so the site keeps working after launch.
SEO retainers, from £650 a month. Monthly local or content-led SEO, reported in plain English.

For the build itself, see our web design service. If you run a restaurant, pub or wedding venue, the same ranges apply and the venue and hospitality page explains what those sites need to do. The monthly line is the one people underestimate, so it is worth reading what care and hosting covers before you decide it is optional.

How to compare two quotes

Two quotes for the same job rarely describe the same job. Put these questions to both.

What is included, page by page?
Who writes the words, and who supplies the photographs?
Who owns the domain, the hosting account and the finished site once it is paid for?
What happens after launch, and what does it cost per month?
What does the quote say about speed, accessibility and search basics such as page titles and redirects?
How many rounds of changes are included?
Who will actually build it, and can you speak to them?

A quote that answers all seven is usually a better buy than a cheaper one that is silent on them.

Where to spend and where to save

Spend on photographs of your real premises and work, on the words, and on hosting and care. Those three decide whether the site is believed, found and still working next year.

Save on animation, on features you will use twice a year, and on page count. Launch with fewer pages that are properly done and add the rest once the first set is earning. A ten-page site that is finished beats a thirty-page site that is a promise.

If your budget is below the bands above, say so in your first email. A good studio will tell you what to do first, and sometimes the honest answer is a builder and a free weekend.