How much does a small business website cost?

Ask three people what a website costs and you’ll get three very different answers, from “nothing, do it yourself” to several thousand pounds. They can all be right, because they’re describing different things.

This guide explains the main ways to get a website for a small local business, what makes the price go up or down, and the ongoing costs that often get left out of the first quote.

Three ways to get a website

Build it yourself. Website builders like Squarespace give you templates you can fill in yourself. Squarespace’s pricing page lists plans from £12 a month on a yearly plan, or £16 paying monthly, with hosting included. The money is the small part. The real cost is your time: choosing a template, writing every page, sorting the photos, and getting it all to work well on a phone.

A fixed-price site from a small studio or freelancer. Someone sets it up for you, usually from a proven starting point, for a price agreed up front. Bark, a site where people get quotes from web designers, publishes a price guide based on the professionals who use it. It puts a basic site from a freelancer at £300 to £1,000, a small business site from a freelancer at £1,000 to £3,000, and a small business site from an agency at £2,000 to £7,000.

The price depends mostly on how much is done for you, and especially whether the words are written for you. As an example, our Simple site is £750 including VAT, with the text written from a few questions, and our Business site is £1,800 including VAT, with the content for every page written with you.

A bigger, bespoke project. Online shops, bookings, several locations or a complete rethink of how the business presents itself take more planning and building. These usually run to several thousand pounds and are quoted individually. That’s what our bigger projects are.

What changes the price

The same five things push the price up or down almost everywhere:

• Who works out what to say. This is where most of the value is, and where cheap sites cut corners. Before anything is written, someone needs to work out who the site is for, why customers choose you over the next business, and what each page needs to do. Then the words need writing, which takes longer than most people expect. A price that includes that thinking and the writing is worth far more than one that hands you an empty template.
• How many pages and services. A handful of pages about your business costs less than a site with a page for every service you offer.
• Features. A contact form is simple. Online payments, bookings with a live calendar, or a shop add real work.
• Design. A template with your logo and colours costs less than a design shaped around your business and your customers.
• Photos. Good photos of your real work make a big difference. Using your own costs nothing; a photographer costs extra.

The monthly costs people forget

A website isn’t a one-off cost. Once it’s live, it needs:

• Hosting, so it stays online. Website builders include this in their monthly fee. With a built site, it’s usually a separate monthly charge. Ours is £20 or £40 a month, with the first 12 months free.
• Your domain name (like yourbusiness.co.uk), which needs renewing every year or two.
• Changes. New opening hours, prices or photos. Either you make them yourself through an editor, or someone makes them for you.

When you compare quotes, add up the first year in total, not just the build price.

Questions to ask before you pay

Whoever you choose, these questions will tell you a lot:

1. Is the price fixed? And what would make it go up?
2. Who writes the text? If it’s you, how long will that take?
3. What does it cost each month after it’s live, and what does that include?
4. Whose name is the domain registered in? It should be yours.
5. Can I make simple changes myself?
6. What happens if I want to leave? You should be able to take your site and domain with you.

A cheap quote that leaves you with a domain in someone else’s name and no way to change your own opening hours can cost more in the long run than a slightly higher one that doesn’t.

Not sure what you need?

If you already have a website, the free website health check shows what’s working against it, so you can decide whether it needs fixing or replacing. If you’re starting from scratch, our prices page sets out exactly what you get for each price.