How Much Does a Website Cost for a Small Business in the UK?
Quick answer: Most UK small businesses spend somewhere between £500 and £3,000+ on a one-off website build, plus £100–£300 a year in hosting and upkeep afterward — or a single flat monthly rate if they go with a managed or subscription service instead. Which route makes sense depends less on budget and more on how much of the ongoing work you want to take on yourself.
DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace, and similar)
Typical cost: £100–£360 a year, once a domain and a basic plan are included.
This is the cheapest option in pure pounds, but the real cost most people don't budget for is time. Most first-time builders spend somewhere between two and four weekends putting a site together — and that's before working out what actually gets a small business found on Google.
Freelancers
Typical cost: £500–£3,000 for a straightforward small business site, with many simple 4–5 page builds landing around £800–£2,000.
A freelancer is often the right call if you need something specific built — a booking system, a particular layout — and don't mind managing the relationship yourself. Hosting, domain and ongoing maintenance are usually quoted separately, adding roughly £100–£300 a year on top. Timelines typically run two to six weeks from first brief to launch.
Agencies
Typical cost: £1,500–£4,000 for a professional small-business site, climbing to £10,000+ for larger or fully bespoke builds.
Agencies generally bring more process and more people to the project, which shows up in the price. Ongoing hosting and maintenance are still usually billed separately — often somewhere in the £50–£300 a month range — on top of the initial build fee.
Managed or subscription services
Typical cost: one flat monthly rate, covering the build itself, not just the upkeep afterward.
This model is easy to misread against the routes above, because most of the numbers quoted for freelancers and agencies are just the build cost — hosting and maintenance get added separately, every month, indefinitely, after that. A subscription model folds all of it — the build, hosting, domain and ongoing updates — into one number from day one, and the site is usually live in days rather than weeks.
A straight comparison
| Route | Typical Cost | What's Usually Included | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder | £100–£360/year | Template, hosting, domain — you build it | Your own time |
| Freelancer | £500–£3,000 one-off + £100–£300/year | Custom build; hosting/upkeep separate | 2–6 weeks |
| Agency | £1,500–£10,000+ one-off + £50–£300/month | Larger custom build; hosting/upkeep separate | Weeks to months |
| Managed subscription | One flat monthly rate | Build, hosting, domain and updates together | Days |
Which one's actually right for you?
If you want full creative control and don't mind the time investment, DIY is genuinely fine for very simple needs. If you need something specific built once and you're comfortable managing hosting and updates yourself afterward, a freelancer or agency makes sense. If you'd rather the whole thing — build and upkeep — be one predictable line item, live this week rather than next month, that's what a managed subscription is actually for.
That last route is what we do. You can see our current pricing, or read more about how we work with UK small businesses.
Book a call if you would rather just talk it through — you will speak to the person who would actually build the site.