Ask five providers for a website quote and you'll get five numbers between £300 and £10,000 — often for what sounds like the same thing. None of them are lying. They're pricing different things, and nobody explains the difference. This article does.
Why the quotes are so far apart
A website price is really four prices added together, and providers weight them differently:
- Design — is someone designing your site from scratch, adapting a template, or just filling one in?
- Build — who wires it together, and how senior are they?
- Content — who writes the words? (The most commonly forgotten cost — and the most common reason projects stall.)
- Running costs — hosting, domain, email, security updates, backups. Small monthly numbers that quietly matter more than the build price over three years.
A £300 quote usually covers only #2, thinly. A £5,000 quote usually covers all four, properly. Neither is a scam — but comparing them as if they're the same product is how businesses end up disappointed.
The real price bands
DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy) — £10–30/month plus your evenings.
Honest assessment: these are fine for testing an idea. The real cost is your time — most business owners spend 20–40 hours getting to “acceptable”, and it shows in the result. If your time is worth anything, this is rarely the cheap option it looks like.
Template-based, done for you — £500–£2,000 one-off.
A professional adapts a proven template to your brand: your logo, colours, content, contact and booking forms. This is the sweet spot for most local and small businesses — you get a professional result in about a week without paying for design work you don't need. Our done-for-you builds sit here at £1,200, including copy polish, SEO basics and integrations.
Bespoke design — £2,500–£10,000+.
A designer creates something that exists nowhere else. Worth it when your brand genuinely needs to stand apart or when the site is the business. Not worth it for a five-page site whose job is to look credible and take enquiries. Ours start at £2,950.
Below all of that: subscription sites — from £10/month.
Template sites on a monthly plan, hosting and email included. The right entry point when you're starting out and cash matters more than distinctiveness. We offer these too — because a business that starts at £10/month and grows is exactly the client we want in three years.
The costs nobody puts on the quote
- Hosting and domain renewals — £100–300/year. Ask who owns the domain. (If it's not you, walk away.)
- Updates and security — WordPress sites without maintenance get hacked; it's when, not if. Care plans run £30–100/month and are cheaper than one cleanup.
- The rebuild — the most expensive website is the cheap one you build twice. A £400 site that has to be redone in year one cost more than the £1,200 one that didn't.
Three questions that expose any quote
- “Who owns the domain, the site and the content when we're done?” — the only acceptable answer is you.
- “What exactly happens after launch?” — if there's no answer about hosting, updates and support, the price is incomplete.
- “What's included in the price, page by page?” — vague scope is how £500 becomes £2,000.
The honest summary
| You are | Right answer | Realistic cost |
|---|---|---|
| Just starting, cash-tight | Subscription template site | from £10/month |
| Established, need credibility + enquiries | Done-for-you template build | £900–£2,000 |
| Brand-led, need to stand apart | Bespoke design | £2,950+ |
| Outgrowing a brochure site | Web application — different conversation | from £5,000 |
We publish our prices because guessing games waste everyone's time — and because a business that knows what it's buying is a better client than one that's been dazzled.
Want a straight answer for your specific case? Tell us about your website — we'll tell you which band you're in, including when the cheaper option is the right one.
