How much does a small business website cost in the UK?

A small business website in the UK costs from about £300 to around £7,000 to build, depending on who builds it, plus a few hundred pounds a year to keep it running. The median published one-off package is £520, according to a June 2026 study of UK prices by Whito.

How much do web designers charge in the UK

Freelancers charge roughly £500 to £3,000 for a small business site and agencies £2,000 to £7,000, while budget builders publish fixed-price packages from £299. The cheapest builds fit your words and photos into a template; the dearest pay for someone to plan, design and often write every page.

Whito’s UK marketing prices study collected 33 published website prices from 19 UK providers in June 2026. Across the 28 one-off builds the cheapest was £299, the median £520 and the upper quartile £898. Whito warns that the sample leans cheap, because mid-market and premium providers “typically do not publish pricing”. When it re-checked its prices across every marketing category on 27 October 2026, 93 of the 108 it could compare were unchanged, 11 had gone up, 4 had been taken down and none had gone down.

Bark’s UK price guide gives typical ranges but doesn’t say how it arrived at them.

Type of build	Whito (published prices, June 2026)	Bark (typical ranges, 2026)
Pay-monthly template site	£19 to £145 a month	Not covered
Fixed-fee budget build, 5 to 12 pages	£299 to £999	£300 to £1,000 (basic, freelance)
Freelance custom build	£500 to £2,500	£1,000 to £3,000 (small business)
Agency build	£3,000 to £6,000 (regional agencies, rarely published)	£2,000 to £7,000 (small business)

How much does an e-commerce website cost

An online shop costs more to build than a brochure site. Bark’s guide puts a complex e-commerce site at £2,000 to £5,000 from a freelancer, and an agency-built e-commerce site at £5,000 to £15,000. Whito’s study doesn’t cover shops.

A shop also has running costs that grow with sales. Shopify’s UK pricing page lists the Basic plan at £19 a month paid yearly or £25 paid monthly. Each online card payment through Shopify Payments costs 2% + 25p on that plan, and using a third-party payment provider adds a 2% Shopify fee.

What makes a website cost more

The price rises with the number of pages, how much is custom-designed, who writes the words, and any features that need setting up, such as online booking, payments or a member area. Bark’s guide notes that content writing, SEO, maintenance, hosting and custom features “may cost extra”, so check whether a quote includes them.

Most of a web designer’s price is time. Bark quotes hourly rates from about £35 for newer designers to over £150 for experienced ones. A five-page site for a plumber in Leeds, using the plumber’s own photos and text, takes far fewer hours than a twenty-page site for a dentist in Leicester with separate pages for each treatment.

How much do Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and Shopify cost

Website builders cost roughly £9 to £25 a month for a small business plan, and WordPress hosting starts at a similar level. These are platform costs only. If a designer builds the site on one of them, you pay for both.

Platform	Cheapest business plan	Paid yearly	Paid monthly	Notes
Wix	Light	£9 a month	£11.50 a month	Core, £16 a month yearly, is the first plan that takes payments
Squarespace	Basic	£12 a month (£144 a year)	£16 a month	2% fee on online store sales; Core, £17 yearly, has none
WordPress (self-hosted)	Software is free		Hosting from £7 a month before VAT	Domain extra, such as £7.99 a year for .co.uk
Shopify	Basic	£19 a month	£25 a month	Card fees of 2% + 25p per online payment

Where each figure comes from:

• Wix sets prices by country, and its help centre says they “may differ depending on your geographic location”. Wix’s plans page shows only Core and above with “Accept payments”, and says displayed prices exclude tax. The UK pound prices are from ExpertSure’s UK price check, because Wix’s page showed us dollars.
• Squarespace’s pound prices are from its own price list by currency, and the transaction fees from its pricing page.
• WordPress itself is free to download; you pay for hosting. UK host Krystal lists WordPress hosting from £7 a month before VAT (£8.40 with VAT) for one site, and .co.uk domains at £7.99 a year before VAT. WordPress.com is a separate hosted service built on the same software.
• Shopify’s prices are from its UK pricing page, which also offers three days free, then £1 a month for three months.

What are the ongoing costs of a website

Once a site is live, you pay for the domain, hosting or a builder subscription, and help with changes. On Wix Light or Squarespace Basic, that’s about £108 to £192 a year if you edit the site yourself, plus the domain once any free year ends.

• Domain and hosting or a builder plan: see the platform table above. Builders that include a free domain include it for the first year only.
• Care plan: a monthly fee to a web designer for updates and small changes, often with hosting included. Whito read 18 UK care plan price lists in September 2026 and found a median entry plan of £50 a month. Plans with exactly one hour of changes a month cost £49 to £170.
• Shop fees: card fees on every sale, which on Shopify can add up to more than the plan itself, as the candle shop below shows.

Watch for a cheap build tied to a compulsory monthly fee. Whito found some budget builders pairing a low headline price with a mandatory care fee of £25 to £30 a month. The café example below shows what that does to a £299 site.

What is the total cost of a website

Over two years, a small business website costs from about £300 if you build it yourself on Squarespace to £3,000-£5,000 for a freelancer-built site with a care plan or a Shopify shop. Adding the build to two years of running costs gives a fairer comparison than the build price alone. These examples use the published figures above; the build prices are assumptions within each range.

Business	Route	Build	Two years of running costs	Two-year total
Plumber in Leeds	Squarespace Basic, built by the owner	£0	£288 subscription	£288, plus the domain renewal in year two
Café in Brighton	Budget build with a £25 a month care fee	£299	£600 care fee	£899
Solicitor in Bristol	Freelancer on WordPress, Krystal hosting at £7 a month, £50 a month care plan	£2,000	£168 hosting and £16 domain, both before VAT, £1,200 care	£3,384
Online candle shop	Freelancer on Shopify Basic, £2,000 a month in card sales at £40 an order	£3,000	£456 plan, £1,260 card fees, £16 .co.uk domain at Krystal’s price before VAT	£4,732

Squarespace’s UK prices include VAT and the Krystal figures are before VAT; if a supplier adds VAT and your business isn’t VAT-registered, add 20% to that part of the bill. The café total assumes the care fee covers hosting and the domain. Whito says budget builds often include a domain and a year of hosting, so ask what happens in year two. The candle shop’s card fees are 2% of £2,000 (£40) plus 25p on 50 orders (£12.50), so £52.50 a month. Over two years that costs more than the Shopify plan itself.

The plumber’s site is the cheapest by far, but the £288 doesn’t count the evenings spent building it. The solicitor’s care plan is the largest single cost, which is why it’s worth knowing what that £50 a month includes.

Do website prices include VAT

Not reliably. Whito found that “some prices include it, some add 20%, and many pages do not say”, so ask before comparing quotes.

A business must register for VAT once its taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000. A freelancer below that doesn’t have to register, and one who isn’t registered won’t add VAT, while a VAT-registered agency adds 20%. If your business isn’t VAT-registered, that 20% is part of the real cost.

What should I ask for in a website quote

Ask for a written quote that lists what’s included, what isn’t, and what you’ll pay after launch. These questions cover the costs above:

1. How many pages are included, and who writes the words and supplies the photos?
2. Which platform will it be built on, and can I edit it myself?
3. Who owns the domain, the site and the content, and what happens if I stop paying a monthly fee?
4. Is hosting included, for how long, and what does it cost after that?
5. Is a monthly care plan compulsory, and how many hours of changes does it include?
6. Is the price before or after VAT?
7. How many rounds of changes are included before launch?
8. For a shop, which payment provider will it use, and what are the fees per sale?

What to do next

Decide which route fits: a builder you run yourself, a freelancer or an agency. Then work out the two-year total as well as the build price, and get at least two quotes that answer the questions above.

Building new sites, or fixing the one you have, is what Padon’s websites service does.

If you’d like a second opinion first, our free check compares your business with its competition nearby and emails you a short report within two working days.