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

The short answer: a simple five-page site from a freelancer usually costs between £800 and £3,000. A small agency will usually charge £3,000 to £10,000. Doing it yourself on Wix or Squarespace costs roughly £110 to £350 a year, plus your time.

Those ranges are wide because "a website" covers everything from a single page with your phone number on it to an online shop with bookings and customer accounts. The rest of this post explains where your project is likely to sit.

The four ways to get a website, and what each costs

Route	Typical cost	Good for
Do it yourself (Wix, Squarespace)	£9 to £29 a month on yearly billing	Testing an idea, or a very simple one-page presence
Freelancer or small studio	£800 to £3,000 for a 5 to 8 page site	Most sole traders, trades and local businesses
Agency	£3,000 to £10,000+	Larger firms that need strategy, copywriting and photography in one package
Custom features (shop, bookings, logins)	£5,000 upwards	Businesses where the website does part of the work, not just advertises it

Wix's paid plans start at £9 a month and Squarespace's at £12, both when you pay for a year up front. The cheapest plans don't let you sell online, so expect to move up a tier if you want to take payments.

What pushes the price up

Page count matters less than people think. These are the things that actually change a quote:

Writing the words. If you supply the text, the job is quicker. If the designer has to write it, that's a day or more of extra work.
Different page layouts. Ten pages that share one layout are cheaper than five pages that each look different.
Things the site has to do. Online booking, a shop, quote calculators, member areas or connecting to other software all add time and testing.
Moving an old site. Bringing across blog posts, products or redirects from an old site so you don't lose your Google rankings.
Deadlines. Need it in a week? Expect to pay for someone clearing their diary.

What you'll pay every year

The build is a one-off. These are the costs that keep coming, whoever builds the site:

Domain name: a .co.uk address costs around £10 to £30 a year. Make sure it's registered in your name, not your designer's.
Hosting: anything from free to £30 a month. A simple, fast site often costs nothing to host. Sites running WordPress or a shop cost more.
Email at your own domain: usually a few pounds per person per month through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
ICO data protection fee: if your contact form collects names and emails, you'll most likely need to pay the Information Commissioner's Office. The smallest tier is £52 a year, or £47 by direct debit.
Updates and fixes: either your own time, or an agreed hourly rate or monthly plan with your designer.

Warning signs in a cheap quote

A low price isn't automatically a bad one, but check these before you sign:

You won't own it. The domain, the hosting account or the site itself stays with the designer, so leaving means starting again.
A monthly fee with no end. "£0 up front, £60 a month" adds up to £3,600 over five years, often for a template site.
No mention of phones. Most visitors will see your site on a phone first. It should be designed for that, not squashed to fit.
No mention of Google. Page titles, descriptions and a Google Business Profile are basic, and they're cheap to do at the start.
No written price. You should know the total, what's included, and what costs extra before any work starts.

Is a DIY builder good enough?

Sometimes, yes. If you're testing an idea, have more time than budget and only need a page that says who you are and how to get in touch, Wix or Squarespace will do that well. We'd rather tell you that than sell you something you don't need.

Where DIY sites tend to struggle is speed on phones, showing up in local searches, and turning visitors into enquiries. Those are the gaps a designer is paid to close. If your website is meant to bring in work, that's usually worth paying for.

How to get an accurate quote

You'll get a faster, more reliable price if you can say:

what you want people to do on the site: call you, book, buy or fill in a form
roughly which pages you need
whether you'll write the words and supply the photos
two or three websites you like, and why
when you need it live

At Doxel Studio every project gets a written, fixed price before work starts, and you own the domain, the hosting account and the code. If you already have a site, the Fix Pack starts at £149 and is often all you need.