How much does a website cost in the UK in 2026, and how agencies price one

A small business website in the UK costs from £12 a month on a website builder to £3,000 to £5,000 for a brochure site from an agency. Those figures come from the builders' own UK pricing pages and two cost guides written for UK businesses, checked on 2 November 2026. A freelancer site of three to ten pages sits between them, at £500 to £3,000 depending on the guide and the page count. Online shops start at about £3,000 when someone builds them for you, and bespoke builds run from £5,000 to well past £10,000.

The sources use different methods, so the table names each one rather than averaging them. After the prices come the yearly running costs and how to compare two quotes. Agencies and freelancers benchmarking their own prices will find a worked quote built from a day rate.

Key Takeaways

• Builder plans cost £12 to £16 a month for Squarespace's Basic plan and £19 to £25 a month for Shopify's Basic plan (UK pricing pages, 2 November 2026).
• A freelancer brochure site costs £500 to £1,500 for 3 to 5 pages and £1,500 to £3,000 for 5 to 10 pages in ExpertSure's October 2026 guide. Whito's May 2026 data puts a 5-page freelancer site at £1,500 to £3,000.
• Regional agencies quote £2,000 to £8,000 for a small business site (ExpertSure); Whito puts an agency brochure site at £3,000 to £5,000.
• Running costs start at about £100 a year for a domain and basic hosting, before any maintenance contract.
• Compare quotes on scope, not totals: pages, content, revision rounds, VAT and who owns the domain.
• Agencies and freelancers can build a price from estimated days × a day rate, then send it as a fixed fee; the worked example below comes to £5,692.50 before VAT.

What a website costs in 2026, by type

The cheapest route is a builder subscription you set up yourself; the dearest is a bespoke build with custom features. The table shows each type with the range each named source gives. Where two sources disagree, both are shown.

Whito says its ranges exclude VAT and come from UK freelancer platforms, agency websites and rate surveys, for businesses with fewer than 50 staff. ExpertSure is a reader-supported comparison site that earns commission from some providers. Startups.co.uk, a small-business publisher, puts website builder plans at £1.99 to £259 a month.

For a small freelancer site, ExpertSure's 3-to-5-page band (£500 to £1,500) starts well below Whito's 5-page band (£1,500 to £3,000). ExpertSure's 5-to-10-page band, at £1,500 to £3,000, matches Whito's.

Whito says its ranges are for a site built to your brief. It adds that UK web designers who publish a fixed package price on their own websites charge less. Across 28 published packages the median was £520, and the middle half sat between £399 and £898 (Whito's price file, June 2026). Our reading, not either source's, is that the cheaper bands sit closer to these fixed packages than to work built to a brief.

Web apps, booking platforms and customer portals are priced as software projects and fall outside these guides' ranges; none of them publishes a separate figure. For those, see how much an app costs to build in the UK.

What drives the price

Much of a website's cost is people's time. Anything that adds design, build or testing time adds cost, even when the final price is a fixed fee. Whito puts figures on some of these drivers.

• Pages and templates. Whito puts each extra page at £150 to £400. Pages that share a layout cost less than pages that each need their own design.
• Custom design or a theme. A theme or template saves design days; a bespoke design adds a design phase and revision rounds.
• Content. Whito says most web designers expect you to supply the words. It puts copywriting at £50 to £150 a page and professional photography at £200 to £800 (Whito gives no unit). It also says content, hosting, premium plugins, maintenance and changes can add 30 to 50% to a quoted build.
• Integrations. A contact form is quick. Booking, payments, a CRM or a stock system each add build and testing time.
• Ecommerce. Product pages, checkout, delivery rules and stock bring the online-shop ranges above.
• The CMS. A content management system lets you edit pages yourself. Builders include one; on WordPress or a similar system, someone has to set it up.
• Accessibility. GOV.UK requires public sector websites to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. Private businesses aren't covered by those regulations, but WCAG 2.2 AA is still a clear standard to ask a supplier for, and testing against it takes time.
• Who builds it. ExpertSure lists experienced freelance web designers at £300 to £500 a day; Whito puts agencies at £60 to £150 an hour against £40 to £70 for freelancers.
• VAT. A business must register for VAT once its taxable turnover passes £90,000 in 12 months (GOV.UK), and then charges 20% on top. A freelancer under the threshold doesn't have to register, so may not charge VAT; any supplier over it must. If your business can't reclaim VAT, compare prices including it.

What a website costs to run each year

A website's running costs start at about £100 a year for a domain and basic hosting, and rise with maintenance and paid add-ons. A builder plan bundles hosting and the security certificate into the subscription; a site built on WordPress or similar pays for each separately.

ExpertSure's monthly range covers hosting, domain renewal, security, maintenance and content updates, and it says an agency retainer costs more. Whito's yearly range covers hosting, maintenance and updates. At £600 to £3,600 a year, ExpertSure's range runs higher, so ask what a monthly fee includes before comparing.

Krystal shows its prices before VAT. Squarespace's and Shopify's pricing pages, read on 2 November 2026, don't say whether the plan price includes VAT, so check the total at checkout.

Watch renewal prices. Squarespace's annual plans include a free domain for the first year, which then renews at the standard rate. Shopify's first three months cost £1 a month before the plan price applies.

How to compare website quotes

Two website quotes can differ by thousands of pounds because they describe different projects. Put them side by side on these points before you look at the totals.

1. Pages and templates. How many pages, and how many distinct layouts?
2. Content. Who writes the words and supplies photos? If it's you, when are they due?
3. Design rounds. How many rounds of changes are included, and what does an extra round cost?
4. Features. Is each integration (booking, payments, CRM) named as a line, with the third-party fees stated?
5. Ownership. Will the domain, hosting account and site files be in your name? Whito says you, not your web designer, should own the domain, and calls this non-negotiable.
6. Accessibility and testing. Which browsers and phones are tested, and is it checked against WCAG 2.2 AA?
7. After launch. What does hosting and maintenance cost from month two, and is it optional?
8. VAT and payment stages. Is the price with or without VAT, and how much is due before work starts?

A rough figure on a phone call or a website is a ballpark, not a quote. Our guide to quotes, estimates and ballparks explains what each commits a supplier to under UK law.

How agencies price a website

An agency or freelancer can price a website in three ways. It can estimate the days each phase takes and multiply by a day rate, sell a fixed package, or set the fee from the value the site brings. Startups.co.uk's guide says web design agencies typically charge on an hourly basis. It quotes rough rates from Chameleon Studios, a Cambridge marketing agency: £50 to £150 an hour for a small web agency, and £75 to £200+ for a large one. Agencies and freelancers reading to benchmark their own prices can work through the three methods below.

Day rate × estimated days

Your day rate comes from your costs, the pay you need and the days you can bill. Our guide to working out your day rate has the method and a calculator. For a market check, ITJobsWatch puts the median UK contract rate for web developers at £463 a day in the six months to 1 November 2026, from only 12 advertised rates (ITJobsWatch). ExpertSure lists experienced freelance web designers at £300 to £500 a day.

The worked example below is illustrative: the day rate and the days are made up for the example, not market data. It prices a five-page brochure site with a contact form and a link to an existing booking tool, for an agency charging £450 a day.

An agency might round this to £5,700 plus VAT and send it as a fixed fee, keeping the days as its working. The quote also states what's excluded: copywriting, photography, hosting and the booking tool's subscription. The £5,692.50 price sits above Whito's £3,000 to £5,000 agency band and inside ExpertSure's £2,000 to £8,000 regional band. Two fewer build days would make it £4,702.50 with contingency, inside Whito's band, so two days of scope can move a quote between published ranges.

Fixed-fee packages

A package sells a set scope at a set price: for example, five pages, one template and two rounds of changes. Whito reports a median of £520 across 28 packages that UK web designers publish on their own websites (its June 2026 price file). Packages work when the scope is the same every time; anything outside it needs a priced change, so the package should list what it includes.

Value-based pricing

Value-based pricing sets the fee from what the site is worth to the client, such as the extra enquiries or sales it is expected to bring, rather than from the hours. It suits projects where the agency can see the client's numbers. It still needs a day-rate estimate underneath, so you know the fee covers the work.

Putting a ballpark on your own site

When a prospect asks "roughly how much?", an agency can answer with a range. It works the range out from its day rate and the answers to a few scoping questions (pages, integrations, content, deadline), then sends the itemised quote after a call.

We make ChatQuote, an assistant for your website that asks those scoping questions. If you switch it on, it gives a non-binding ballpark from your own rates. It then drafts a day-rate quote for your team to review before it goes out. See how it works for web agencies, or read about a website chatbot that gives a price.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a 5-page website cost in the UK?

ExpertSure (October 2026) puts a freelancer brochure site at £500 to £1,500 for 3 to 5 pages and £1,500 to £3,000 for 5 to 10 pages. Whito (May 2026) puts a 5-page freelancer site at £1,500 to £3,000 and the same site from an agency at £3,000 to £5,000. Building it yourself on a builder costs £12 to £16 a month on Squarespace's Basic plan.

How much does a website cost per month?

On a builder, the subscription is the main monthly cost: £12 to £16 for Squarespace Basic and £19 to £25 for Shopify Basic. A site someone built for you costs from about £7 a month before VAT for basic hosting, plus the domain. ExpertSure puts hosting, maintenance and content updates at £50 to £300 a month, and more on an agency retainer.

Can I build a website for free?

Yes, with limits. Wix offers a free site; its pricing page says a paid plan is needed to connect your own domain and remove Wix branding (Wix plans). For a business, budget at least for a domain at about £8 to £10 a year.

Do web designers charge VAT?

Only if they are VAT-registered, which is compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in 12 months. A registered designer adds 20%. Ask whether a quote is "plus VAT" before you compare it with one that isn't.

About this guide

Written by the ChatQuote team at CodeLeap Ltd, the company that makes ChatQuote. Prices are taken from the named providers' UK pricing pages and from published cost guides, read on 2 November 2026; they are not ChatQuote data. The worked agency example uses illustrative figures. Builder prices change often, so check them at checkout. This guide is general information, not tax advice. Spotted something out of date? Email support@chatquote.app.

Related: how to work out your day rate and quote vs estimate: what each commits you to.