Published
A business website in the UK can be a few hundred pounds or well into five figures. The useful question is not the lowest number on a marketplace. It is what the site has to do for the way you already get customers.
At TMWV the published starting points are a Website Starter from £750, a Business Website from £1,250, Growth from £2,000 and bespoke digital systems from £2,500. Those are starting points. They are not a claim that every business fits the bottom of the range.
What a lower budget can honestly cover
Around £750 to £1,250, a competent studio can design and build a small custom site: a handful of pages, a form, a mobile layout, the basic technical setup for Google, and a launch. That is enough for many trades and small firms if the offer is clear and the writing is true.
It is not enough for a large catalogue, a booking system with deposits, or a month of search work. If a price below that range includes 'unlimited pages' and a promise of page-one rankings, treat both claims as a reason to slow down.
What pushes the price up
The same five-page site becomes a different project when the work around it grows. The usual reasons are:
- More services that each need their own page, written properly
- Photography, or time to make poor photography presentable
- Copy written from interviews rather than a brochure you already have
- Quote calculators, booking, payments or a portal
- Connections to the inbox, CRM or accounts tool you already use
- A fixed deadline that removes the normal room for feedback
Monthly cost is a separate decision
Hosting for a straightforward site is usually a small monthly bill, in your name. Care is different. A £49 monthly plan can cover updates, backups, security monitoring, minor changes and a check that the site is up. It cannot cover a neglected site that needs a rebuild, or a content programme.
Search and conversion work is a retainer, not a hosting fee. £149 a month is a realistic start for monitoring, modest content improvements and reporting. Heavier programmes cost more. Anyone selling 'SEO' inside a £20 hosting bundle is selling a label.
A sensible way to choose
Write down the enquiries you want in a normal month, and the jobs those enquiries should be. If a simple site can take those enquiries, buy the simple site and spend the rest on being easy to reach. If the sale depends on a calculation, a booking or a longer explanation, budget for that tool instead of hoping a template will grow into it.
Ask for the price in writing, with what is included, how many rounds of feedback you get, and what happens after launch. A wide range is acceptable at the first conversation. A vague range after the scope is agreed is not.