How much does a website cost? The arithmetic, in full

The real arithmetic

Most pages with this title are written to avoid giving a number. Here are mine. £399 buys up to five pages, written from your own words, hand-coded rather than dropped into a theme, built mobile-first and tested on a real phone, with an enquiry form, click-to-call, a Google Business Profile set up properly and the basic local search groundwork done. Two rounds of changes before it goes live. £200 to start and £199 when you approve it.

If the site needs to do something rather than say something, each of those is its own line on top. Booking is from £350: live availability, the slot held when someone picks it, and an admin page you edit yourself. Card payment at the point of booking is from £120. Each page past five is £45. So a five-page site that takes bookings is £749, and one that takes bookings and payment is £869. That is the top of what I sell, and it is on the page so you never have to ask.

After launch, small text and photo changes are free for 30 days, then £25 an hour billed in half-hour steps. There is no retainer because there is nothing to retain: the domain, the hosting and the code are in your name from the first day.

Builder, me, or an agency

Three honest columns, including the one where a builder is the right answer. The builder prices are Squarespace's UK plans as published in the price guide I checked on 14 September 2026; the agency and freelancer ranges are from a UK five-page pricing guide last updated in July 2026. Sources are under the table.

Squarespace UK: Basic £12 and Core £17 a month on annual billing (£16 and £24 monthly), free domain for the first year then £8 a year for a .co.uk, per startups.co.uk, last updated 15 September 2025, checked 14 September 2026. Freelancer and agency ranges and the £500 to £2,000 yearly figure from Media Village's five-page website cost guide, last modified 30 July 2026. Prices change; if these are out of date when you read this, tell me and I will correct them.

Three years, side by side

The builder looks cheapest on day one and the agency looks dearest. Over three years the picture changes. A Squarespace Basic plan on annual billing is £144 a year, so £432 over three years, plus two domain renewals at £8, call it £448, and at the end you are renting the same site you rented at the start. A five-page site from me is £399 once, plus three domain renewals, call it £430, and at the end you own it and can hand it to anyone. The agency site is £3,000 or more plus £1,500 to £6,000 in yearly costs, and for a business with a marketing budget and a brand to build, that can be exactly right.

The honest version of the comparison is this: the builder wins if you have more time than money and can live with the result; I win for a small business that wants it done properly once and owned outright; the agency wins when the site is one part of a bigger job.

When you should not buy from me

Some of the enquiries I get are for the wrong product, and I would rather say so here than after a deposit.

• A shop with hundreds of products. Stock, variants, postage rules, VAT, returns: that is an e-commerce platform's job, and Shopify or a WooCommerce build from someone who does that all day will serve you better than five hand-coded pages. I can build the site around the shop, not the shop.
• Anything needing a custom database beyond bookings. Member accounts, customer portals, stock systems, anything where the data is the business. My booking system is the one piece of software I sell, and it is built for one thing.
• A business that needs a designer on retainer. If you want someone on call for campaigns, new pages every week and brand work, you want an agency or a freelancer on a monthly arrangement. I build, hand over, and step back.
• A launch this week. Ten to fourteen days is the real timescale. Anyone promising three days is either skipping the writing or using a template.
• Nothing to say yet. If the business has no name, no service list and no idea of its prices, a site will not fix that. Sort those first, then come back; the £399 will still be £399.

Questions about the price

Is £399 the whole price, or the price before extras?

It's the whole price for a five-page site. £200 to start and £199 when you approve it, and the add-ons on this page are the only other numbers I charge: booking from £350, card payment from £120, £45 a page past five. Each is optional and each is quoted before anything starts.

Why is a Wix or Squarespace site not just cheaper?

For the first year it usually is. A basic plan runs roughly £10 to £20 a month, so £120 to £240 a year, and the domain is free for the first year then about £8 after. The difference is that it never stops. By year three you have paid close to what a built site costs and you still don't own anything: leave, and the site goes with you only as screenshots.

What does an agency charge for the same five pages?

The UK guides I checked in September 2026 put a five-page brochure site at £1,500 to £3,000 from a freelancer and £3,000 to £5,000 from an agency, with £500 to £2,000 a year on top for hosting and upkeep. I'm cheaper because it's one person, no office and no account manager, not because the site is smaller.

Do I pay anything every month after it goes live?

Not to me. There's no monthly fee and no contract. Your domain renews with the registrar at roughly £8 to £15 a year, the hosting I set you up on has a free tier that suits a five-page site, and changes after the free 30 days are £25 an hour, billed in half-hour steps, only when you ask for them.

Where the price applies

The same £399 wherever you are, but the towns I work in most have their own pages, because what a salon in Falkirk needs and what a joiner in Grangemouth needs are not the same site. So far: web design in Falkirk and web design in Stirling. Alloa, Grangemouth, Dollar and Tillicoultry are on their way. If your business takes appointments, read about the booking system before you decide, because it changes the sum.

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