The short answer
Most UK small businesses should budget £1,500 to £6,000 for a professionally built website, or around £100 to £250 a month on a pay-monthly plan. Doing it yourself on a website builder costs about £10 to £30 a month, plus your own time. Online shops start nearer £2,000 and climb quickly.
With us, the best way in is a monthly Wix Headless plan, from £145 a month with nothing up front. If you'd rather pay once, one-off builds are from £1,500.
How much does a website cost in the UK?
It depends who builds it, and what it has to do. Anyone who gives you one number without asking is guessing.
We've pulled together what UK studios and business guides are publishing this year, so you can see the ranges side by side.
| Who builds it | Typical UK cost | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| You, on a website builder | £9 to £29 a month | New businesses, sole traders, simple sites |
| Freelancer | £500 to £3,000 up front | Small sites, when you want a person rather than a template |
| Small studio or regional agency | £2,000 to £6,000 up front | Established businesses that rely on enquiries |
| Pay-monthly studio | £30 to £250 a month | Businesses that want no big bill up front |
| Online shop, built for you | £2,000 to £20,000 or more | Anyone selling products online |
| Bespoke build or web app | £10,000 to £50,000 or more | Portals, logins and custom systems |
Ranges from published UK price guides, checked 2 November 2026. They're a guide, not a quote.
Why so wide? A five-page site and a shop with 500 products are both "a website". It's like asking what a van costs.
What a website builder really costs
Building it yourself is the cheapest way in, and for plenty of businesses it's the right call.
You pay a subscription rather than a designer. Here's what the main platforms charge in the UK.
| Platform | Plans | Price a month | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | Light to Business | £9 to £25 (£11.50 to £29) | Service businesses that want everything in one place |
| Squarespace | Basic to Plus | £12 to £29 (£16 to £36) | Creatives and businesses led by their visuals |
| Shopify | Basic to Grow | £19 to £49 (£25 to £65) | Businesses where selling online is the main job |
| WordPress | Free software, plus hosting | About £7 to £97 for hosting | People who want full control and don't mind the upkeep |
UK prices on yearly billing, with the monthly-billing price in brackets, checked 2 November 2026. Shopify also takes card fees, 2% + 25p online on Basic.
Wix's Light plan can't take payments, so if you're taking money online you'd want Core at £16 a month.
The cost missing from that table is your time. Allow 20 to 40 hours for a first site, then work out what those hours are worth to your business.
A builder also gives you the tools, not the words, the photos or the plan. Those are still on you.
How much does a web designer cost in the UK?
Startups puts freelance web designers at £25 to £50 an hour, small agencies at £50 to £150, and large agencies at £75 to £200 or more.
Most people pay a fixed price rather than by the hour. What moves that price is the same whoever you hire:
- Pages. Five pages and 50 pages are different jobs.
- Design. A customised template costs less than a design from scratch.
- Words and photos. Someone has to write and shoot them. If that isn't you, budget for it.
- Selling online. Products, baskets and payments add weeks.
- Connections. Booking systems, CRMs and property feeds all add work.
When you compare quotes, check they cover the same things. A £1,000 site and a £3,000 site can look alike on the homepage and behave very differently six months on.
Website running costs: what you pay after launch
The build is only part of the bill. One UK guide puts running costs at £600 to £2,000 a year for a small business site, and these are the lines that make it up:
- Domain name. £8 to £20 a year. Wix's yearly plans include a voucher for the first year.
- Hosting. Included with a builder. Otherwise about £7 to £97 a month.
- Business email. About £50 to £200 a year per inbox.
- Updates and maintenance. £50 to £300 a month if someone looks after the site for you.
- Apps and plugins. Nothing to £100 a month, depending on what you add.
- SEO. Optional, but £150 to £1,200 a month if you pay someone to do it.
Pay monthly or one-off: which website costs less?
Monthly is how we'd point most businesses. It spreads the cost, there's no big bill to start, and someone keeps looking after the site. One-off builds cost more on day one and less later on, as long as you don't need much help.
Here's how ours work, so you can check the maths.
| Plan | Monthly | One-off | Pages | Typical go-live |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signature | £145 | £1,500 | Up to 5 | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Growth | £195 | £2,500 | Up to 12 | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Shop | £395 | £4,500 | Up to 12, plus the shop | 3 to 4 weeks |
Wix Headless prices and times, checked on our Packages page, 5 November 2026.
Monthly plans include the build, your Wix plan, hosting and 4 to 8 hours of updates a month depending on the plan, with nothing to pay up front. There's a 12-month minimum, then it's month to month, and the code is yours once the 12 months are paid. Cancel before then and the rest of the 12 months is due. Every monthly plan is built on Wix Headless and comes with access to Pier, our new client platform, which is coming soon: ask for a change in plain English, and the team who built your site makes it for you.
One-off builds take a 50% deposit. After that, you keep your own Wix Premium plan and pay Wix directly, and any updates after launch are from £95 an hour.
Here's Signature over time, at today's prices:
- Monthly plan. £1,740 in year one, £5,220 over three years.
- One-off, paying Wix yourself. From £1,608 in year one, from £1,824 over three years, on Wix's Light plan.
So one-off is cheapest if you'll rarely need changes. If you want someone looking after the site every month, that's what the monthly plan is for, and after three years on it we refresh your design at no extra cost.
Want to move whole layouts around yourself? Wix Studio builds are one-off only, from £2,100.
What we'd do
If you're just starting out and money's tight, build it yourself. Spend a weekend on Wix or Squarespace, get something decent live, and put the money towards finding your first customers.
If selling online is the main job, Shopify is hard to argue with, and we'd tell you so. If you like tinkering and want full control, WordPress will suit you.
If you're established and the website has to bring in enquiries, that's where paying someone earns its keep. For most service businesses we'd go monthly, because a website nobody updates starts going stale the day it launches.
What we wouldn't do is buy on the lowest number. Ask what's included after launch, who owns the site, and what happens if you leave.
Don't ask what a website costs. Ask what it costs over three years, and what you get for it.
Questions people ask
What is a reasonable price to pay for a website?
For a small UK business, £1,500 to £6,000 for a professional build is reasonable, or around £100 to £250 a month on a plan. Below that you're usually on a builder or a template, which can be fine for a simple site.
How much does Wix charge for a website in the UK?
On yearly billing, Wix's plans run from £9 a month for Light to £25 for Business, checked 2 November 2026. Core, at £16, is the cheapest of those that can take payments.
How much does it cost to hire a Wix designer?
As a guide, freelancers charge £500 to £3,000 up front and small studios £2,000 to £6,000. With us it's from £145 a month or from £1,500 one-off, and Wix Studio builds are from £2,100.
What would your website cost?
Start with the monthly plans on our Packages page: what each plan includes, the add-ons and the terms.
Not sure which route is right? Send your current site over for a free website review. Ryan will record a short video on what's working, what's holding it back and what he'd change. Free, no hard sell.