A carpenter we know asked three people what a website would cost. He was quoted 400 pounds, 4,000 pounds, and "about fifteen a month". Every one of those was an honest answer to a different question, and none of the three told him what he actually wanted to know.
The number is not one number. It is four, they behave differently, and only two of them recur.
The four things you are paying for
| What | One-off or recurring | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | Recurring, yearly | The ending. A common one is a few pounds a year; a short or sought-after name can cost hundreds or more to buy from its current owner |
| The platform | Recurring, monthly or yearly | Whether you need a shop, bookings or rentals. A brochure site sits at the bottom of any pricing page; taking money moves you up it |
| Design and build | One-off, mostly | Who does it. This is the entire spread between the three quotes, and it is labour, not software |
| Running it | Recurring, in hours | How often your facts change, and whether you write your own words and take your own photographs |
Two of these are small and predictable. One is whatever you choose. The last one is the one nobody quotes and everyone pays.
The three routes, and who each is for
Do it yourself on a builder. Lowest cost, highest time. You are buying the platform and supplying the labour. Suits an owner who can write plainly about their own trade and take a decent photograph, which is more people than believe it. See how long it takes to build a business website for what that time actually looks like.
Hire a freelancer. You are buying somebody's week. The number tracks how many days it takes them and what a day of their time costs, which is why quotes for the same site vary so widely between people and places. Worth it when you have no time or the site has to do something unusual.
Hire an agency. You are buying a team, a process and someone to answer the phone in eighteen months. Genuinely worth it above a certain size, and genuinely overpriced below it. Website builder versus hiring a developer covers where the line falls.
The mistake is not picking the wrong one. It is paying agency money for a five-page site, or spending forty of your own evenings to save a freelance fee you could have earned back in two jobs.
The costs that are not in the quote
- Photography. The single biggest difference between a site that looks cheap and one that does not, and almost never in the quote. You can do it yourself: the seven photos your business website needs.
- The words. Whoever builds it will ask you for the copy. If you do not supply it, you pay someone to write it or you launch with placeholder text, and both happen constantly.
- Legal pages. Not expensive, but not optional. See the legal pages your website needs.
- Payment fees, if you take money. A percentage of every transaction, on top of everything above, and it is per sale forever.
- Your attention, ten minutes a month. The maintenance pass is short but it is not zero.
What "free" means
Free plans are real, and they are not a trick. What they usually mean is: a working site on the provider's own address, without the features that let you take money. That is genuinely enough for a business whose site exists to be found and phoned.
What they cost is the address. A free subdomain cannot move with you and says something to customers a domain does not, which is the argument in free subdomain or your own domain. Buy the domain even if you use a free plan for a year. It is the cheapest line on this page and the only one that is hard to fix later.
How to decide in one sitting
Write down three things: whether the site needs to take money, whether you will write your own words, and how much of your own time is genuinely available in the next fortnight. Those three answers pick your route, and the route sets the number. Our pricing covers the platform half, and the free website builder will build you a real site to react to before you have decided anything.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a small business website cost?
It splits into four costs that behave differently: a domain of a few pounds a year, a platform subscription that rises if you take payments or bookings, a one-off design and build cost that is entirely labour and drives the whole spread between quotes, and your own time to keep it current. Doing the build yourself removes the largest and most variable of the four.
Is a website builder cheaper than hiring a web designer?
Almost always in money, rarely in time. A builder means you buy the platform and supply the labour. A designer means you buy their working days, which is why quotes for identical sites vary so much. The honest comparison is the subscription plus your evenings against the fee plus none of them.
What ongoing costs does a website have?
Three recur: the domain each year, the platform each month or year, and transaction fees on every sale if you take payments. A fourth is not billed but is real, which is roughly ten minutes a month keeping prices, hours and staff details accurate.
Do I need to pay for hosting separately?
Not on a hosted website builder, where hosting, security certificates, backups and updates are included in the subscription. You pay separately for hosting when you run the site yourself, and then those maintenance jobs become yours as well.