Pricing Cost calculator

How much does a website cost in the UK? Run your own numbers.

The honest answer is a set of ranges, not a number. In August 2026 the observed UK market looks like this: a DIY builder subscription runs £240 to £360 a year, a freelancer build lands between £1,200 and £2,000, a small agency charges £1,500 to £5,000, a larger one £2,500 to £10,000, and pay-monthly subscriptions run £40 to £200 a month with the build rolled in. Every figure on this page comes from a price a provider publishes or an aggregator guide's band, and each one carries that label so you can weigh it.

The calculator below puts the four routes side by side for your brief. Pick the page count, say whether you need a checkout or copywriting, and choose how much of the upkeep you want done for you. Each five-year total shows its arithmetic, because month one is where quotes flatter and year five is where they tell the truth.

One disclosure before you start: we sell one of the four routes. Verithora is a one-founder pay-monthly studio in East Dulwich, London, and our tiers are £49, £79 and £200 a month. They appear below at the same size as everyone else's numbers, and the full evidence trail is in our cost guide.

Four routes Five-year totals Every source named Checked August 2026

The calculator

Four routes, side by side

These are observed UK market ranges checked in August 2026. They are not quotes and not a promise of what you will pay.

The pickers on this page need JavaScript. Without it, the figures below show the typical UK brief: a 4 to 6 page site, no checkout, copy provided, with a basic maintenance arrangement. The bands for every other brief are in the cost guide.

Showing: a 4 to 6 page site, no checkout, copy provided, basic upkeep.

DIY builder

Wix, Squarespace: you do the work.

Build: £0 upfront; Your evenings are the build cost on this route.
Ongoing: £240 to £360 a year; Aggregator guide (Duport), builder subscription with hosting included. Checked 13 August 2026.

Five-year total

£1,200 to £1,800

£240 to £360 a year × 5 years

The real cost is your time: the layout, the copy and every later change are yours to do.
A checkout needs the builder's commerce plan. The band shown is Duport's basic-builder figure, so treat it as a floor.
Nobody writes the copy on this route. The price stays put; your evenings do not.
Nobody maintains it but you. If you want the upkeep done for you, this is the wrong route.
A builder will hold more than ten pages, but keeping them consistent by hand gets slow.

Freelancer, one-off

You buy a build, then decide who runs it.

Build: £1,200 to £2,000; Aggregator guide (Duport), freelancer build of 4 to 5 pages. Checked 13 August 2026.
Ongoing: £25 to £100 a month; Maintenance-only retainer. Aggregator guide (EdTheDev); published price from £50 (Steve Sims).

Five-year total

£2,700 to £8,000

£1,200 to £2,000 build + £25 to £100 × 60 months

The build is a one-off bill. Who looks after the site afterwards is a separate decision, and a separate cost.
Most freelancer bands we can point at cover smaller sites. For more than ten pages, compare the agency route.
Freelancer quotes often price copywriting separately. Expect the top of the band, or budget your own writing time.
Many sole-trader designers do not take checkout builds. For e-commerce, expect agency-band pricing.
£25 to £100 a month is the maintenance-only band. Fully managed arrangements usually cost more; the pay-monthly route is the closer comparison.

Agency, one-off

A team builds it; the retainer is a second decision.

Build: £1,500 to £5,000; Aggregator guides (EdTheDev and SwiftCase); our own observed quotes agree. Checked 13 August 2026.
Ongoing: £25 to £100 a month; Maintenance-only retainer. Aggregator guide (EdTheDev); published price from £50 (Steve Sims).

Five-year total

£3,000 to £11,000

£1,500 to £5,000 build + £25 to £100 × 60 months

Part of an agency price is overhead. The cost guide's fair-quote checklist names what should be in the quote.
A fair agency quote names who writes the content. If yours does not, ask before you sign.
A checkout moves you into the larger-agency band, and the integrations are usually where the quote grows.
£25 to £100 a month is the maintenance-only band. Fully managed arrangements usually cost more; the pay-monthly route is the closer comparison.

Pay monthly

Build and upkeep rolled into one flat fee.

Build: £0, rolled into the fee; How the subscription model works: the monthly fee is the whole price.
Ongoing: £40 to £200 a month; Published prices (Yopp, Verithora, Stagg Studios), checked 13 August 2026. Yopp shows its prices excluding VAT.

Five-year total

£2,400 to £12,000

£40 to £200 a month × 60 months

Closest Verithora tier: Essentials at £49 a month, £2,940 over five years.

We sell this route; the disclosure below shows our tiers in full.

One fee covers the build, hosting, domain and ongoing edits. The trade is trusting the firm to still be there in year five.
Not the route for a checkout: we do not build e-commerce, and we can only speak for our own subscription. Use Shopify or Squarespace for carts.
Who writes the words varies by tier across the market. Our Growth tier includes a monthly blog post written by us with your input.
You cannot strip the upkeep out of this route. The management is the product; if you truly want none, a one-off build is cheaper.

Disclosure

We sell the pay-monthly route

Verithora is a one-founder pay-monthly studio, so the last column above is the one we profit from. Here are our own published tiers, with the same 60-month multiplication applied to them as to everyone else's numbers.

Verithora's three tiers with their five-year totals
Tier	Monthly	Five-year total
Essentials	£49 a month	£2,940
Growth	£79 a month	£4,740
Pro	£200 a month	£12,000

£0 setup and a 30-day money-back guarantee on every tier. No VAT: we are a sole-trader firm below the threshold. This section is the advert; everything else on the page holds without it.

See what is in each tier Compare five UK providers

Where the numbers come from

Every range above belongs to a named evidence class, and each card says which. A published price is a figure a provider displays on its own website; we fetched those pages on 13 August 2026 and recorded what each shows. An aggregator band is another firm's summary of UK market rates (Duport, EdTheDev, SwiftCase): useful as a reality check, not primary data. Observed quotes are ranges we have seen in real quotes through our own work; they are the weakest class, so nothing on this page rests on them alone.

The full provider-by-provider table, the hidden line items most quotes leave out, and the worked five-year examples are in what a small business website actually costs in the UK in 2026. The published pay-monthly prices are compared line by line in the provider comparison.

Questions

What owners ask about website costs

How much does a website cost in the UK in 2026?

The observed market in August 2026: a DIY builder subscription at £240 to £360 a year (Duport’s guide), a freelancer build at £1,200 to £2,000 (Duport), a small agency build at £1,500 to £5,000 (EdTheDev and SwiftCase), a larger agency build at £2,500 to £10,000 (Duport), and pay-monthly subscriptions at £40 to £200 a month (published prices from Yopp, Verithora and Stagg Studios). Those are checked market ranges, not quotes.

Which route is cheapest over five years?

In cash, DIY: £240 to £360 a year is £1,200 to £1,800 over five years, but every hour of the work is yours. Among done-for-you routes the low end of pay-monthly usually wins: £40 a month is £2,400 over 60 months, against a £1,200 to £2,000 freelancer build plus £25 to £100 a month upkeep, which totals £2,700 to £8,000. The high ends reverse the order, so run your own brief through the calculator above.

Are these figures quotes?

No. They are observed UK market ranges checked on 13 August 2026: prices providers publish on their own sites, and bands from aggregator guides (Duport, EdTheDev, SwiftCase). A real quote depends on your brief, your content and who you hire. Treat these ranges as a sanity check on the quotes in your inbox, not as a promise of what you will pay.

Is this calculator biased toward pay-monthly?

We are a pay-monthly studio, so read that column knowing we sell it. What keeps the page honest: every range names its source and evidence class, our tiers (£49, £79 and £200 a month) are shown at the same size as every other route, and the DIY route stays the cheapest cash option throughout. The cost guide behind the numbers lists every source.

Start an enquiry

Want a real number instead of a range?

Send a sentence or two about the business and we will tell you which of our tiers fits, or say honestly that another route suits you better. A person reads it and replies within two working days.