What a website should actually cost
Ask three people to quote for "a website for my business" and you will get £300, £2,000 and £12,000. All three can be quoting honestly. They are quoting for different things — and here is how to tell which one you are being sold.
Ask three people to quote for "a website for my business" and you will get £300, £2,000 and £12,000. The frustrating part is that all three can be quoting honestly. They are quoting for different things, and almost nobody explains which.
So here is the explanation, from the side that does the quoting.
You are not paying for pages
Almost nobody charges by the page any more, because pages are not where the work is. You are paying for time, and the time goes into a fairly predictable set of things: understanding what the business actually sells and to whom, writing the words, designing something that is not a template with your logo dropped in, building it, testing it on real devices, and handing it over so you can run it.
A five-page site for a business with a clear offer and photographs ready to go is genuinely quick. A five-page site where nobody has decided what the business does yet is not, and no honest quote can pretend otherwise.
The £300 website
This is usually somebody's evening on a template. That is not an insult: for a brand new business that needs an address on the internet before it needs anything else, it can be exactly the right call.
What you are not getting at that price is copy written for your business, any real thought about how it performs on a phone, or someone who answers the phone in six months when something breaks. You are buying a placeholder, and it is worth knowing that is what you bought.
The one thing to check even at this price: is the domain registered in your name? If it is in the builder's name you do not own your own address, and that becomes an expensive conversation later.
The monthly model
Paying monthly rather than a lump sum is increasingly normal and there is nothing wrong with it. It spreads the cost, usually bundles hosting and updates, and means somebody is still responsible for the site a year in. For cash flow it is often the sensible choice.
What matters is what happens at the end. Ask three questions before you sign:
- If I leave, do I keep the site? Some monthly deals are rentals. That is fine if you know it. It is not fine if you find out in year three.
- What is the minimum term? Six or twelve months is normal, because the build cost is front-loaded. Thirty-six is not.
- What is included, and what is billed on top? "Updates" can mean anything from a new phone number to a whole new page.
Red flags
- The domain is not in your name. Non-negotiable. It is your address.
- No access to the admin or the source. If you cannot get in without going through them, you are locked in by design rather than by quality.
- "SEO included" with no detail. Included how? Ask what specifically will be done. Vagueness here almost always means nothing will be.
- Guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls Google. Anyone claiming otherwise is either misinformed or counting on you being.
- A price with no written scope. If what you are buying is not written down, the argument later is unwinnable for both of you.
Questions worth asking anyone, including us
- Who owns the site, the domain and the content when we are done?
- What happens if I want to move it somewhere else in two years?
- What does a change cost after launch — a new page, a price update, a new photo?
- Who writes the words? If it is me, when do you need them?
- What is explicitly not included?
A good answer to all five takes about two minutes. If any of them produce a long pause, that is your information.
A fair range
For a small Island business, a straightforward brochure site with your own design, written properly and built to load quickly, is generally a few hundred pounds a month on a managed plan or low four figures as a one-off. Add e-commerce, booking, or anything that has to talk to another system, and it climbs from there because the work genuinely does.
The cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest outcome. Rebuilding a site that was wrong from the start costs more than building it once, because you pay for the rebuild and for the months the first one was quietly not working.
Whatever you spend, get the scope in writing first. The number matters far less than knowing exactly what it buys.