In short: a business website can cost you a monthly subscription, a one-off fee, or both, and the first number you hear is rarely the whole bill. Here is what the cost is made of, what to ask before you agree to anything, and how our package works.
If you have ever asked what a website costs, you will have been given answers that do not seem to belong to the same question. One person says a few hundred pounds, another says several thousand, a third says it is free. They can all be telling the truth. They are just describing different things. The way to compare them fairly is to look at what is inside each price.
The costs that make up a website
Whatever route you take, a business website is made of the same few parts, and each one has to be paid for by somebody:
- The design and build. Someone has to plan the pages, write or tidy the wording, prepare your photos and make everything work well on a phone. This is the part people usually mean when they ask for a price.
- The domain. Your web address, such as yourbusiness.co.uk. It is renewed on a regular cycle, and it should be registered in your name.
- Hosting. The place where the site lives so that visitors can open it. A slow or unreliable host can put people off before they have read a word.
- Business email. An address at your own domain, rather than a free one.
- Changes. Prices move, opening hours change, you take on a new service or get new photos. Someone has to make those edits, and it helps to know in advance how that works.
When you compare two prices, check which of these are inside each one and which are left for you to sort out later.
The usual ways to pay
Doing it yourself. A website-builder tool can look cheap at the start. You pay a subscription, and the building is your job: the layout, the wording, the mobile version, the contact form. That suits someone who enjoys it and has the evenings to spare. For most people running a busy small business, the real cost is the time.
A freelancer or an agency, paid as a one-off. You pay for the build, usually up front, and then hosting, the domain and updates are separate lines or a separate monthly plan. This can work very well, but the big payment comes before you know how the site will feel to live with. Ask what happens when you want a change in six months' time.
A package. One arrangement covers the build and the ongoing pieces, so you pay one regular amount instead of five separate ones. The things to check are exactly what that amount includes, how long you are tied in, and what happens if you stop.
Questions worth asking anyone who quotes you
- What is included in the price, and what costs extra?
- Who owns the domain, and is it registered in your name?
- What will you pay each month or year after the build?
- What does a change cost, and how quickly is it done?
- Is there a minimum term, and what happens at the end of it?
- Can you see the website before you pay anything?
The last question matters most. Seeing the finished website first turns a guess into a decision.
How our package works
We build your whole website first, free, so that you can look through it and ask for changes before you commit to anything. If you like it, you take a card machine from our payment provider at £25 + VAT a month, paid to our payment provider. Your website, domain, hosting and one business mailbox are then included for as long as you keep the machine. The package page sets everything out, and the terms are repeated below, word for word.
Two things are worth saying plainly. The minimum term comes from the payment provider's agreement, not from us, and we add no term of our own. And we compare your current card rate and show what ours would cost, so that you can judge the card machine on its own merits. The card machine page explains how that works.
What to do next
Whoever you choose, ask for the full price, the full list of what it covers and the terms in writing. If it helps, how it works walks through each of our five stages, and the FAQ answers the questions we are asked most often.