Last updated: 2 September 2026
The 2026 price bands
These are the ranges you'll meet if you ring round for a small business website today. They're wide because they describe genuinely different things being sold.
- DIY builders: £0 up front, £13–£25 a month. Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy. Cheap to start, and you do all the work: the layout, the words, the photos, the Google setup. You're renting the site, so it comes down if you stop paying.
- Budget packages: from £299–£349, plus £20–£30 a month. A template filled in for you, usually fast. The monthly fee is the actual business model, and it often covers maintenance and a professional email address as separate line items.
- Freelancers: £800–£3,000. One person, generally WordPress. Quality swings hard on who you get. Words are sometimes included and sometimes billed as copywriting on top.
- Pay monthly, £0 up front, £50 a month. Newer, and growing fast. Somebody builds it and you rent it indefinitely. Genuinely easy to say yes to, because there is nothing to find at the start. Usually three pages rather than five, and the site stops being yours the day you stop paying.
- Agencies: £2,500–£10,000. A team: designer, developer, project manager, account manager. Thorough, and you're paying for all four salaries. Typical small business spend lands between £1,500 and £5,000.
Our own price sits deliberately outside those bands: £500 fixed, once, with no monthly fee you have to pay. More on why that's possible below.
Why the same website costs £299 or £5,000
Three things drive nearly all of the spread.
- How many people touch the job. An agency quote covers a team and the overhead behind it. A freelance quote covers one person. That difference alone explains most of the gap.
- Who writes the words. This is the biggest hidden variable. Plenty of quotes cover design and build only, and the copy quietly becomes your homework. A site that sits half-finished for four months because nobody wrote the About page is the most common way a website budget gets wasted.
- Whether you're buying or renting. A one-off price buys you an asset. A monthly price rents you one. Both can be fair. They're just not comparable on the headline number.
The arithmetic on "from £299"
This is the calculation worth doing before you sign anything, and it takes a minute.
Take a typical budget package: £299 up front, £25 a month for maintenance, £8 a month for a professional email address. That's £695 in year one, then £396 every year after. Over three years: about £1,490.
Now take a £500 one-off site where the only recurring cost is the domain at roughly £20 a year. Over the same three years: £540.
The cheaper-looking option is nearly three times dearer by year three, and the crossover happens inside the first eight months. This isn't a trick anyone is playing on you. It's just what a subscription does. But it means the headline price tells you almost nothing on its own.
| Cost | £500 once | Budget package | Pay monthly | DIY builder | Freelancer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up front | £500 | from £299 | £0 | £0 | £800–£3,000 |
| Monthly | None you have to pay | £20–£30 | £50 | £13–£25 | Often hosting only |
| Minimum term | None | Often 12–18 months | Varies, check it | Rolling, but forever | None |
| Three-year total | £540 | around £1,490 | £1,800 | around £700, rising | £900–£3,300 |
| Who writes the words | We do | Usually you | Usually them | You | Sometimes extra |
| Who owns it after | You, outright | Usually them | Them | You rent it | Usually you |
Figures are typical advertised UK prices as at September 2026, not quotes. The pay-monthly column assumes £50 a month with nothing up front, which is a real offer currently advertised locally. The £540 assumes the domain renewing at about £20 a year after the first year, which is included.
The £50 a month offer, and why it is the one to check
"No upfront cost, £50 a month" is now a common local offer, and it is the hardest one to think about clearly, because the number that usually makes people hesitate has been removed. There is nothing to save up for. You simply start.
Do the same arithmetic anyway. £50 a month is £600 in year one and £1,800 over three years, and at the end of it you own nothing. A £500 one-off site costs less than eleven months of that, and the eleventh month is where the lines cross. After that you are paying for something you already have.
Two other things worth checking on a pay-monthly deal, because they are easy to miss. How many pages? These offers are commonly three, where a five-page site is the normal small business shape. And what happens when you stop? Some are honest that the site comes down. Others say they will "help you move it", which is not the same as you owning it, and on a hand-built site can mean a rebuild.
None of this makes pay-monthly wrong. If cash flow is the binding constraint, spreading the cost is a perfectly sensible trade and we would rather you did that than went without a website. Just make the trade knowingly.
Minimum terms: the number nobody puts in the headline
This is the part that changes a quote most and appears in it least. A low setup fee attached to a long minimum term is not a cheap website. It is a subscription with a deposit.
Structures currently advertised by firms in central Scotland, taken from their own public pricing pages:
- £350 up front plus £40 a month on a minimum eighteen-month contract. Headline £350. Actual committed cost £1,070.
- £450 up front plus £50 a month, same eighteen-month minimum. That is the six-page tier, the closest like-for-like to a five-page site. Committed cost £1,350.
- £700 up front plus £60 a month. Nine pages. Committed cost £1,780.
- £299 up front plus £25.99 a month where the monthly care plan is effectively part of the package. Three-year cost about £1,235.
Those are all real, current, and none of them are hidden: they are published, and the firms are entitled to sell that way. The point is only that "from £350" and "£1,070 committed" are the same offer, and only one of the two numbers appears in the advert.
The clause to read before you sign is what happens at the end. One local provider's terms state plainly that on cancellation the website, the email and everything else in the subscription are closed down. That is not a trick, it is written in their terms, and it is exactly the sort of thing worth reading before rather than after.
So the question to ask is not "how much is it?" It is "what is the minimum term, what is the total across it, and what do I own on the last day?"
Glasgow and Edinburgh specifically
At the budget end there's a small gap between the two cities: the cheapest packages advertised in Glasgow start around £299, and in Edinburgh around £349. Agency quotes there tend to run a little higher too, which is roughly what you'd expect from the difference in commercial rents.
Further up the scale the city matters far less than which particular firm you ring. The variation between two Glasgow agencies is much wider than the variation between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Our price is £500 in Glasgow and £500 in Edinburgh. Everything happens over the phone and by email either way, so there's nothing to charge extra for.
What should actually be included
Whatever you pay, this is the list worth checking a quote against. Anything missing here is either extra work for you or an extra invoice later.
- The pages you need: for most small businesses that's five (home, services, about, reviews, contact), and sometimes one good page is genuinely better.
- The words, written for you. Ask this one explicitly. "Content provided by client" in a quote means you're writing it.
- A design that works on a phone, since that's where the majority of your visitors will be.
- Your own domain name, registered in your business's name.
- Hosting, a security certificate and backups, with the renewal cost stated in writing.
- Set up for Google Search and Maps: the technical groundwork, plus your Google Business Profile. Be wary of anyone promising a particular position; nobody can honestly guarantee that.
The questions that save you money
Four questions, asked before you pay a deposit, catch nearly every unpleasant surprise.
- "What's the total over three years?" The single most useful question on this page.
- "Who owns the domain and the website afterwards?" If the answer is anything other than "you", understand exactly what happens when you leave.
- "Is the copywriting included, or am I writing it?"
- "What does a change cost after handover?" Some firms charge per change from day one.
The usual hidden costs
None of these are dishonest on their own. They become a problem when they appear after the headline price has already done its job.
- Monthly maintenance presented as compulsory when it's mostly hosting.
- Email as a separate subscription. Worth flagging that ours is a paid add-on too. It has a real cost per mailbox and we'd rather say so than bundle it and raise the headline price.
- Copywriting billed on top of a design-only quote.
- Domain renewal at a markup, or the domain registered to the agency rather than to you.
- Per-change fees after handover.
- Stock photo licensing, occasionally billed annually.
So what should you pay?
If you're a small business in Glasgow or Edinburgh that needs a site which looks right, says the right things and turns up on Google, the honest answer is that you shouldn't need to spend thousands. Most of that money buys process, not a better website.
What you should insist on is knowing the three-year number, owning what you paid for, and not writing the words yourself.
Two related pages if you are still weighing it up: building it yourself versus paying someone, and whether a Facebook page is enough on its own. If you would rather see who you would be dealing with, that is here, and the towns covered are here.
Or call 07508 750017. Twenty minutes on the phone and you'll know whether it's for you.
Questions
Website costs: the short answers
How much does it cost to get a website made in the UK in 2026?
For a small business site, expect roughly £299 to £700 for a budget package (usually with a monthly fee attached), £800 to £3,000 from a freelancer, and £2,500 to £10,000 from an agency. Most small businesses that go the agency route end up spending £1,500 to £5,000. The figure that matters is not the up-front price but the three-year total, because monthly fees are where most of the money goes.
Why do website prices vary so much?
Three things drive the price: how many people touch the job, whether the words are written for you or by you, and whether you are buying the site outright or renting it. An agency price covers a team: account manager, designer, developer, project manager. A freelancer price covers one person. A budget package price covers a template, and the monthly fee is the real product.
Is a £299 website a good deal?
It depends entirely on what is attached to it. A £299 site with £25 a month for maintenance and £8 a month for email costs about £695 in the first year and £396 every year after, roughly £1,490 over three years. A £500 site with no monthly fee costs £540 over the same three years, because the only recurring cost is the domain at about £20 a year. Always ask for the three-year total before comparing headline prices.
Does it cost more to get a website made in Edinburgh than Glasgow?
Slightly, at the budget end. The cheapest packages advertised in Glasgow start around £299 and in Edinburgh around £349, and Edinburgh agency quotes tend to run a little higher. At the freelance and agency end the difference is small compared with the variation between individual firms. Our own price is £500 in both cities.
What should a small business website include for the price?
At minimum: the pages you actually need, the words written for you rather than left as your homework, a design that works properly on a phone, your own domain name registered to your business, hosting with a security certificate, and the site set up so it can appear on Google Search and Maps. Check who owns the domain and the site afterwards. That is the single most important question and the one most often skipped.
What are the hidden costs of a website?
The common ones are monthly maintenance or hosting fees, a separate charge for a professional email address, paying for the words to be written after you were quoted for design only, per-change fees after handover, domain renewal charged at a markup, and stock photo licensing. None of these are dishonest on their own. The problem is when they appear after the headline price has done its job.
How much does a 5 page website cost?
For a small business, a five page site (home, services, about, reviews, contact) is the normal shape and typically costs £299 to £700 from a budget provider, £800 to £3,000 from a freelancer, or £2,500 upwards from an agency. Ours is £500 fixed. Watch for pay-monthly offers quoted against this: they are commonly three pages rather than five, which is not the same thing.
Is £50 a month for a website a good deal?
It is £600 in year one and £1,800 over three years, and you do not own the site at the end. A £500 one-off costs less than eleven months of it. If cash flow is the real constraint then spreading the cost is a sensible trade and better than having no website at all, but make it knowingly. Check how many pages you get, whether there is a minimum term, and what happens to the site when you stop paying.
What is a minimum term and why does it matter?
It is the number of months you are committed to, and it changes the real price more than anything else in a quote. A published offer of £350 up front plus £40 a month on an eighteen month minimum is a committed cost of £1,070, not £350. Ask for the minimum term and multiply it out before you compare anything.
Do I own my website?
Sometimes, and it is worth asking outright. On a one-off build you normally own the site and the domain outright, and both should be registered in your business name. On a pay-monthly or subscription deal you usually do not, and at least one local provider's terms state that the website and email are closed down when you cancel. Ask who owns it, ask what happens on the last day, and get the answer in writing.
How much should a small business actually spend on a website?
For most small businesses that need to look right, say the right things and turn up on Google, you should not need thousands. Beyond a certain point the extra money buys process rather than a better website: account managers, project managers and meetings. Spend enough to get the words written for you and the Google setup done properly, insist on owning it, and put the rest into being findable.