How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026?

It's one of the most googled questions by small business owners, and the honest answer is: it depends. But that's not helpful, so let's actually break it down.

Here's what different options cost, what you get, and what the catch is.

Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify: £10-40 per Month

These platforms let you build a site yourself using drag-and-drop templates. The monthly fee covers hosting, so there's no big upfront cost.

If you're just starting out and genuinely have no budget, these aren't worthless. You can get something live fast.

The problem is what you don't get. The sites tend to be slow because of how the platforms are built. The templates look like templates. You end up with the same layout as hundreds of other businesses. SEO is limited. And that monthly fee adds up: over three years you've spent over a thousand pounds on something you don't own and can't move.

There's also the time cost. Learning the platform, building the pages, writing the copy. Most business owners underestimate how long this takes.

Hiring a Freelancer: £500-3,000

This is where most small businesses end up, and the range is huge because the quality is huge.

At the lower end you'll find someone on Fiverr or PeoplePerHour building something in a page builder like Elementor or Divi. It'll look okay, it'll go live fast, but it'll have similar performance issues to Wix. You might get one round of revisions and then you're on your own.

Further up the range you get someone with more experience who takes a proper brief, thinks about the user journey, writes better code, and hands over something that actually performs in search. You get a real conversation and a site that's built for your specific business rather than slotted into a template.

The risk with freelancers is that quality is hard to assess from a portfolio alone. One missed deadline or a disappearing act after launch and you're stuck.

A Web Design Agency: £3,000-15,000+

Agencies are the most expensive option and not always for good reason. A lot of that cost goes on account managers, project meetings, and overhead. The person actually building your site might be a junior who's also working on five other projects.

That said, a good agency brings structure. Clear processes, proper contracts, ongoing support packages. If you're running a larger business and need CMS training, multiple team members, e-commerce, or ongoing retainer work, an agency can make sense.

For most local businesses in SE London, it's more than you need.

Custom Freelancer Work: £1,500-5,000

This sits between the freelancer mid-range and agency territory, depending on the project. What you're paying for is bespoke code, a proper design process, and a site that's built to rank and convert.

No templates. No page builders. No ongoing monthly fee (you just pay for hosting separately, which is usually £5-15 a month).

For a local business, a clean five-page site with proper SEO, schema markup, and good copy should sit around the £1,500-2,500 mark. More complex sites with booking systems, multiple service areas, or e-commerce will go higher.

What Actually Matters

The question isn't just how much a website costs. It's what it costs versus what it earns.

A £400 site that ranks nowhere and converts nobody costs more than a £2,000 site that brings in two new customers a month.

If you're a local business in South East London and you want a straight conversation about what your site actually needs and what it would cost, just ask. No pitch, no pressure.