Short answer: A website for a small business in the UK typically costs £3,000 to £8,000 to have built by an agency, and then about £1,500 to £7,000 a year to run. With a website builder like LINJERUM Studio you pay nothing to build and about £55 a month once the site is live.
The price of the site itself is only half the sum. The other half is everything that happens afterwards: hosting, updates and every small change. That is where most people get caught out.
| Agency | LINJERUM Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Having the site built | £3,000–£8,000 | £0. You only pay when you publish |
| Running costs per year | £1,500–£7,000 | About £640, everything included |
| Over three years | About £7,500–£29,000 | About £1,900 |
| New opening hours | An email and an hourly rate | Two minutes, you do it yourself |
The agency figures come from UK price guides published in 2026 (ExpertSure, Brambla and Osdire). Our price is the Starter plan paid yearly.
How much does it cost to have a website built?
A UK agency typically charges £3,000 to £8,000 for a professional website for a small business. A simple site on a template can be done for £500 to £3,500. If you need an online shop, a specialist agency rarely starts below £5,000.
Where the agency sits matters too. ExpertSure puts a regional agency at £5,000 to £15,000 and a full-service London agency at £8,000 to £30,000 or more, for much the same kind of site.
With us, the design is already done. You start from a template our designers drew for real businesses, and you change the text and images directly on the page. What takes an agency weeks takes an afternoon here.
An example site built in the studio on the Oliven template. The design was finished from the start. Only the text and images were swapped.
How much does a website cost per year?
This is the number a quote rarely puts up front. ExpertSure puts agency hosting at £20 to £100 a month, a .co.uk domain at £10 to £15 a year, and an agency maintenance retainer at £100 to £500 a month. Over three years that easily adds more than £4,000 on top of the build. At the expensive end, over £20,000.
With us, hosting, security, backups and updates are part of the subscription. There are no plugins to update and no separate maintenance contract. Starter costs €69 a month or €745 a year, about £640.
The bill that comes afterwards
You need to change your opening hours. Or swap a photo because the salon has been repainted. If an agency built the site, that means an email, a wait and an hourly rate of £75 to £200 (£30 to £80 with a freelancer).
So the small changes never get made. The site shows last year's prices, and customers ring up to ask.
The editor: change the text on the left and watch the page update on the right. No email to an agency.
When you can change everything yourself, directly on the page, that bill disappears. And if you would rather have help, it is included in the Premium plan at €199 a month: three hours with a designer every month for text, images and changes. If you just need a hand now and then, expert help costs €99 an hour.
When do you need an agency?
Some sites have to be built from scratch. An online shop with hundreds of products linked to your accounts, or a members' area that has to talk to your own systems. For that we have Enterprise, where we design and build the site for you. Or an agency is the right call.
If you are a tradesperson, a salon, a consultant or a shop with a handful of services, you get the same result for a fraction of the price.
How to compare quotes
- Add the first invoice to three years of running costs.
- Ask what it costs to change a piece of text or a photo.
- Ask who updates the site and what that costs per year.
- Ask whether you can see the site before you pay.
You can build your whole site with us for free and only pay when it goes live. See the templates or the prices.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost in the UK?A simple site on a template costs £500 to £3,500, and a professional small-business site from an agency typically £3,000 to £8,000. With us you build it for free and pay about £55 a month once it is live, with hosting and updates included.
How much does a website cost per month?A site built by an agency typically costs £120 to £600 a month to run once you add hosting and a maintenance retainer, on top of the build price. With us it is about £55 a month for everything, with no build price.
How much does an e-commerce website cost?From a specialist agency, typically £5,000 to £35,000 or more. If you have a lot of products and need links to stock and accounts, that is a job for an agency or our Enterprise plan.
