How much does a website cost in the UK?

Costs range from free on a website builder to £5k-£100k+ for a professionally built site, plus running costs.

  • Free builder site: Webflow Starter, free, webflow.io address, 2 static pages
  • Website builder: Squarespace Basic £14.40 a month paid annually, including VAT
  • WordPress: software free, hosting from £7 a month before VAT
  • Domain name: £7.99 a year for .co.uk, £11.99 for .com, excluding VAT
  • Webflow hosting: from $15 a month billed yearly
  • Professionally built Webflow site from Big Rocket: £5k to £100k+ excluding VAT, with a £5k-£25k site taking 4-6 weeks
  • Typical small site: 5-10 pages with Deep Dive Discovery, full UI/UX design stages and custom development, under £10k excluding VAT
  • Online shop: costed separately

Prices vary with the number of pages, CMS requirements and custom functionality.

What affects the cost of a website?

The number of page templates, the CMS and any custom features set the price. A Big Rocket quote usually goes up as soon as functionality is needed beyond a marketing site, or when a client wants deeper involvement in the design stages. We group builds into three distinct types to help you understand your budget.

  • A website informs people and makes sales. The cost is set by the templates, CMS and content required for your goals.
  • A web app lets people finish a task. The price is driven by the number of screens, accounts and logic needed to function.
  • A platform manages a complete workflow for multiple users. Costs are determined by integrations, roles and scale.

Bespoke builds cost more. We only suggest them when they offer a clear return on your investment. We recommend starting with a first release that does the essential job. You can then add more features in stages to spread your budget effectively.

What you get at each price

The fee pays for planning, design, build, testing and handover, and some marketing work sits outside it.

  • Webflow site: brand-led design, CMS build, SEO and schema set-up, Editor training
  • Webflow plus ecommerce: product and pricing logic, checkout and payments, links to your tools, launch support
  • Bespoke platform: discovery and scope, custom back end on Cloudflare, Webflow front end, support after launch

Every Big Rocket project includes a sitemap and page plan. We design a home page to set the direction, followed by every page and state in Figma. This process results in a shared Figma and Webflow component library, the built Webflow site and Editor training. We build pages from components and check them for speed, accessibility and schema on real devices before you review the staging site.

Your marketing team can manage the site after launch. They can launch new pages from the component library, update the CMS and manage page titles, descriptions and redirects without a developer. This keeps your team in control of the content.

Certain services require a separate budget. We refer out SEO campaigns and link building, social media management, paid ads and ongoing copywriting retainers to specialists we trust. These tasks are not part of our standard build fee.

Website builder, WordPress or a professionally built site?

A builder or WordPress costs least up front, and a built site pays off when it has to sell, book or win enquiries. Templates cost less until the website needs to perform properly. Bespoke web design is the right choice when your site must handle specific business tasks. WordPress software is free to use, but you will still need to pay for hosting and upkeep.

There are times when you should not hire an agency like Big Rocket. You should look elsewhere if you only need minor tweaks to an existing site or require a template site within the month. We also suggest looking elsewhere if you need a brand first or require regular social media and campaign content. There are also technical scenarios where an off-the-shelf tool is better than a bespoke build.

You should look beyond Webflow if you sell thousands of products with complex variants or if your developers need to manage server code. Other reasons to look beyond our typical build include cases where most products sit behind a login or you only need a one-page site for a few months. We price every project from the brief. After a first call and discovery, we provide a written proposal. If an off-the-shelf tool would do the job, Big Rocket says so.

Freelancer, agency or in-house developer?

A freelancer usually has the lowest day rate, an agency quotes a set project price, and in-house means wages plus running costs.

  • Freelancer: cheapest daily rate, one person, work pauses if they are off
  • Agency: set project price, brand, design, build and strategy, retainer-based support and cover
  • In-house developer: wages plus running costs, work pauses if they are off

Ask these eight questions before you sign with an agency.

  • Are you a Certified or Premium Webflow Partner?
  • Can we see three live sites you built?
  • Who will design and build our site?
  • Can our team make edits?
  • How will you protect our rankings during a move?
  • How do you handle custom features?
  • Who owns the website and the code?
  • What does support cost after launch?

How much does a website cost per month in the UK?

Monthly costs are mainly hosting, plus a yearly domain and any support. Webflow offers different plans depending on your site requirements. For simple sites without a CMS, the Basic site plan costs $15 a month billed yearly or $25 billed monthly. This includes a custom domain, 300 static pages and 10 GB bandwidth. These prices are in USD per site plus applicable taxes.

For content-rich sites using the Webflow CMS, the Premium site plan costs $25 a month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly. This includes 50 GB bandwidth, though more bandwidth costs extra. These prices are also in USD per site plus applicable taxes.

When reviewing any UK quote, you must check whether the price includes VAT at 20%. You should also budget for legal requirements such as cookie consent. Under PECR, a website must tell people it sets cookies, explain what they do and why, and get their consent. A site cannot set non-essential cookies before the user has consented. The ICO is currently consulting on revised guidance regarding these rules.

How to get an accurate quote, and is it worth it?

A useful quote comes from a clear brief and a short discovery, not a price list. We price every project from your specific requirements. After an initial call and discovery, we provide a written proposal. If an off-the-shelf tool would do the job better, we will tell you.

Our own business LuxuryTrainTickets.com, which we designed, built and still manage, launched during the pandemic. It passed £1M+ in sales in its second year and now makes £2.5M+ a year, mostly from organic search.

If you have a project in mind, talk to us about your brief.

Sources

Researched and fact-checked with the help of AI tools and Ahrefs data.