The honest answer is: it depends. But that's not helpful, so here's a proper breakdown of what you should expect to pay and what you should be suspicious of at either end of the scale.
DIY builders (£0 £30/month)
Platforms like Wix, Squarespace and WordPress.com let you build a basic site yourself for free or a small monthly fee. They're fine for getting something up quickly and for very simple businesses they can be enough. The downsides: they take real time and skill to make look professional, they have significant SEO limitations and the "free" plan always means your URL looks like yourbusiness.wixsite.com which undermines credibility. You also end up locked into their ecosystem.
Freelancers (£300 £800)
A capable freelancer can build you a decent small business site in this range. Quality varies enormously. At the lower end you're getting someone learning on the job. At the higher end you can get something really solid. The risk is support if something breaks after handover, there's no guarantee they'll be available.
Small agencies like us (£499 – £2,999)
This is where you start getting a proper process, discovery, design mockup, revisions, SEO setup, launch and support. You're paying for reliability, communication and accountability, not just the hours it takes to build the site. Our packages start at £499 for a clean starter site and go up to £2,999 for a fully bespoke premium build with CMS, integrations and copywriting included.
Large agencies (£5,000 – £20,000+)
If someone is quoting you £5,000+ for a basic small business website, they are almost certainly not the right fit. See our transparent pricing → Large agencies have large overheads and are built for large clients. Unless you're running a complex ecommerce store or need bespoke web app functionality, you don't need to spend this much.
What should you actually pay?
For most small businesses, a professional agency-built site in the £500–£3,000 range is the sweet spot. You'll get something that looks great, works properly on mobile, is SEO-optimised and comes with a support period. If someone is quoting you significantly below £500 for a "professional" website, ask a lot of questions. If they're quoting you £5,000+ for a standard informational site, shop around.
What drives the price up or down?
Within the agency range, a few things push the cost higher. Number of pages is the obvious one, but the bigger factors are usually copywriting (writing the actual words for your site), custom photography, e-commerce functionality and how much back-and-forth is needed. A business that arrives with a clear brief, existing brand assets and approved copy will get a site built faster and cheaper than one that needs everything created from scratch.
The things that don't affect price as much as people assume: the number of contact forms, basic animations and responsive design. Any competent agency includes all of these as standard.
Watch out for hidden costs
The quoted price is rarely the full picture. Before signing anything, ask about hosting (who pays for it, how much, what happens if you leave), domain registration, SSL certificates and ongoing maintenance. A £499 website can quietly become £800 a year if the hosting is marked up and you're paying for changes that should be included. At Wellington Web Co. we don't act as a hosting middleman. You pay your host directly, you own your domain and there are no surprise invoices after launch.
Not sure what your project would cost? Our project estimator gives you a realistic investment range in around 3–4 minutes — useful for budget planning before you speak to anyone.