You ask three people what a website costs and you get three completely different answers. Squarespace says free. A freelancer quotes £2,000. A Soho agency sends a PDF with £12,000 on the last page. Somewhere in the middle is the truth, and nobody seems willing to put real numbers on the table.
Here they are.
The quick answer
| Tier | Price | Who it's for | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY (Squarespace/Wix) | £0–300/year | Solo operators, tight budget | Template site, limited SEO |
| Freelancer | £1,500–4,000 | Small businesses, custom needs | Custom design, proper SEO, you own the code |
| Small agency | £5,000–15,000 | Mid-size, multiple stakeholders | Team of designers and developers |
| Big agency | £25,000+ | Corporates | Overkill for most SMBs |
If you run a small business in London and you want a site that actually brings in customers, you're probably looking at the £1,500–3,500 range. That's the honest middle ground where you get quality without paying for an agency's office rent.
DIY: Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow templates (£0–300/year)
The template route makes sense in specific situations. You're a freelance illustrator showing a portfolio. You're testing a business idea and need something up this week. You genuinely cannot spend more than £300 right now.
What you get: a functional site from a library of templates. Drag-and-drop editing. Hosting included. SSL certificate. Basic analytics.
What you don't get: unique design (your competitor in Islington might pick the same template). Real SEO control. Fast page speeds — most template sites score 40-60 on Google PageSpeed. Custom integrations. Ownership — you're renting space on someone else's platform.
The hidden cost is your time. Most small business owners spend 20-40 hours building a Squarespace site, then another 5-10 hours every few months trying to fix something the template doesn't support. That time has a cost, even if you don't invoice yourself for it.
Freelancer: the honest middle (£1,500–4,000)
This is where most London small businesses should land. A good freelancer builds you a custom site, handles the technical SEO, deploys it on fast hosting, and hands over everything.
Here's what the price range actually means:
- —£1,500 — Starter. Five pages. Template-based design customised with your brand. Contact form. Basic SEO setup. Mobile responsive. You get a clean, professional site in about two weeks. Perfect for a new business that needs to look credible online without overinvesting.
- —£2,500 — Pro. Eight pages. Fully custom design — no templates. Google Business Profile setup. Local SEO with schema markup so Google understands your business. Booking or appointment integration if you need it. Analytics. This is what most clients pick because it covers everything a local business actually needs.
- —£3,500 — Premium. Everything in Pro, plus three months of ongoing SEO. Two blog posts per month targeting the keywords your customers search for. Monthly reports showing what's working. Priority support. For businesses where Google is the primary way customers find you.
The key difference between a freelancer and a template: you own the code. It's built for your business specifically. It loads fast. And Google can actually read it properly because it's built with search in mind, not drag-and-drop convenience.
I offer all three tiers — you can see the full breakdown on my services page.
Small agency: process-heavy (£5,000–15,000)
Here's what you pay for with a small London agency: an account manager, a designer, a developer, and a project manager. Four salaries touching your project. Rounds of revisions with sign-off forms. Weekly status meetings.
When it's worth it: you have a complex business with multiple stakeholders who all need to sign off. You need a site with 20+ pages, e-commerce, and custom integrations. You have the budget and the patience for a 6-12 week timeline.
When it's not worth it: you need five pages and a contact form. You're paying for process, not output. A café in Shoreditch doesn't need four people building its website.
Most agency quotes include "discovery workshops" and "brand strategy sessions" that run £2,000-3,000 before anyone writes a line of code. That's not always waste — but for a five-page small business site, it usually is.
Big agency: corporate territory (£25,000+)
Briefly, because this probably isn't you. Big agencies exist for brands that need enterprise-grade infrastructure, custom CMS platforms, multilingual setups, and legal compliance frameworks. Banks, retailers, government projects.
If someone quotes you £25,000 for a small business website, walk away. You're either talking to the wrong people or they're pricing you to go away.
For SaaS startups with bigger budgets, the calculus is different — but that's a separate conversation.
Red flags: how to spot an overcharge
Watch for these:
- —No price before a one-hour call. Legitimate developers can quote a range from a brief conversation or email. If they need a paid "discovery session" to tell you the ballpark, the ballpark is high.
- —Pricing by the hour, not the project. Hourly billing incentivises slow work. Fixed-price contracts mean you know what you're paying before anything starts.
- —Scope creep after the quote. "We discovered during our workshop that your project is actually more complex" is the classic upsell. A good freelancer scopes properly upfront.
- —Proprietary CMS lock-in. If you can't take your site and move it to another developer, you don't own it. You're renting.
- —£200+/month hosting fees. A Next.js site on Vercel costs £0-20/month. If someone charges you £200/month for "premium managed hosting," they're marking up a £20 service by 10x.
- —No code handover. You paid for it. You should own it. Every line, every asset, every deployment credential.
What should drive your budget
Forget what other people charge for a moment. Ask yourself four questions:
- —
Is my website the primary way customers find me? If yes, invest accordingly. A clinic in Marylebone where 80% of new patients come through Google should spend differently than a trades business that runs on word-of-mouth.
- —
Can my business recover this cost from one or two new customers? If a £2,500 site brings in even three new customers over a year, it paid for itself. Most London businesses have enough margin to justify this.
- —
Will I need ongoing changes? If your business changes seasonally — new menus, updated services, events — factor in the cost of updates. A site you can't easily edit yourself becomes expensive to maintain.
- —
Do I want to own this asset or rent it? Squarespace is rent. A custom-built site is ownership. Both are valid, but they compound differently over five years.
The London premium
London-based developers and agencies charge 20-40% more than the UK average. For context: a freelancer in Manchester might quote £1,200 for a site that costs £1,800 in London.
Is the premium worth it? Depends. If you value meeting your developer in person, understanding your local market, and having someone who's walked past your shop — yes. If you're comfortable working remotely, you can find excellent developers outside London for less.
I'm based in London but work with clients anywhere. The prices in this article reflect what I charge — transparent, no surprises, fixed before we start.
The point
Most London small businesses are best served spending £1,500–3,500 on a freelancer-built website. That range gets you custom design, proper SEO, fast hosting, and full ownership of the code.
Below that, you're trading quality for savings. Above that, you're paying for process and headcount, not better output.
The businesses that get the best value are the ones who know exactly what they need: a site that loads fast, ranks on Google, and converts visitors into customers. Everything else is noise.
Looking for a straight answer on your project? See my pricing or send me a message — I reply within 24 hours.