Ask five website designers what a website costs and you may get five completely different answers.
One might quote a few hundred pounds.
Another might quote several thousand.
Neither figure necessarily tells you whether the website is good value.
The important question is:
What are you actually getting for the money?
Page count matters, but it isn’t everything
A simple one-page website will usually require less work than a website containing:
- Home
- About
- Several service pages
- Case studies
- Articles
- FAQs
- Contact pages
- Location pages
That is why page count is a useful starting point for pricing.
But two five-page websites can still involve completely different amounts of work.
Functionality affects price
A standard contact form is relatively straightforward.
A system that:
- calculates prices
- takes deposits
- sends information to a CRM
- creates customer accounts
- manages appointments
- processes orders
is not the same job.
The more the website needs to do, the more build and testing time is normally involved.
Ecommerce is different again
An online shop involves considerably more than adding products to a normal website.
You may need to consider:
- Products and variants
- Payments
- Shipping
- Tax settings
- Order emails
- Customer accounts
- Stock
- Returns
- Platform subscriptions
That is why ecommerce websites are generally priced separately rather than simply adding another page to a normal package.
Content can affect the price
There is a major difference between:
"Here is our finished wording and all our photographs."
and:
"We know roughly what we want to say. Can you sort everything out?"
Helping organise, rewrite and improve existing content can often be included to a reasonable level.
Writing large volumes of specialist content from scratch takes considerably more time.
Integrations should be priced separately where necessary
A business might already use:
- A CRM
- Booking software
- Accounting software
- A mailing platform
- A payment system
Sometimes connecting these tools is simple.
Sometimes it isn’t.
This is exactly why transparent "from" pricing is often more honest than pretending every integration has a fixed cost.
What about all the small technical jobs?
This is where website quotes can become confusing.
Things such as:
- SSL
- Sitemap setup
- Search Console
- Favicon
- Meta descriptions
- Form testing
- Social previews
- Basic analytics
- 404 pages
are important, but many are relatively quick to configure once a website has been built correctly.
My approach is simple.
If something is quick, repeatable and costs me nothing extra, I would rather include it than create another small invoice line.
What should genuinely cost extra?
I think additional charges are reasonable when something requires:
- Significant additional time
- Bespoke development
- Specialist knowledge
- Complex integration work
- Large amounts of content
- Paid software
- A third-party subscription
- Ongoing management
For example:
- Ecommerce
- CRM integration
- Full booking systems
- Payment integration
- Advanced calculators
- Membership areas
- Large content migrations
- Ongoing SEO
- Blog writing
- Regular website changes
These are real pieces of additional work.
Watch third-party costs
The website designer’s charge is not always the entire cost of running a website.
Depending on the project, there may also be:
- Domain renewal
- Paid business email mailboxes
- Hosting
- Booking software
- Ecommerce subscriptions
- Payment-processing fees
- Premium plugins
- Stock photography
These should be explained before you commit wherever they are known.
Fixed price or "from" price?
I prefer fixed prices where the scope is predictable.
For work where the complexity genuinely varies, a "from" price is more realistic.
The important part is what happens next.
Before additional work starts, you should know:
- What is being added
- Why it is needed
- What it will cost
My approach to website pricing
The Business Workshop website service is built around three principles:
- Clear packages.
- Useful essentials included.
- Additional work agreed before it is carried out.
I don’t think small businesses should have to decode an enormous list of hidden extras before understanding what a website will really cost.
Want a clear website quote?
Simple page-based packages from £295, the relevant essentials included, and any extras agreed before work starts.