"How much for a website?" is the question I get most, and the answer people hate most is "it depends." So let me not do that. Here's a straight look at what things actually cost around Birmingham, with real ranges, so you can walk into any conversation knowing roughly where you stand.
The three price bands you'll run into
Broadly, small-business websites fall into three groups. They're not better or worse in the abstract — they're built for different situations.
- £300 – £800 · budget templates & offshoreA ready-made template filled in for you, or a very cheap offshore build. Fast, and fine if you just need a presence and the site isn't central to how you get customers.
- £1,500 – £3,500 · a small studio or solo designerA custom small-business site built around your business by someone local you can actually talk to. This is where most serious small businesses land.
- £49 – £99 / month · website care plansOngoing hosting, updates, backups and small changes — a typical UK range. Separate from the build, and worth understanding up front.
A proper bespoke site from a studio like mine tends to sit in the middle of that range — more than a template, less than a big agency, and built around what your business actually needs rather than a fixed package.
Why the same "website" can cost £400 or £4,000
Two sites can look similar in a screenshot and be worlds apart underneath. The price mostly comes down to a few things: how much of it is custom versus filled into a template, how much thought goes into how you actually win customers, and whether there's a real person on the other end when something needs changing.
A £400 template is someone else's design with your words in it. A £3,000 build is a design shaped around your business, your customers and the one thing that makes people pick you. Both are called "a website." Only one is built to earn its keep.
What the monthly fee is really for
People sometimes flinch at a care plan, but a website isn't a one-off object — it's a thing that needs hosting, keeping secure, and the occasional tweak. That's the £49–£99 range doing its job. You can absolutely self-host and manage it yourself to avoid it; you're then the one patching things at 11pm when something breaks. Paying someone to hold that is usually money well spent, but you should know what you're paying for.
So what should you actually budget?
If the website matters to how you get customers — most do — plan for the middle band for the build, plus a modest monthly amount to keep it looked after. That's the honest shape of it. I can't guarantee what any site will do for your sales, and I'd be wary of anyone who does. What I can tell you is that a build in that range, done properly, is rarely the thing a business regrets.
The best way to get a real number is to describe what you need to someone and ask. A good answer should be specific, not vague — and it shouldn't cost you anything to hear it.