1. the rough ranges
DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace and similar) run around £20-£30 a month, so £240-£360 a year, plus your own time to build it. Freelancers typically charge £800-£3,000 for a straightforward small business site. Agencies, especially in London, typically charge £3,000-£10,000+ for a professionally built site, roughly 20-40% more than the same brief would cost outside London. None of these numbers are wrong, they're pricing different things.
2. what actually moves the price
It's rarely about the number of pages. The real drivers are: how much custom design versus template the project needs, whether copy is written for you or you're supplying it, how much SEO groundwork is built in from day one, and how much ongoing support is included after launch. A £500 template site and a £3,000 bespoke site can look similar in a screenshot and perform very differently three months later.
3. what you should expect at each level
Under £1,000 usually means a template with your logo and colours dropped in, minimal copywriting, and basic or no SEO setup, fine as a stopgap. £1,500-£4,000 is where most good small business sites land: proper design work, real copywriting, mobile optimisation, and foundational SEO so you're not invisible to search from day one. Above £5,000 typically adds custom functionality, e-commerce, bespoke photography or more complex integrations, worth it if your business genuinely needs it, wasted spend if it doesn't.
4. the costs that get missed
The build price is rarely the whole story. Ask about: hosting and domain renewal (usually £50-£150 a year), ongoing maintenance and updates (£50-£150 a month is typical for basic upkeep), and who owns the finished site if you switch providers later. A cheap build with an expensive, locked-in maintenance contract often costs more over three years than a slightly pricier build with none of the lock-in.
5. why london pricing runs higher
London agencies carry higher costs, so quotes run 20-40% above the same brief from a team based outside the city. That premium doesn't always buy better work. It's worth asking what you're actually getting for the London price tag, faster turnaround, more senior hands-on time, deeper local market knowledge, versus what you'd get from a remote team at a lower rate.
6. the question that matters more than price
Not "what does it cost" but "what does it need to do". A single-page site for a business that just needs to confirm it's real and show a phone number costs a fraction of one built to capture bookings, sell products or rank for competitive local search terms. Get clear on the job first, and the right price range usually becomes obvious.
7. red flags on pricing
Be cautious of quotes with no breakdown at all, guarantees of first-page Google rankings bundled into the build cost (nobody can guarantee that), and contracts that don't clearly state who owns the domain, hosting and content once it's live.