Ask ten agencies and you will get ten numbers, from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands. That is not anyone being dishonest, it is because a website is not one thing. Here are the realistic UK bands for a small business in 2026, and what moves a project between them.
The realistic price bands
- One-page site: from around £900. A single, well-built page for a sole trader or a new venture that needs a credible presence and a contact form.
- Multi-page brochure site: roughly £1,800 to £4,000. The common choice for most small businesses, with several service pages, proper on-page SEO and a simple way to edit content.
- Small e-commerce: from about £3,500. A shop with payments, stock and order notifications for up to a few hundred products.
- Custom web app: £8,000 and up. Booking systems, portals and tools, which is a different thing to a website.
What actually drives the cost
Three things move the number more than anything else: how many unique pages need designing, whether you need to take payments or bookings, and how much custom design versus a template you want. Content matters too. If you can supply the words and photos, you save money. If they need writing and sourcing, that is real work.
Be wary of both extremes. A £150 site is usually a template nobody will maintain, and a £20,000 quote for a five-page brochure site is paying for an agency overhead you do not need.
How to avoid overpaying
Get a fixed price, not a day rate with an open end. Make sure you own the code and the hosting account. And do not pay for a content management system you will never log into: most small business sites need a simple editor for the few sections that change, not an enterprise platform.
For a full breakdown of where we sit, see small business websites and our build pricing. If you want a number for your specific project, send a brief and you will get a fixed quote, not a range.