How much does a website cost for small businesses in 2023?

Something we always hear is… How much should a small business pay for a website?

How do you find out how much a website costs?

The answer can be pretty straightforward, but many website designers and developers make this feel quite complicated.

By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how much you can expect to pay for a website in 2023 for your small business.

What makes a website expensive?

There are a few factors that can make a website expensive, these are:

1. Bespoke design
2. Bespoke development of features
3. The website technology
4. Creating Content

Let’s look at these things individually.

Bespoke website design costs

Creating a great design is a job that can take a long time, and like any creative task, it is sometimes hard to put a timeline on how long this will take.

When it is hard to get an exact time estimate, website development and design agencies will estimate on the safe side and add extra time to the quote. More time means more money that you’ll need to pay.

A professional designer would expect to be paid between £200 - £500 per day, so expect to pay between £200 - £700 per day for design work that your website needs.

Bespoke website development costs

Now, if you think design can get expensive, wait for development!

Building custom features for your website can be very time-consuming.

Some development work is easy to estimate, while others are near impossible. Yet again, your website agency will err on the side of caution and quote a price that factors in the longest possible time.

You can expect to pay between £400 - £1000 per day of custom development for your website. Also, there is currently a shortage of developers in the UK, meaning that rates for good developers are high.

The website technology

The website technology that is chosen dramatically affects the cost of your website.

Let me give you some examples:

With WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace, you don’t need to write a single line of code to launch a website. You could choose a design, add your text and images and launch it.

You could also build your website from scratch using more developer-friendly technologies. This is a reasonable solution for your business, but building a website from scratch is more complex and takes more time.

With WordPress, it is relatively easy to add extra functionality through plugins - these are additional code that you can install onto your website to make it do extra things, and a lot are free!

With a custom website from scratch, you might also need to build this extra functionality in addition to building your website!

Creating content for your website and how much it will cost

Creating content is hard for some people and easy for others. For just about everyone, though, it is time-consuming.

Many people outsource this job to an agency because writing all the content will be a challenge if you’re building a big website.

Most agencies use one of the following formulas to price up content for your website.

1. Price per word
2. Price per 100 words
3. Price per page (400 - 700 words)

All of these systems are effective in helping you work out how much your content will cost.

Typically you can speak to 2 types of businesses to write your content, a full-service creative agency or a copywriter. Prices can vary, but you can expect to pay between £50 -£250 per page of content.

Typical new website cost in the UK

So you can expect to pay anywhere from £1000 - £10,000 for a new website in the UK. If you need a lot of extra functionality, expect to pay an extra £5000 - £15000.

What makes a website cheap?

Well, this section now becomes a little more simple, but we can split it into 2 categories:

1. Done for you
2. Do it yourself

Let’s look Done for you first:

Websites built for you

These might be the most straightforward way to launch a website in 2023. Typically these websites will be built on some existing website platform and use a pre-made template to get you a website built affordably.

A great example of this is WordPress and the thousands of ‘themes’ (page templates) available for free or bought as an additional extra.

This means you can get an affordable website created for you without the need for any custom design or development.

Typically, you should expect to pay anywhere from £400 to £2000 for a website like this. You may be expected to write the content, so speak to the developers to understand this before you buy.

Our own solution, Tiny Rockets, is an excellent example of a website done for you.

Now, let’s look at Do it yourself:

Building a website yourself

A few things will affect the price here, but building your own website is the most affordable way to do it.

Let’s take a look at what you’ll need to buy:

1. Web hosting - This company will make your website available on the internet.
2. A theme or website builder

This will typically cost about £10 to £15 per month for hosting and an annual fee for your theme or website builder of about £100. With many themes, you will only pay a fee to purchase the theme; there will be no need for an annual subscription.

Budget: £120 - £200 per year

OR

1. Web platform - This is a platform like Squarespace or Wix. They typically have a service that includes both hosting and a website builder to actually build the website.

Budget: £200 - £300 per year

This route will take the most time and effort, but you can make an excellent website if done right.

Why are some website companies so cheap?

Usually, any website created by another company will be the most expensive option for your small business. That being said, there can still be a massive difference in the amount that different companies quote.

Using a website service and not a website agency is cheaper because, generally speaking, a lot of the process is automated, meaning no paying expensive developers each time a new website is launched!

When you sign up, an automated process starts your website for you.

Why are some website companies expensive?

The opposite is true when using a third-party company to create your website. The whole process requires some human to do it, which naturally means it is more expensive.

Even still, there can be a considerable price difference between different agencies!

Usually, this is because of the time put into the website’s design and development phase or the amount of content they will create. Make sure you speak to your developer to understand how they will use your budget!

What’s the price of a Tiny Rockets website?

We’ve made our prices as transparent and as simple as possible. Tiny Rockets is a done-for-you service, meaning we create and launch the website - all you need to do is sign up and give us the content using our ‘Website Launch System.’

We charge a £99 set-up fee. This money pays for a web developer to launch your website and do all the following tasks:

1. Turn your content document into a website
2. Connect up your domain
3. Check your website is working okay before we launch

You’ll also pay a £20 monthly subscription fee. This goes towards:

1. Hosting and backing up your website each day
2. Maintaining our management systems to ensure your website is working hard at every time of the day.
3. Creating guides like this to help people like you be more successful online.

Want to avoid monthly subscriptions? If you like you can pay £189 for the whole year and save yourself £51.

Tiny Rockets Budget: £189 - 240 per year (plus one time £99)

Wrapping up

So that’s our complete guide to why websites cost what they cost.

A quick summary would be:

1. Bespoke = Expensive
2. DIY = cheapest

Did you like this article? Let us know at feedback@tinyrockets.co.uk