Affordable Web Design London

Costs explained

How much should a website cost?

Ask ten London agencies and you will hear ten answers, from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands. The spread is real, and it is not all profit. Understanding where the money goes helps you judge whether a quote is fair.

The cost of a website is mostly time. Someone has to plan the pages, write or edit the words, design the layouts, build them, test them on different devices and put the site online. A one-page site for a plumber takes a small fraction of the time needed for a two-hundred-product shop with customer accounts, so it should cost a small fraction of the price.

Beyond time, large agencies carry large overheads: offices, sales staff, project managers and directors. Those costs are spread across their clients. A small firm with low overheads can do the same build for less, which is how we are able to charge what we do.

As a rough guide, a small business in London should not need to spend thousands on a first website. A clear, fast site of one to six pages meets the needs of most local firms, and our prices for those run from £306 to £792.

What "cheap" web design often leaves out

Very low prices are advertised everywhere, and some of them are honest. Many are low because something important is missing. These are the gaps we see most often when owners come to us after a bad experience.

• No real design. Your name and logo are dropped into a template used by hundreds of other businesses.
• No mobile testing. The site looks fine on the designer's laptop and falls apart on a phone.
• No search set-up. No page titles, no descriptions, no sitemap, and the site never appears on Google.
• No ownership. The domain is registered in the designer's name, and you cannot move or even renew it without them.
• No way to edit. Every change, however small, costs extra.
• Hidden running costs. A low build price followed by high compulsory monthly fees.
• No support. The designer stops answering once the invoice is paid.
• Borrowed content. Text copied from other websites and images used without a licence, which can land you with a legal claim.

None of these shows in a screenshot. They show up months later, when the site brings no enquiries or you try to change something. Our fixed prices include every item on that list as standard.

How we keep our prices low

We are open about how we do it, because you should be able to see that the saving does not come out of your website.

Low overheads. We have no showroom office and no sales team. You deal directly with the people doing the work.

A clear process. We ask for what we need once, design the home page first and build the rest when you have approved it. Less back and forth means less time, and less time means a lower price.

Proven layouts. For our fixed-price packages we start from page structures we know work for small businesses and adapt them to your brand, instead of drawing every page from nothing. The design is still yours, with your colours, logo, photos and words.

Lightweight builds. Fast, simple code takes less time to build and to maintain than a site weighed down with plugins.

Launch prices. As a new agency we are discounting our standard prices by 10% to 20% during our launch period.

You supply the facts. You know your business. You send us the details and photos, and we shape them into pages. Full copywriting and photography are available if you want them, and are not forced on you.

Ways to make a website more affordable

Start small

You do not need every page on the first day. Begin with one or three pages and add more as the business grows. Nothing has to be rebuilt.

Pay monthly

Our pay monthly websites spread the cost from £26.99 a month, with no large payment at the start.

Use what you already have

An existing logo, photos from your phone and text from a leaflet all save time. We tidy them up.

Edit it yourself

We show you how to make changes, so you are not paying for every updated price or new photo. The care plan is there only if you would rather hand it over.

Skip what you do not need

Live chat, animations, pop-ups and members' areas add cost. Add them later, if the business ever needs them.

Is a free website builder cheaper?

On paper, yes. Free and low-cost builders let you put a site together yourself. In practice the free versions show the builder's adverts and will not connect your own domain, so most businesses end up on a paid plan, charged every month for as long as the site exists.

The larger cost is your time and the result. Building a site yourself takes many evenings, and without knowledge of design and search the finished site often brings no customers. A website that costs little and earns nothing is not cheap. One that costs £306 and brings in a few jobs has paid for itself.

Who our affordable websites are for

Sole traders and tradespeople, new businesses in their first year, small shops and cafes, salons and barbers, tutors and therapists, charities and community groups, and any established firm whose old site needs replacing without a large budget. If you need something more complex, such as a custom-designed site or an online shop, our small business web design and ecommerce pages explain the options.