How much does a website cost for a tradesman in the UK?

What does the DIY route cost?

Website builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and friends) run about £10–£30 a month depending on plan, plus a domain at £10–£15 a year. That's genuinely the cheapest cash outlay, and for a patient tradesperson with a free weekend it produces something serviceable.

The honest costs are hidden: your time (a first site regularly swallows 10–20 evening hours, which is a job or two of earnings), template sameness, and — the one that actually costs money — mobile speed. Builder sites tend to load slowly on phones, and a slow site quietly loses the stressed 11pm visitor before your number appears. If you enjoy tinkering, it's a fine route. If the site sits half-finished for a year, it wasn't free.

What does a freelancer charge?

A freelance web designer typically charges somewhere around £300–£1,500 for a small business site, varying hugely with experience and how many pages you ask for. At the lower end you often get a template lightly reskinned; at the upper end, proper custom work. Quality varies more than price does — ask to see live sites they've built for trades, and open them on your phone on mobile data before judging.

Two things to nail down before paying: who owns what (domain in your name — non-negotiable — plus hosting access), and what updates cost. The £500 build is the cheap part; the £60-an-invoice "can you change my prices" emails are where relationships sour.

What does an agency charge?

Agencies commonly quote £2,000–£10,000+ for a build, plus retainers of £50–£300+ a month for hosting and maintenance. You're paying for process: meetings, mockups, project managers, revisions. For a company with staff, fleets and tender requirements that can be worth it. For a one-van plumbing business it's usually overkill — an emergency customer doesn't behave differently on a £6,000 site than on a fast £600 one. The features that win trade work (speed, tap-to-call, real reviews — the short list in do plumbers need a website?) don't cost £6,000 to build.

What ongoing costs does nobody mention?

• Domain: £10–£15 a year, forever. Keep it registered in your own name.
• Hosting: £5–£30 a month depending on setup, or bundled into builder/agency fees.
• Edits: the silent one. Prices change, areas change, you win Gas Safe registration — every change is either your evening or someone's invoice.
• Rot: unmaintained sites drift — certificates lapse, plugins age, the "24/7" promise stops being true. A dead-looking site can be worse than none.

Where does £179 + £99 a month sit in all this?

Since this is our site, cards on the table: Goodstanding charges £179 setup and £99 a month (first month free, no contract). As a pure website price, that's more than DIY hosting over time — if all you want is a brochure page and you're happy building it, the DIY route is honestly cheaper and we'd rather say so.

The £99 isn't really a website subscription, though. It covers the build (done for you, shown free before you pay a penny), hosting, unlimited edits by text, plus 24/7 AI call answering in your business name, missed-call text-back, WhatsApp job tickets and Google Business Profile upkeep. Comparable human answering alone typically runs £150–£400+ a month before any website exists. So the fair comparison isn't "£99 vs £20 DIY" — it's "£99 vs a website plus an answering service", and one recovered £250 call-out covers two and a half months of it. Judge the answering half yourself on 020 4577 2888.

Frequently asked questions

Why do website quotes vary so wildly?

Because you're quoted for time and process, not for the artefact. An agency's £5,000 includes meetings, mockups, project management and revision rounds; a freelancer reskinning a proven template can charge £400 for a functionally similar result. Judge quotes by live examples opened on your phone, not by the number of pages in the proposal.

Is it better to pay one-off or monthly?

One-off builds look cheaper long-term but quietly accumulate costs — hosting, edits, and eventually a rebuild when it ages. Monthly arrangements cost more over years but keep the site maintained and current. The real question is who handles changes: if every edit needs an invoice or a free evening, the one-off price was only the start.

What ongoing costs should I budget for after the build?

At minimum: the domain (£10–£15 a year, registered in your own name), hosting (£5–£30 a month unless bundled), and updates whenever your prices, areas or services change. Budget for edits honestly — a site that's wrong about your call-out fee or coverage area actively costs you jobs.

Can I just get the website from Goodstanding without the call answering?

The plan is deliberately one bundle — website, 24/7 answering, text-back, job tickets and Google profile upkeep for £99 a month — because the site's job is making the phone ring and the answering's job is catching it. If you only want a brochure site, a DIY builder or freelancer is genuinely the cheaper route, and the free preview costs nothing to compare against.