How accurate is a website cost calculator?As accurate as the ranges behind it, and this one shows you the ranges rather than a single made-up number. Each figure is the middle of what UK freelancers, studios and agencies publish or quote for that shape of site, checked in September 2026. Treat the output as the band a fair quote should land in, not a price. If a quote is well outside the band, ask what the difference buys.
What affects the cost of a website most?Who builds it, then how many pages, then what is bolted on. The same seven-page site is £300 to £2,000 from a freelancer and £8,000 to £15,000 from an agency, because you are paying for the people between you and the work, not for a better site. After that, page count is the honest driver: a fourteen-page site is roughly twice the work of a seven-page one. A shop, a members area or copy written from scratch each add a distinct line, which is why they are separate boxes here.
Why is the DIY row a monthly figure?Because that is what a builder charges: £9 to £29 a month on Squarespace or Wix for a five-to-seven-page site, plus your own 20 to 60 hours to build it, for as long as the site exists. Over five years that is £540 to £1,740 for a site you cannot take with you. The other rows are one-off build prices, which is the fairer comparison once you add the years up.
Why is your figure fixed when the others are ranges?Because I price by the sprint, not by the hour. One sprint is £1,000, seven days, up to about seven pages, and most small-business sites need one. A bigger site is a fixed number of sprints, quoted before you pay. The calculator shows that as a single number because that is what you would be charged; the ranges are what the rest of the market spreads across.
Does the estimate include hosting, the domain and upkeep?No, and for most routes they matter. A custom-coded static site, which is what my £1,000 figure assumes, costs nothing to host and £10 to £15 a year for the domain. A builder's hosting is inside the monthly plan; that includes a Webflow build from me, where you pay Webflow from $15 a month. WordPress needs a host and someone to keep it patched, typically £30 to £100 a month. Add those to the build price before comparing routes; the cost guide has the five-year totals.
Where do the ranges come from?The quotes clients show me, the rate cards UK freelancers and agencies publish, and the builders' own price pages, all read in September 2026. They are a market snapshot, not a survey. The full table with the sources, the three real projects with figures attached, and every ongoing cost itemised is in the cost guide, which is where this calculator started.