You ask three web designers for a quote and get three figures back: £290, £1,550 and £6,750. All for the same company’s website. It’s hard to think of a better recipe for putting the decision off until next quarter. There are reasons behind such a huge spread, though, and it can be broken down piece by piece. We’ll go through realistic price ranges, the biggest cost drivers and the expenses most quotes keep quiet about. By the end you’ll be able to tell whether a quote is cheap, expensive or simply incomplete.
Contents
Why can one quote be ten times higher than another?
A website isn’t an off-the-shelf product. Comparing the figures alone is like comparing car prices without knowing the make, year or mileage. Every quote covers a different scope: the number of pages, a custom design or a ready-made template, who writes the content, which integrations need connecting and whether anyone looks after the site once it’s live.
The second variable is who builds it. A student working evenings, a freelancer with a portfolio and an agency with a design process will quote very differently for the same brief. Part of what you pay for is the hours of work. The other part is knowing what happens when something goes wrong: whether there is a contract, a backup and someone who will pick up the phone when you call.
Rough price ranges for 2026
The figures below are a snapshot of the Polish market. Treat them as a reference point when you read quotes:
- DIY with a website builder. The subscription usually costs £10-£20 a month. The cheapest option in cash, the most expensive in hours of your own time.
- Simple brochure site built on a template. Roughly £390-£1,150. A few pages, a ready-made theme adapted to your brand, basic set-up.
- Business website with a custom design. Roughly £1,200-£3,850, depending on the number of pages, the content and any non-standard elements.
- Online shop. From £2,550 upwards. The price depends on the payment, delivery and stock integrations, and on the number of products.
A quote that comes in well below these ranges is rarely a bargain. It usually covers a different, narrower scope of work. Ask what it leaves out.
What pushes the price up most?
- Design from scratch instead of an adapted template.
- Content: copy, photos and graphics produced by the web designer when you don’t supply your own.
- Scale: every extra page and every language version means real hours of work.
- Integrations: payments, bookings, newsletter, CRM, stock levels.
- Custom features: calculators, configurators, client portals, unusual animations.
Some of these costs are within your control. If your branding is already in place, with a logo, colours and materials about your company, the designer isn’t starting from scratch and you aren’t paying someone to guess what your brand should look like.
The costs that quotes often leave out
The build price is only the start. Every year you’ll pay for hosting and a domain, and sometimes for an SSL certificate and premium plugin licences too. For a typical business website that comes to roughly £60-£380 a year. That’s not a lot, but it’s better to know about it before launch than when the first renewal invoice lands.
The second thing quotes tend to skip is aftercare: updates to the CMS and plugins, backups and small fixes. Some web designers charge a monthly fee for it, others an hourly rate. Bear in mind that a site without updates only works until the moment it suddenly stops. Overnight it becomes a security hole and an emergency bill at the worst possible time.
The cheapest quote can cost the most
A scenario we see regularly: a company pays £290 for a website from a recommended web designer. A year later the designer vanishes, and the logins go with them. The domain is registered to their personal account, there’s no backup and every change to the site means asking a favour. Regaining control and moving the site costs more than doing it properly from the start, and that’s before you count the time lost.
Before you sign a contract, check four things: the domain and hosting are registered to your company, the contract transfers the design rights to you, you hold the admin logins and there is an agreed way of making backups. What sets professional website design and development apart from the cheap option is mainly what you get beyond the visuals: a process, a contract and someone accountable after launch. The stakes are higher when you sell online: your revenue depends on the site, so online shop development needs solid foundations even more.
How long does it take to build a website?
A simple brochure site usually takes 2-4 weeks, a business website with a custom design 4-8 weeks, and an online shop longer still. The most common cause of delays is waiting for materials from the client.
Template or custom design?
A template works well when you’re starting out or your needs are standard, because it keeps the cost down and shortens the timeline. A custom design makes sense when your brand needs to stand out clearly or the site needs unusual features and layouts.
Does the price of a website include SEO?
Usually not. A good quote should cover the technical SEO basics, such as a correct heading structure, speed and indexability. SEO itself is a separate, ongoing process, billed independently of the website build.
Can I start with something smaller than a full website?
Yes. A simple site with your services, trust signals and contact details is often enough to start winning customers. What matters is that you can expand it later without rebuilding it from scratch.
Summary
Website price ranges are wide because the scopes of work behind them are just as wide. Instead of hunting for the lowest figure, define your own scope first: how many pages, who writes the content, which integrations and who looks after the site after launch. Then compare like with like: quotes for the same scope. To begin with, a simple site done properly, with the logins and the contract in your name, is all you need. You can expand it once it starts paying for itself.
