How much does a B2B website cost in the UK?

Most founders meet the cost of a website as three quotes on a desk. One is suspiciously cheap, one sits in the middle, one makes you wince. They look comparable. They rarely are. One includes copywriting and another assumes you will write it. One includes hosting for a year, one never mentions it. None of them says what the site will cost to run once the agency has sent its final invoice.

The published ranges are wide. UK agency guides put a freelance brochure site from £2,000 and a custom agency build from £10,000 (Bigfork, March 2026), and an enterprise B2B site at £60,000 to £100,000 or more (Elcap, December 2025). Those are build fees only.

The number your board actually needs is the cost of owning the site for three years: the build, hosting, security, content, support, your own team's time and the redesign that follows when none of that happens. This guide gives the UK price bands, the running costs, a worked three-year example, and the questions that get you to your own figure.

#How much does a B2B website cost in the UK in 2026?

A B2B website in the UK typically costs from about £2,000 with a freelancer to £15,000 to £50,000 with a specialist agency, and more for large or enterprise sites. The table brings together what UK agencies publish. All are sellers' own figures, so treat them as a guide to the market rather than a quote.

Copywriting is often priced separately: Axon Garside (May 2025) puts website copywriting at £1,000 to £10,000 or more. Whether you need a template or a custom build is a separate question, covered in template or custom website: which does a B2B firm need?. For what we charge, see what it costs.

#How much does it cost to run a website each month?

For a small UK business, expect hosting at tens of pounds a month and maintenance in the low hundreds, before any content or improvement work. A site that is actively improved costs more, and most of that spend is people's time.

#Why is the build quote not the real cost?

Because a quote prices a project, and a website is a running asset. The agency quotes for what it controls: design, development and getting the site live. Everything that happens after launch, and much of what your own team must do before it, sits outside the number. That is rarely dishonesty. It is how the market quotes, and it leads firms to choose on the one line that matters least over the life of the site.

The expensive parts are often the unglamorous ones. When we rebuilt arum's website, the scope included "215 articles, research pieces and news items moved across, going back to 2014" and "Every old address redirected, so years of rankings carried over." Moving old content and redirecting old addresses are exactly the lines a cheap quote tends to leave out, and skipping them can cost years of search rankings.

#What goes into the total cost of a website?

Eight things. Some are paid to an agency, some to other suppliers, and some in your own team's time.

#What do quotes commonly leave out?

The items at the edges of the project. In our experience, these are the ones to ask about by name:

• Writing or rewriting the content, as opposed to placing text you supply.
• Photography of your team and offices, as opposed to stock images.
• Moving existing pages and articles, and setting up redirects from old addresses.
• Connecting the site to your CRM, email marketing or booking tools.
• Hosting, security and backups after launch.
• Licences for premium plugins, fonts or images, many of which renew every year.
• Training for your team on how to edit the site.
• Support after launch, and the hourly rate for changes once it ends.
• Accessibility checks and speed testing before launch.

If a quote does not mention an item, assume it is not included and ask.

#What does a three-year total look like?

Example: three routes for the same firm over three years, using round, illustrative figures within the published ranges above. They are not quotes, and they exclude VAT.

The cheap route wins on cash and loses on almost everything else, and it hides your team's time. Between the other two, the difference in cash is smaller than the difference in what you are left with, when you pay and who carries the risk if the supplier is wrong. That is why the comparison has to be made over the same period, with the same items.

#Should we pay monthly or upfront for a website?

Pay upfront for work with a clear finish and monthly for work whose value fades if everyone stops touching it. The test is simple: if the value holds, buy it as a project; if it fades, pay for it monthly.

Monthly fees keep the provider accountable and spread the cost, but they can drift into paying for activity nobody checks, so insist on a clear monthly scope and read the reports. We sell websites this way ourselves, so weigh our view accordingly. We compare the rebuild cycle with steady improvement in should we redesign our website or keep improving the one we have?.

#What is included in a website support retainer?

A good support retainer covers hosting, security updates, backups, uptime monitoring and a set amount of changes each month, with a stated response time for problems. Better ones add regular improvements: new pages, speed and accessibility checks, and fixes when AI crawlers or search engines have trouble reading the site.

Ask for the list in writing, the hours or tasks included each month, what happens to unused time, and the hourly rate for anything outside it. A retainer that only covers hosting is not really a different model from buying a site and hoping.

#Can we capitalise website development costs in our accounts?

Possibly the build, but usually not the running costs, and your accountant should confirm. For tax, HMRC's Business Income Manual (updated August 2026) says the costs of creating an asset of enduring benefit are capital, while "the regular update costs of the site are likely to be revenue expenses". It compares a website to a shop window: building the window is capital, changing the display is revenue.

How the build appears in your accounts depends on your accounting framework and policies. Monthly service fees are usually a running cost in the period you pay them. Either way, show the board the cost over the full three years.

#How long does a B2B website build take?

Usually a few months. Rudo, a UK agency, puts a mid-market B2B project at 10 to 16 weeks from kick-off to launch (April 2026), and says content production is almost always the bottleneck. Have case studies, service descriptions and team details ready before the build starts, because delays cost money as well as time.

#How do you compare website quotes fairly?

Put every quote on the same list and compare three-year totals. It takes an afternoon and changes most decisions.

#Step 1: Send every agency the same list

Use the eight cost areas and the list of commonly missing items above. Ask each agency to say, line by line, what is included, what is extra and what it costs.

#Step 2: Ask who does the content

Find out whether the agency writes the key pages, edits what you supply, or expects finished text. If it is you, put a realistic figure on your team's time.

#Step 3: Ask what happens after launch

Ask for the monthly cost of hosting, updates and support, what it covers, and the hourly rate for anything outside it.

#Step 4: Check the contract terms

Look for a short notice period, a monthly scope that says what you get, and a written hand-over process if you leave. Make sure your firm owns the domain, content, design files and analytics accounts, registered to a company email address, with agencies given access rather than ownership. Our guide to choosing a firm to help you get recommended by ChatGPT has the full set of contract questions.

#Step 5: Total it over three years

Add the build, the running costs, content and a reasonable estimate of your own time over three years. Compare those totals, not the headline build fees.

#Do we need an agency to build it at all?

Not always. If you have capable people in-house, a clear plan can be worth more than an agency build. TCC Group took that route: "1 week to a plan TCC's own team built the new site from", after "624 pages reviewed, each given a decision: migrate, merge or retire." In the end, "TCC chose to build it with its own team, and the new tcc.group is live, built to the plan, with nothing about it depending on Fortitude." A plan of that kind is what our Paid Discovery produces.

#How do you know whether the website is worth what it costs?

By comparing what it costs to run with the enquiries and work it brings in. Record, from the first month, how each enquiry found you and which became work. Within a year a simple spreadsheet will tell you whether the site pays its way. Our guide to measuring the return from your website sets out the method, and what it costs to leave a website unchanged for years covers the other side of the ledger. For the board paper itself, see how to get your board to approve the budget.

#What to do this month

1. List every cost connected with your current website over the last year, including your team's time, and add it up.
2. Write down who owns your domain, hosting, content and analytics accounts, and fix anything held by a former supplier or employee.
3. If you are getting quotes, send every agency the same line-by-line list and ask for a three-year total.
4. Decide who inside the firm will own the website after launch, and give them time in their week to do it.
5. Ask your accountant how a build would be treated in your accounts before the board sees the numbers.
6. Start recording the source of every enquiry, so that next year you can judge the site on results.

#Frequently asked questions

#Why do quotes for the same website vary so much?

Because they rarely describe the same website. One agency adapts a theme and expects you to supply the words; another designs from scratch, writes the key pages and includes a year of hosting and support. Put every quote on the same line-by-line list and most of the difference becomes explainable.

#Should we buy a cheap website now and upgrade later?

Only if you are confident you will upgrade, and soon. A cheap build is fine for a new firm testing its offer. For an established firm it often means a generic template, thin content and no support, which leads to a second project within a couple of years.

#How much should website maintenance cost per month for a small UK business?

Published UK figures put hosting at £30 to £60 a month (Red Evolution, June 2026) and WordPress maintenance at roughly £125 to £250 a month, working from Elcap's annual range (December 2025). That keeps the site safe and working. Improving it, with new pages, content and fixes, costs more: Red Evolution calls about £1,000 a month a sensible starting point for ongoing management.

#Is a monthly fee just a way for agencies to lock in revenue?

It can be, if the contract has a long minimum term and a vague scope. A fair monthly arrangement has short notice, a clear monthly scope and full ownership of what is produced, so the provider keeps the work only by being useful.

#How much of the website budget should go on content?

More than most firms plan for. The words, case studies and articles are what persuade buyers and what AI assistants read when deciding whether to name you. When budgets are tight, protect the content and simplify the design.

The cheapest website is the one that brings in enough work to pay for itself, and that depends more on how it is run than on what the build cost. To see one proposal that covers both building and running a site, look at Website That Sells; our prices are on what it costs.

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