A website quote is rarely the number you think it is. One studio will say fifteen hundred. Another will say twelve thousand. Both can be telling the truth. They are just selling different things.
This is the version we wish someone had sent us before we started taking on client work: what actually goes into the cost, what is optional, and what looks cheap until it isn’t.
Many small-business quotes land in the thousands. Ours start at £495 for a starter site and £895 for a full local business site, fixed and published on our pricing page. No agency layers, no day rate, and most sites go live in weeks, not months.
What you are actually buying
You are not buying “a website” in the abstract. You are buying a set of pages that load quickly, explain the offer, collect an enquiry, and can be changed without calling a developer every time a price moves.
That bundle usually includes:
- Discovery and a written sitemap, so the build does not wander
- Design for mobile first, then desktop
- Development on a proper host, not a free subdomain
- Forms, basic SEO and analytics wired in
- A hand-over so you can edit the words yourself
What is not in a cheap quote
Copy, photography, extra landing pages, booking tools and ongoing care are the usual omissions. They are not extras in the real world. They are how the site does its job.
The line items people forget
Hosting is cheap until it is not. A five-pound-a-month plan is fine for a leaflet. It is not fine for a site that needs forms, backups and a CMS someone in the office can use.
Then there is content. A designer filling lorem ipsum is not a website. Someone has to write the offer in language a customer would actually say out loud.
The build is the visible cost. The invisible cost is the week nobody owns the words.
Fixed price versus day rate
A day rate feels honest until the project stretches. A fixed price feels scary until you realise the studio is taking the over-run, not you.
We publish fixed prices because Essex businesses ask for a number, not a process. You can see them on the site. If the job is unusual, we say so before we start, not after week six.
What “done” should mean
Done is not a Figma file. Done is the site live on your domain, forms arriving in your inbox, and a person you can email when something breaks.
If you want that, budget for the build and a care plan. The cheapest launch is often the most expensive year.
How we price it
Look at the pricing page. The common jobs have a fixed number next to them: £495 for a starter site, £895 for a full local business site of up to seven pages and from £2,495 for ecommerce, with custom web applications typically from £3,500. If you need something that is not on the list, we still start from those numbers rather than inventing a new language for quotes.
When you are ready, start your project and we will send you a fixed price and a launch date.
