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Guides for tradespeopleHow much does a tradesman website cost in the UK?
Straight answer: most tradespeople pay between £500 and £3,000 for a proper website. But the sticker price is only half the story. Here is what really drives the cost, what the cheap deals do not tell you, and what is actually worth paying for.
You have probably been told "you need a website" more times than you can count, usually right before someone tries to sell you one. The prices quoted are all over the place, from £20 a month to £6,000, so it is hard to know what is fair. Let us clear it up.
The short version: price bands for 2026
Here is the realistic range for a tradesman website in the UK this year, depending on who builds it.
| Option | Typical cost | You own it? |
|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace) | £100-£300 a year | Mostly |
| Cheap monthly "rented" site | £20-£90 a month, forever | Usually no |
| Freelancer | £500-£1,500 one-off | Yes |
| Specialist trade agency | £1,000-£3,000 one-off | Yes |
| Large general agency | £2,500-£10,000+ | Yes |
Most sole traders and small firms land in the £1,000 to £3,000 range for a site built to actually win work. Below that you are often buying a template you fill in yourself. Above it you are usually paying for an agency's overheads, not a better result for your trade.
What actually drives the price
Two sites can both cost "a website" and be worlds apart. The cost comes down to a few things.
How many pages, and built for what
- A simple one or two page site to look legitimate is cheap, but it rarely ranks.
- A site with a page for each service (say rewires, fault-finding and EV chargers for a sparky) costs more, because each page can rank on its own.
- Pages for each town you cover add cost again, and they are often where the local work actually comes from.
Whether it is built to be found, or just to look nice
This is the big one. A good-looking site that nobody finds on Google is money down the drain. A site built for search has the right page structure, fast loading, a Google Business Profile set up alongside it, and copy written around how your customers actually search. That work is where the value is, and it is the bit cheap builders skip.
Who writes the words and sorts the photos
If you have to write all the copy and supply edited photos yourself, the build is cheaper but the result is usually worse. If that is done for you, you pay a bit more and get a site that reads like a real business.
The catch with "£25 a month" websites
Those cheap monthly deals are appealing because there is no big bill up front. But run the maths: £25 a month for four years is £1,200, and at the end you own nothing. A one-off build at a similar price is yours to keep, host wherever you like, and never pay for again. There is nothing wrong with paying monthly for genuine ongoing work like SEO and maintenance, but paying monthly just to keep your own website switched on is a poor deal.
The running costs nobody mentions
Whoever builds it, a website has a few small ongoing costs. Budget for these so there are no surprises:
- Domain name: around £10-£20 a year for a .co.uk.
- Hosting: anywhere from free to a few hundred pounds a year, depending on the setup. A simple trade site does not need expensive hosting.
- SSL certificate (the padlock): usually free these days, so do not let anyone charge you £50 for it.
- Maintenance: updates, backups and security. Either you do it, or you pay a small monthly fee for someone to keep it running.
All in, a simple site that you own costs very little to keep going. The bigger ongoing cost, if you want it, is local SEO, and that is optional.
So what is actually worth paying for?
If you are a working tradesperson, here is where your money does the most:
- Being found on Google. A site that ranks for your trade in your area, plus a properly set up Google Business Profile. This is what brings the calls.
- Owning it outright. The site and the domain in your name, so no one can hold it hostage.
- Click-to-call and a simple enquiry form. Most of your customers are on a phone. Make it one tap to reach you.
- Real photos and real reviews. These convert browsers into callers more than any clever design.
What is not worth paying for: fancy animations, a logo redesign you did not ask for, or a big agency name. None of it wins you a single extra job.
The honest bottom line
For most UK tradespeople, a website that genuinely wins work costs somewhere between £1,000 and £3,000 as a one-off, plus a small amount to keep it running and, if you want to climb Google, an optional monthly SEO fee. Pay less and you usually get a site nobody finds. Pay a lot more and you are funding an agency, not a better result. The thing that matters most is not the price, it is whether the site is built to be found.