What You Get
The Website Cost Checklist is a three-page PDF that lists every cost a small-business website can carry, split into what you pay once to build it and what you pay every month or year to keep it running. Tick it off against each quote you receive and you will see which ones leave things out.
Website quotes for the same business often differ by thousands of pounds. Most of that gap is scope: one quote includes the copywriting, the redirects from your old site and a year of updates, and another leaves all three for later. The checklist puts those differences on paper.
What Is Inside
- Fifteen one-off build costs, from planning and design to redirects, cookie consent and testing on phones
- Nine running costs, including domain renewal, hosting, email accounts, plugin licences and support time
- Six costs people forget until later, such as new pages after launch, advertising and an eventual redesign
- Ten questions to ask every company that quotes, including whose name the domain is in and what happens to the site if you stop paying
- A side-by-side table for three quotes, working out year-one cost and the cost over three years
Who This Is For
Anyone setting a budget for a new website, or holding two or three quotes and trying to work out why they are so different. It is written for UK small businesses and sole traders, and it doesn’t assume any technical knowledge.
How to Use This
Do the running costs first. A cheap build with high monthly fees can cost more over three years than a dearer build with low ones, and most people compare only the headline price. Add up each quote over two or three years, not just the first.
Then go through the ten questions with each company. Their answers matter as much as the numbers, particularly on who owns the domain and hosting accounts and what happens if you leave. If you haven’t written down what the site needs to do yet, start with the Website Brief Template, so that every quote prices the same thing.
Why We Made This
People who find us by searching for website costs usually have one question: why do the quotes vary so much? This checklist is our answer, laid out so you can use it on any supplier, including us. Our own price for a small-business website is set out in full on the website page, the Website Cost Estimator shows in a minute whether your site fits that price or needs a quote, and the pricing overview covers our other work.
Get the Checklist
Fill in the short form and the PDF opens straight away, with a copy of the link sent to your inbox. The rest of the library is in resources.
