How much does a custom website cost in the UK?

The short answer

These are our current starting prices for custom websites built in Python and Django. Other agencies price differently, but the structure — what you get for the money — is similar across the market.

• Landing page or brochure site — from £1,200. A few pages, a contact form, basic SEO set-up and an admin panel to edit the content.
• Corporate website — from £2,500. More sections, a services catalogue, case studies or a blog, several languages if needed.
• Online store — from £3,500. Catalogue with filters, cart, checkout, online payment and order management.
• Custom web platform — from £5,000. Customer accounts, calculators, booking, dashboards, integrations with CRM or ERP.
• Hotel website with online booking — £6,000 to £30,000+, depending on the booking engine, PMS and channel manager integration and the number of properties.

The spread inside each range comes from the same few factors, so it is worth understanding them before you ask for quotes.

What drives the cost

1. The number of unique page types

Cost depends less on the number of pages than on the number of different page templates. A site with 200 product pages built on one template can be cheaper than a site with 15 pages that all look and work differently.

2. Custom functionality

Anything beyond displaying content — booking, quotes and calculators, customer accounts, approval flows, member areas — has to be designed, built and tested. This is usually the biggest single item in a quote.

3. Integrations

Payment gateways, CRM and ERP systems, stock and accounting software, hotel PMS and channel managers, email and SMS services. Each integration takes time, and poorly documented third-party systems take more.

4. Design

A design made from scratch for your brand costs more than an adapted template, but it is built around your customers and the actions you want them to take. For sites where conversion matters, UX research and prototypes usually pay for themselves.

5. Content and languages

Copywriting, photography, product data import and translations are often left out of the first quote. Ask whether they are included, or plan to provide them yourself.

6. Performance, security and SEO requirements

Fast loading, correct technical SEO, accessibility and protection of personal data should be standard, but the level of work differs. Moving an existing site without losing search traffic — with URL mapping and redirects — is a separate task and should be in the quote if you are replacing an old website.

Template or custom build?

A website on a ready-made theme is cheaper at the start and can be the right choice for a simple site with a tight budget. The trade-off shows up later: paid plugins and theme licences, regular updates, conflicts between plugins and limits on what can be changed without breaking the theme.

A custom build costs more upfront, but you own clean code that does exactly what your business needs and can grow with it. We compare the two approaches in detail in Django vs WordPress for UK businesses.

Costs after launch

The build is a one-off cost. A realistic budget also includes:

• Hosting, domain and SSL. For a typical business website this is a modest monthly cost; online stores and high-traffic sites need more capacity. We deploy client websites on their own VPS rather than free or shared hosting: the server is not shared with other people’s sites, and it is configured and updated for your project alone — better for both security and speed.
• Support and updates. Security updates, small changes, backups and monitoring — either on a monthly plan or paid by the hour.
• Marketing. A new website does not bring traffic on its own. Plan a budget for SEO, which starts from £500 a month with us, or for paid advertising.

How to get an accurate quote

The more precise the brief, the narrower the price range. Before contacting agencies, write down:

• what the website must achieve — enquiries, sales, bookings, recruitment;
• the main page types and roughly how many pages or products there will be;
• any features beyond content: accounts, payments, booking, calculators;
• systems the website must connect to;
• who will provide texts, photos and translations;
• websites you like, and why;
• your budget range and deadline.

When you compare quotes, check what is included: design, content, SEO set-up, data migration, training, support after launch and whether the price includes VAT. A lower price often means some of these are missing.

The bottom line

For most UK small and medium businesses, a well-built custom website starts at a few thousand pounds, and complex platforms with integrations cost more. What matters is not the lowest quote but what the website will do for your business over the next five years.

If you want a quote for your project, see our Python & Django development and hotel website packages, or send us a short brief — we will reply with a detailed estimate before any work starts.