How much should a construction website cost in the UK?

Ask five agencies what a construction website costs and you will get five answers between £500 and £25,000. That is not because the work varies that much. It is because almost nobody publishes prices, so the number lands wherever the conversation lands.

Here is the honest breakdown of what UK construction firms actually pay.

What are the real price bands?

DIY builders: £150 to £500 a year

Wix, Squarespace or a WordPress theme you set up yourself. Genuinely fine if you are a sole trader who mainly needs somewhere to point people, and you have a weekend to spare.

The catch is not the software, it is the writing and the photography. Most DIY trade sites fail on content, not design.

Freelancer: £600 to £2,000

A single developer or designer. Quality varies enormously. The good ones are excellent value; the risk is that support disappears when they get busy with a bigger client.

Ask what happens in six months when you need a page changed, and get the answer in writing.

Fixed-price specialist: £1,000 to £3,000

A studio that builds for one sector and therefore already knows what a construction site needs. You are paying for the pattern rather than the discovery.

This is where most established trades and small contractors land, and it is where we sit.

Full-service agency: £3,000 to £10,000+

Custom design, discovery workshops, brand work, sometimes photography. Genuinely worth it for a main contractor turning over several million, where the site supports tendering as well as marketing.

Overkill for a six-person roofing firm, whatever the pitch deck says.

What actually drives the price up?

• Number of pages. Ten pages versus forty is the biggest single factor
• Who writes the copy. If you write it, it is cheaper. Almost nobody writes it
• Photography. A day of professional site photography is £400 to £900 and usually transforms the result
• Custom functionality. Quote calculators, client portals and booking systems all add cost
• Brand work. A new logo and identity is a separate job, priced separately

What are the ongoing costs?

This is where people get caught out. Expect:

• Domain: £10 to £20 a year
• Hosting: £10 to £40 a month for a small business site
• Maintenance: £0 to £100 a month, depending on the platform and whether you need it
• SEO: £300 to £1,500 a month if you buy it as a service

WordPress needs updating; a modern static build largely does not. That difference is worth asking about, because it is most of the maintenance figure.

Should you pay monthly or a one-off fee?

Monthly "website subscriptions" at £99 to £199 a month look painless and often are not. Over three years that is £3,500 to £7,000, and in many cases you never own the site. Stop paying and it goes offline.

Read the contract for two things: who owns the site, and what happens if you leave. If you cannot take it with you, it is a rental, and it should be priced like one.

What should be included at any price?

Whatever you spend, do not accept a site without:

• Mobile-first design, because most trade traffic is mobile
• A page per service, not one page listing everything
• A page per area you genuinely work in
• Real project photos with real detail
• Click-to-call on mobile and an enquiry form that captures postcode and budget
• Google Business Profile connected and matched
• Page titles and descriptions written per page, not auto-generated
• Full ownership and access handed to you

What is a construction website actually worth?

Run the arithmetic on your own numbers. If your average job is £15,000 at a 20% margin, one extra job pays for a £2,000 site and leaves change. If your average job is £600, the maths is different and a leaner build makes more sense.

The firms who regret the spend are almost always the ones who bought a brochure. The ones who are glad they did it bought something structured around how their clients actually search and decide.