Website Design Cost in 2026 — Real Pricing Breakdown by Project Type
What does a website actually cost in 2026?
Short answer: anywhere from £1,500 for a polished brochure site to £80,000+ for a complex e-commerce or SaaS marketing site. The wide range exists because “website” is not a single product. It is a category that contains brochure sites, lead-gen funnels, e-commerce stores, headless platforms, custom web apps, and everything in between. Each has different requirements, different timelines, and different cost drivers.
The honest answer is more useful: a website that actually drives revenue costs more than most agencies will quote you upfront. Below is the real breakdown — by project type, by deliverable, and by what you actually pay for when the invoice arrives.
Brochure / portfolio sites — £1,500 to £6,000
5-10 pages. Custom design, responsive, basic CMS (usually WordPress with Elementor or a Webflow build). Includes copy refinement, basic on-page SEO, contact form integration, Google Analytics setup. Timeline: 3-5 weeks. Best for: consultants, freelancers, small agencies, professional services.
What pushes you toward the upper end: custom illustrations, motion graphics, multilingual support, complex animations, blog migration from another platform, or hosting / DNS setup if you do not have an existing infrastructure.
Lead generation sites — £6,000 to £18,000
10-25 pages with strong conversion architecture. Custom design, multiple CTAs per page, lead magnet integration, marketing automation hooks (HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp), advanced form logic, A/B testing setup, full SEO foundation, schema markup, and performance optimization for Core Web Vitals. Timeline: 6-10 weeks.
E-commerce stores — £8,000 to £40,000+
Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce builds. Cost varies enormously based on: catalog size (50 products vs 5,000), custom checkout requirements, subscription billing, multi-currency, ERP integrations, fulfillment system connections, custom apps. Timeline: 8-16 weeks.
SaaS marketing sites — £15,000 to £60,000
Sophisticated marketing sites for software companies. Multiple product surfaces, comparison tables, integrations directory, blog with 50+ articles, customer story templates, careers section, investor relations, multi-locale support. Timeline: 10-16 weeks.
Custom web apps and platforms — £40,000 to £200,000+
Bespoke applications. Custom backend, user authentication, data persistence, API integrations, admin dashboards, role-based permissions. Timeline: 16-40 weeks. This is software engineering, not website design.
What drives cost up — the honest list
Custom illustration and animation: £150-£400 per illustration, £600-£3,000 per animation sequence. Stock graphics save thousands but compress brand identity.
Copy from scratch: Good copy is £100-£250 per page from a freelance copywriter, more from a senior strategist. Most agencies expect you to provide copy. The ones who do not write good copy charge for the privilege.
Custom development: Anything outside theme/builder limits. Custom CPT, advanced filtering, calculators, multi-step forms with conditional logic, headless integrations.
Migration: Old WordPress to new WordPress is straightforward. WordPress to Webflow, or any platform-to-platform move with 100+ blog posts and SEO redirects, is multi-day work.
Performance and accessibility: Pages that pass Core Web Vitals on real devices need image optimization, font loading strategy, JavaScript bundling, lazy-loading. WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility audit takes 2-3 days for a 20-page site.
What you actually pay for — line by line
An honest agency invoice for a £15,000 lead-gen site looks like this: Discovery and strategy (10%, £1,500), UX design and wireframes (15%, £2,250), Visual design (20%, £3,000), Development (35%, £5,250), Content and SEO (10%, £1,500), QA and launch (10%, £1,500). The percentages shift for different project types but design + development should be 55-65% combined. If you see an invoice where strategy is 30% and development is 20%, you are paying for slide decks, not shipping work.
Hidden costs to ask about upfront
Hosting (£20-£200/month for managed WP hosting), domain (£10-£40/year), email service (£6-£15/user/month for Google Workspace), SSL certificate (often free via Let’s Encrypt or hosting), CDN (£10-£200/month), backup service (£10-£50/month), monitoring (£20-£100/month), maintenance retainer (£300-£2,000/month). These are not optional. A site without these is fragile.
Red flags in agency quotes
Quote with no scope document. Quote without a deliverables list. Quote with a single line item like “Website design and development”. Quote where the agency has no opinion about your platform choice. Quote where revisions are unlimited (someone is going to lose, and it will be the relationship). Quote with no payment milestones.
What I quote and why
I run a senior team. Most projects ship in 4-12 weeks. I quote ranges, not exact numbers, until we have a scope document signed off. Typical ranges: brochure £2,500-£5,000, lead-gen £8,000-£18,000, e-commerce £12,000-£35,000, SaaS marketing £18,000-£45,000. All quotes include strategy, design, dev, content review, on-page SEO, schema, accessibility, and 14-day post-launch refinement.
If your project does not fit those ranges — bigger, smaller, or different — we discuss it on a 30-minute call. No pitch. Book a free audit if you want a real number for your specific situation.
