What should a tradesman pay for a website?

Ask ten people what a tradesman's website should cost and you'll get ten answers between fifty quid and ten grand. That spread is the whole problem. A one-man decorating firm and a regional building company get quoted from the same menu, then wonder why the numbers make no sense. The honest figure for a working sole trader in 2026 sits a lot lower than the agency quotes suggest, and a fair bit higher than the "build it free yourself" crowd admit once you count your own time. What you should pay comes down to three things: whether it's built for you or you build it, whether it has to actually find you work or just exist, and how long you plan to keep it. Get those straight and the price stops being a mystery. Here's what each route really runs to, and what a sensible 2026 number looks like for a trade your size.

What a tradesman's website actually costs in 2026

A working UK tradesman typically pays £600 to £3,000 to have a website built, plus a small monthly care fee, or £10 to £25 a month to build one on Wix themselves; the right number depends on whether you want it built for you and whether it has to win work.

Those three bands cover almost every real trade. The reason the range looks so wide is that they're not the same product: one is a subscription to software you operate, one is a person building you a site once, and one is a service that builds, hosts and looks after it for you. Comparing them on price alone is like comparing hiring a van, buying a van, and getting a courier to do the drop. Same job, very different cost shape.

The honest range for a sole trader

If you're a one-man band who wants to be found on Google and look legit, the sensible spend is a one-off build in the £600 to £1,500 range with a low monthly care fee after it, or an upfront freelancer build plus your own hosting. Anything into agency territory (£3,000 and up) is usually money a local sole trader won't earn back. The full line-by-line sum sits on the tradesman website cost page.

Why the quotes vary so wildly

Two things inflate quotes: scope and who's quoting. An agency prices in account managers, strategy calls and a design team, all of which a plumber's five-page site doesn't need. A freelancer varies by experience and speed. A DIY builder looks cheap because the labour, the building and the upkeep, is you. The number only means something once you know what's inside it.

What you're really paying for

You're paying for four things in some mix: the build, the hosting, the upkeep, and your own time saved. A cheap route that eats your evenings isn't cheap. A pricey route that wins two jobs a month isn't dear. Judge the cost against what it does, not the sticker.

The four routes, and what each one really runs to

There are four ways a tradesman gets a website: build it yourself on a platform (£10 to £25 a month forever), hire a freelancer (£500 to £3,000 upfront), pay an agency (£3,000 to £10,000+), or take a done-for-you build with care included (£600 up front, then £20 a month, all-in).

DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)

Paid plans on Wix and Squarespace run from roughly £10 to £25 a month, which is £120 to £300 a year, indefinitely. The upside is you can have something live in a weekend and edit it yourself. The catch is you're the builder, the site tends to look templated, and the meter never stops. Before committing to any route, it is worth seeing what the done-for-you companies actually charge and what happens if you leave, set out in UK trade website companies compared.

The other cost worth putting beside all of this is what you currently pay for work to arrive at all. A website is competing for the same money as Google Ads and the lead platforms, and the honest ranking of what a booked job costs through each route is in cost per job across trade lead channels.

Freelancer, upfront build

A freelancer typically charges £500 to £3,000 to build a trade site once, depending on pages and experience. No monthly design fee after, but you then arrange your own hosting (about £5 to £15 a month) and pay per change. Good if you want a one-time spend and won't need many updates. Riskier on aftercare: if they move on, you're on your own.

Agency

Agencies start around £3,000 and climb past £10,000. You get a team and a process, which a national brand needs and a local trade almost never does. For a plumber, sparky or decorator working one town, an agency is paying Rolls-Royce money for a Transit job. If you want the numbers for your exact trade, see the electrician website design guide.

Done-for-you build plus care

Done-for-you means someone builds, hosts and looks after the site for you. Sitework charges £600 to build, then £20 a month covering hosting, SSL and unlimited small edits, with ongoing SEO available separately at £200 every four weeks. No agency lump sum, no DIY, and the site stays maintained. For a busy trade who'd rather be on the tools, it's usually the best fit.

The costs that never make it onto the quote

The headline build price is rarely the real cost: hosting, a domain, SSL, updates and your own time all add up, and on a DIY builder the subscription never stops, so a "free" Wix site can cost £240 to £600 across two years before you count your hours.

Hosting, domain and SSL

Every live website needs somewhere to sit (hosting), a name (a domain, about £10 to £15 a year to register, per gov.uk), and a security certificate (SSL). On a DIY builder these are bundled into the monthly fee. On an upfront freelancer build they're separate, and easy to forget when you compare a "£800 build" against a £20 a month care plan that already includes them all.

Updates and upkeep

A phone number changes, you add a service, a photo goes stale. On a done-for-you plan those small edits are included. On an upfront build you pay per change or do it yourself. Over a couple of years, upkeep quietly becomes one of the biggest real costs, and it's the one no quote shows.

Your own time

"Free to build yourself" isn't free if your day rate is £200 to £350. A weekend building it, plus evenings maintaining it, is real money and real time off the job. Whether a website is worth paying for at all, once you count that time, is worked through in is a website worth it for a small trade business.

What you should pay for a business your size

A sole trader who wants to be found and look legitimate should budget around £600 to build plus £20 a month; a small firm with several services and a wider area may want ongoing SEO on top; spending agency money (£3,000+) rarely pays back for a local trade.

If you're a one-man band

A clean one-pager or small site that loads fast, shows your work, your reviews and your accreditation, and turns a Google search into a call. That is a done-for-you job at £600 plus £20 a month, or a modest upfront freelancer build. You don't need more, and paying for more is money that won't come back.

If you're a small firm

Several trades, a team, a bigger patch to cover: you'll want more pages, service-by-service, and ideally ongoing SEO so you rank across more towns. That's the build fee plus a content service on top, around £200 every four weeks. The extra spend earns its keep because there's more work to win and more ground to cover.

When paying more is worth it

Rarely, but it happens: you're scaling to multiple branches, you sell online, or you need something genuinely custom. Then bigger budgets make sense. For the vast majority of UK trades working a town or two, they don't. Match the spend to the work, not to what an agency says you should want.

What good value actually looks like

Good value for a trade website isn't the lowest price, it's the lowest cost per enquiry over two years: a £600 site costing £20 a month to run that turns one search a week into a call pays for itself many times over, while a free site that no one finds costs you the jobs you never hear about.

Judge it on enquiries, not build cost

The right question isn't "what did it cost", it's "what did it bring in". A single bathroom, rewire or fit-out is worth more than the whole first year of a built-for-you site. If the site wins you one extra job a month, the price is almost irrelevant. If it wins none, even free was too much.

The two-year sum

Run it over 24 months, the honest window. A DIY builder at £15 a month is £360 plus your hours. A £600 build with £20 a month care is £1,080 across the same two years, with nothing else to pay and no time spent. If the second one brings in even two extra jobs across those two years, it's the cheaper option in the only sense that matters. The same time-versus-money argument, and whether the paid route is right for you at all, is worked through in is it worth paying for a trade website.

See your site before you pay

You don't have to guess. I'll build a free mockup of your actual business, your name, your trade, your area, before you pay a penny. If you like it, it's £600 to build, then £20/month, with hosting, SSL and unlimited small edits included and no per-lead fees. Most sites are live in about a week. Apply at sitework.uk/#apply.