What should a trade website quote itemise? Eleven lines

Buyer checklist By Jacob Orsborn-Smith, Sitework Published 31 August 2026 9 min read

Seven of nine. That is how many British firms selling websites to tradesmen publish how fast your site will go live. One of nine publishes its VAT position. One of nine publishes what a change costs six months after launch. None of the nine publishes a total for the first twelve months.

I read all nine pricing pages on 31 August 2026 and scored each against the same eleven lines, which are the eleven things that decide what a website actually costs a sole trader over its life. The pattern is not dishonesty. It is that the line sellers volunteer is the one that costs them nothing to promise, and the lines they leave out are the ones that turn into money.

So here are the eleven, in the order they hit your bank account, with what nine real sellers do and do not put on the page. My own pricing page is scored against them too, and it fails four.

Quick answer

A trade website quote should itemise eleven lines: the twelve-month total, VAT, hosting, the domain and whose name it is in, who owns the files, term and notice, page count, who writes the words and photos, revisions, what a change costs after launch, and the launch date. Of nine UK sellers read on 31 August 2026, none published a year-one total and one published its VAT position.

The eleven lines, in the order they cost you money

Every one of these is answerable in a sentence, and every one of them becomes an argument later if it is not answered now.

Print this, or photograph it on your phone and send it back to whoever quoted you. It is in cost order rather than importance order, because the lines that catch people out are not the dramatic ones. Nobody gets caught by the page count. They get caught by line four and line ten.

1The total for the first twelve months, in pounds.Not a monthly figure and not a build price. One number you could write on a cheque. If the quote is monthly, multiply it out on the page and add everything below.
2VAT: included, added, or not charged.Three different answers with three different totals. On a £750 build the gap between the first two is £150.
3Hosting: included, or how much a month.A build price is not a running price. Somebody pays for the site to be online every month for as long as it exists.
4The domain: what it costs, and whose name it is registered in.This is the line you cannot easily undo. The registrant is the person who controls the address, not the person who paid for it.
5Who owns the design and the files if you leave.And when. UK copyright law has a default here, and the default is not you. See below.
6The minimum term, and separately the notice period.These are two different numbers and sellers routinely publish one and not the other. A three-month minimum with thirty days' notice is a four-month commitment.
7How many pages, named."Up to five" is fine. "A website" is not. Write down which five.
8Who writes the words and who supplies the photographs.The single commonest reason a British trade website launches three months late is that nobody agreed this line, and the job stalls waiting on the customer.
9How many rounds of revisions before extra charges start.A number, not "until you are happy".
10What a change costs after launch, and how fast.New mobile number, new service, new photos, a price change. This will happen within a year. Get the per-change price or confirmation that changes are included.
11The launch date, and what happens if your content is late.Most quotes carry a timescale. Almost none carry what the timescale depends on.

What nine UK sellers actually publish

Across nine live pricing pages, the best-covered line is the one that costs the seller nothing and the worst-covered lines are the ones that cost you money.

The nine are firms currently selling websites to UK tradespeople: Digital Tradies, MyTradeSite, Tradeson, Ubie Websites, Trades Digital, Tada Websites, Local Website Design, Proxima Studio and 99 Pound Website. Every score below comes off their own published page, read on 31 August 2026. Where a page is silent, I have marked it silent rather than guessed what they would say on the phone.

The eleven lines scored against nine UK trade website sellers' published pages, read 31 August 2026
LineSellers publishing itWho does it best, and how
11. Launch timescale7 of 9Tradeson, "Live in 48 hours". Digital Tradies, three days. Proxima, three to ten weeks by tier
3. Hosting6 of 9Five include it in the fee. Tada is the only one to publish it as a separate price, £10 a month
7. Page count4 of 9Proxima names up to 5, 12 and 15 by tier. 99 Pound Website, up to five
5. Who owns the files2 of 9Digital Tradies, "the website files are yours to keep" after twelve months. Tradeson, only on its £400 one-off
2. VAT position1 of 9Tada Websites, "All prices do not include VAT". Eight say nothing at all
4. Domain and registrant1 of 9Tradeson, "in your name, yours to keep". One other includes a free domain without saying whose name it is in
6. Term and notice1 of 9Tradeson, no contract with 30 days' notice. Most publish one number or neither
8. Words and photographs1 of 9Proxima, which names copywriting as in or out of each tier
9. Revision rounds1 of 9Proxima, 2, 3 and 5 rounds by tier. Everyone else is silent or says "within scope"
10. Cost of a change after launch1 of 9Tradeson, two updates a month included and extras "from £15". Nobody else publishes a figure
1. A year-one total in pounds0 of 9Not one seller adds their own numbers up for you

Two things fall out of that table that are worth more than the individual scores. The first is that the most itemised seller on the list is also the cheapest. Tradeson clears six of the eleven lines at £45 a month plus a £99 build, while firms charging four figures for a one-off clear three. Transparency is not a premium feature and you should stop paying for it as though it were.

The second is that Proxima Studio publishes the most detailed specification on the list and no price at all. Three named packages, page counts, revision rounds, post-launch support in weeks, what is excluded from each tier, and nowhere a figure. That is the opposite failure to the £99 seller and it produces the same result: you cannot compare it to anything without ringing them.

The two lines nobody publishes are the two that move the price

VAT and the cost of a post-launch change are published by one seller each out of nine, and between them they can swing a three-year cost by several hundred pounds.

1 of 9Published a VAT position. On a £1,250 build the unstated difference is £250
1 of 9Published what a change costs after launch. It was £15, from the cheapest seller on the list
0 of 9Published a total for the first twelve months. Every buyer is left doing the arithmetic alone

On VAT, silence usually means there is nothing to add. The registration threshold published by HMRC is £90,000 of taxable turnover, and a one-person web design business under it cannot charge VAT at all. But you are not supposed to have to infer a supplier's turnover to work out your own bill. The fix is one sentence in the quote, and the same courtesy you would expect from a merchant.

Line ten is the one I would fight hardest for. A trade website changes in its first year: the mobile number changes, a service gets added, the van gets resprayed and the photos are wrong. If nobody priced that on day one, the answer arrives later as an hourly rate you never agreed, or worse, as silence. Getting the change price in writing has the same value as agreeing your own payment terms up front before the work starts rather than after.

"Yours to keep" is not the same as owning it

Under UK law the person who built your website owns the copyright in it by default, and only a signed written assignment changes that.

This is line five, and it is the one where the marketing language and the legal position differ most. Section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 says the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright in it. There is an exception for work made by an employee in the course of employment, and that exception does not help you, because a freelancer or an agency is not your employee. Section 90(3) is blunter still: an assignment of copyright "is not effective unless it is in writing signed by or on behalf of the assignor".

So a line on a sales page saying the files are yours to keep is a promise, not a transfer. It is very probably a promise the seller intends to honour, and most do. But if the relationship ends badly, the document you need is a signed assignment naming the design and the code, and that belongs in the contract you sign rather than in the quote's small print. Two of the nine sellers address ownership on their pages at all. Neither publishes an assignment.

The domain is the separate fight, and the more urgent one. Copyright covers the design and the code. The domain is a different thing entirely, controlled by whoever is named as the registrant. You can lose a website and rebuild it in a week. Losing the address that has been on your van for four years is a different order of problem, which is why line four asks for a name and not a price.

The same job, quoted two ways

Two quotes with a £651 gap on the headline finish £6 apart over three years, and only the itemisation shows it.

Both of these are built from real published prices off the nine pages, for the same five-page site for a one-van firm. Neither seller has done anything wrong. They have simply drawn the line in different places, which is what makes the headlines meaningless.

Quote A: "£99, five pages, live in five days"

The build, one off£99
Hosting, 12 months at a published £19 entry rate£228
Domain, roughly, per year£15
Changes after launchNot priced
Year one£342
Three years£828

Build price from 99 Pound Website, whose page does not mention hosting anywhere. Hosting and domain figures from a second trade website firm's published pricing page. Both read 30 to 31 August 2026.

Quote B: "£750 plus £10 a month"

The build, one off, VAT stated as extra£750
VAT at 20%, because the page says so£150
Hosting, 12 months at the published £10 rate£120
Domain, not mentioned on the pageUnknown
Year one£1,020
Three years£1,260

Build and hosting prices from Tada Websites' published packages, including the line "All prices do not include VAT". Read 31 August 2026. The domain line is genuinely absent from the page and is shown as unknown rather than estimated.

The headline gap is £651. The three-year gap is £432, and it closes further the moment Quote A needs three changes it has no price for. This is the whole argument for itemising: the number on the front of a quote is not the price, it is the price of the part the seller chose to sell you first. It is the same reason a £99 website is not a cheap version of a £750 one. It is a different boundary drawn around a different job.

Where my own pricing page fails this test

Sitework clears six of the eleven lines and fails the two I have just spent a thousand words telling you to insist on.

It would be cheap to publish this checklist and not run it against myself, so here is the score. Clear passes: hosting is named as included, ownership is stated with a date (the site and the domain transfer to you at twelve months, no exit fee), the page count is capped at six, the words and photographs are explicitly my job, changes after launch are unlimited and cost nothing, and the launch timescale is published as about a week.

Fails. There is no year-one total on my pricing page: £50 every four weeks is thirteen payments, so the Website plan is £650 in year one, and that figure is not on the page. There is no VAT statement anywhere on this entire website, which I checked while writing this and which is exactly the silence I have just criticised eight other firms for. The domain is included and transfers at twelve months, but the page does not say whose name it is registered in for the first twelve. And there is no revision-round number, because the honest answer is that I keep going until it is right, which is precisely the vague formulation line nine exists to reject.

Six of eleven is better than most of the nine and it is not good enough, and the two I fail are the two that decide what you pay. Those go on the list to fix. In the meantime, if you ask me any of the four in writing you will get a straight number back, which is the actual test.

The email to send back

One message, sent to every quote you are holding, and the replies will sort the list for you faster than any comparison you could do yourself.

Copy this. It is deliberately short, deliberately not aggressive, and deliberately asks for writing rather than a call. Any competent seller answers it in ten minutes.

Hi, thanks for the quote. Before I decide, could you confirm these in writing:

1. What is the total for the first twelve months, in pounds?
2. Is VAT included, added, or not charged?
3. What does hosting cost after year one?
4. Whose name will the domain be registered in?
5. If I leave, do I keep the design files, and from when?
6. What is the minimum term, and what notice do I give?
7. What does a change cost after launch, and how quickly is it done?

Thanks.

Seven questions rather than eleven, because four of the eleven are usually already on the page and there is no point asking a seller to repeat themselves. What you are reading in the reply is not only the answers. It is whether they came back in writing with numbers, or came back suggesting a quick call.

Verdict Compare the eleven lines, never the headline The nine UK sellers I read are, on the whole, straight about what they build. What none of them does is add their own numbers up for you, and one of nine tells you whether VAT is coming. That is not a market you can shop by price, because the prices are not describing the same thing. Price the eleven lines, put the totals side by side, and the decision usually makes itself. If you want an itemised quote for a painter and decorator website or any other trade, ask me for the eleven and I will send them back as a list.

Trade website quotes: FAQ

What should a website quote include in the UK?

Eleven lines: a total for the first twelve months in pounds, the VAT position, the hosting cost, the domain cost and whose name it is registered in, who owns the files when you leave, the minimum term and the notice period, the number of pages, who writes the words and supplies the photographs, how many rounds of revisions you get, what a change costs after launch, and the launch date. Anything a UK seller will not put in writing before you pay is a line you will end up paying for later.

Should a web design quote include VAT?

It should state the position either way, and almost none do. Of nine UK firms selling websites to tradesmen whose pricing pages I read on 31 August 2026, one said anything at all about VAT. A business under the £90,000 turnover threshold set by HMRC cannot charge VAT, so silence often means there is none to add. But silence is not an answer, and on a £750 build the difference is £150. Ask for the figure you will actually be invoiced.

Does a web designer own my website?

By default in the UK, yes. Under section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright in it, and the employee exception does not apply because a freelancer or agency is not your employee. Section 90(3) says an assignment of copyright is not effective unless it is in writing signed by the assignor. So the design and code stay theirs until somebody signs them over. A line on a sales page saying the site is yours to keep is marketing, not an assignment.

What is a fair price for a tradesman website in the UK?

There is no single fair price, which is exactly why the itemisation matters more than the number. On the nine British sellers I read, live prices ran from £45 a month plus a £99 build up to a £1,250 one-off, with hosting anywhere from included to £10 a month extra. Two quotes with the same headline can differ by hundreds of pounds a year once hosting, the domain and post-launch changes are counted. Price the eleven lines, then compare the totals.

What should I ask a web designer before paying a deposit?

Send one email asking for the eleven lines in writing, and read what comes back rather than what is promised on the phone. The four that catch people out are the domain registrant name, the cost of a change six months after launch, the notice period rather than just the minimum term, and a total for the first twelve months rather than a monthly figure. A seller anywhere in England, Scotland or Wales who answers all four in writing is showing you how the rest of the job will go.

Sources
  1. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 11, for "The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it" and the employment exception. legislation.gov.uk
  2. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 90(3), for "An assignment of copyright is not effective unless it is in writing signed by or on behalf of the assignor". legislation.gov.uk
  3. HM Revenue and Customs, VAT registration, for the £90,000 taxable turnover threshold. gov.uk
  4. Digital Tradies, pricing page, for Starter £49 and Pro £79 a month with £0 upfront, hosting, SSL and security included, "We ask for 12 months to keep pricing low", "After the initial 12 months, the website files are yours to keep if you cancel", up to five pages on Starter, and "Most sites go live within 3 days". Read 31 August 2026. digitaltradies.com/pricing
  5. Tradeson, for £45 a month with a £99 one-off build fee, a £400 one-off build with "full files yours forever", "Your own .co.uk domain, in your name, yours to keep", "No contract" with "30 days notice", "2 updates a month included, extra changes charged fairly, from £15", and "Live in 48 hours". Read 31 August 2026. tradeson.co.uk
  6. Tada Websites, for Launchpad £750, Traction £1,000 and Velocity £1,250, hosting as a £10 a month add-on, "All prices do not include VAT", and "Most Tada websites go live within three weeks". Read 31 August 2026. tadawebsites.com
  7. Proxima Studio, for the Presence, Authority and Dominance packages with page counts of up to 5, 12 and 15, revision rounds of 2, 3 and 5, timescales of three to ten weeks, named copywriting inclusions and exclusions, retainers with "30 days' notice to cancel", and the absence of any published price. Read 31 August 2026. proximastudio.co.uk
  8. MyTradeSite, for £99 a month with a £49 founding offer, "Free .co.uk domain when you subscribe, we register and set it up", a 15-plus page AI-built site, month to month with "Cancel anytime", and £0 upfront. Read 31 August 2026. mytradesite.uk
  9. Ubie Websites, for "Pay Monthly Websites from £69 per month" with "Design, hosting, updates and support included", and Trades Digital, for "£250 one-off, only after you like the draft" plus £65 a month with hosting, SSL and maintenance inside the fee. Both read 31 August 2026. ubiewebsites.co.uk · trades-digital.co.uk
  10. 99 Pound Website, for the £99 five-page build, the three to five working day turnaround, and the absence of any mention of hosting, VAT, revisions or ownership. Read 30 to 31 August 2026. 99-pound-website.com
Done-for-you · £50 every four weeks

Ask me for the eleven lines. Free mockup first

Send me your trade and the towns you cover and I will build a free mockup of your actual business before you pay anything. No deposit and no build fee: £50 every four weeks covers the site, hosting, the domain, SSL, backups and unlimited small text and photo edits, with three months minimum and then rolling. If you do not like the finished site your first payment comes back, and after twelve months the website and the domain are yours to keep with no exit fee. Live in about a week.

Get your free mockup See the work

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