Working out what a small business website should cost in London is more about the choices you make than the agency you hire. The same brief can land anywhere from a few hundred pounds to well into five figures, and the difference usually isn’t quality — it’s what’s actually in scope.
Here’s how I usually think about it when a Fulham or Hammersmith SMB asks for a quote.
By Christopher Mollard, founder of J4G Design, Fulham — since 2017.
Last updated 20 Jun 2026
What’s involved in working out the cost a small business website?
The cost of a small business website in London comes down to a few different things: the scope of the work, the design time involved, the build, and post-launch support. It’s possible to use pre-built templates to reeduce the costs in some places and effectively drop in your brand but it’s not always an effective way to actually build the solution that you need. And with WordPress being so flexible, it can sometimes defeat the point. Template builds use existing layouts with your logo over the top whereas custom builds start from a blank canvas tailored to your brand, needs, content and information (e.g. teams, locations, services, etc.) for easy maintenance, ongoing SEO and future-proofing.
Most of the cost is in design and development hours — not the platform itself. The number of pages doesn’t tend to change the work much. What changes the work is functionality and attention to detail.
How do I usually break down a project?
I propose breaking projects into milestones with deliverables tied to each one. For a typical small-business build, I aim for clear stages:
- Getting started — initial payment covers discovery, asset gathering, server setup and starting the back-end of the site
- Brand work complete (if branding is in scope) — implementing the brand and fixing what’s broken in the meantime
- MVP launch — a version of the site high enough quality to replace what currently exists, that we can then build on
- MVP+1 — the finished version with all the additional features
That structure gives you a usable, better-than-current site sooner, with clear checkpoints for both of us. It’s also more flexible if you find that there are some features you’d like to look at including in the scope.
*The term “MVP” stands for Minimum Viable Product – which means the first version that is of high quality, with enough functionality to do a better job than what currently exists. Sometimes this is a landing page, sometimes it’s a whole website.
How long does a small-business site usually take?
In my experience:
- A small (say 5 pages) purely informational marketing site takes roughly 4–6 weeks
- A larger website with contact forms, dynamic content and contact forms and integrations (roughly 10 pages) with basic e-commerce is 6–8 weeks
- Brand and website together: 8–12 weeks
Most of the delays I see are on the client side — usually waiting for content, photography or feedback. If the materials are ready, I’m ready.
What’s worth budgeting for that often gets missed?
A few things I always include in my quotes that not every studio does:
- Mobile-first design and WCAG AA accessibility as a baseline, not a tier-up add-on
- Basic SEO setup is a must, with the site and pages set up with the correct descriptive information as well as the site set up in Google Analytics and Google Search Console (it’s worth mentioning that high perforning SEO requires ongoing work)
- A Google Business Profile audit alongside the site work, because GBP often does more for local visibility than on-page SEO
- An hour of training so you can update pages, post articles and swap images without me
- A two-week courtesy period after launch — small layout, copy and image changes are included while you settle in
If you also choose to have me look after the website for you, I run daily backups through my own plugin (with backups stored in remote storage) and I run WordPress updates monthly on a staging server before pushing live.
What should you watch for in a quote?
A few things worth checking before signing:
- Domain in your name from day one, not in the designer’s name “for convenience”
- A CMS another developer could pick up later — WordPress is the safest default
- A written scope that lists exactly what’s included
- No multi-year contracts for a small-business build — it shouldn’t need one
If something feels vague, ask. Good designers tend to be happy to explain their working and won’t be defensive about it.
How do I usually price my own work?
I quote fixed prices upfront based on the scope we’ve agreed, with payments tied to each milestone. I’d rather get the scope right at the start and adjust as we go according to changing needs (which sometimes happens!). And I focus on measurable success metrics from day one so you can see the impact rather than take it on trust.
If you’d like an honest range for what you have in mind, send a few sentences about what you’re trying to achieve by getting in touch on the contact page.