Talk about a vexed question. If you're in the process of commissioning a brand-new website, you'll already know that the price can vary dramatically.
Some "agencies" will tell you they can build an all-singing, all-dancing B2B website for under £5,000. Others will tell you it'll cost £50,000 and up to hand-crank a totally custom site. As always, the real answer sits somewhere in between those two extremes.
The specifics depend entirely on the functionality you need, the level of design work you want to invest in, and the content management system (CMS) you build the site with. That's before we even get to the ongoing investment in SEO, in being found by AI search tools, and in continually optimising your designs to improve conversion rates.
For the busy CMO (or CTO), those vague and open-ended answers don't help you define a budget for your next web project, and we know that's what's really needed here. So we've set out to give you a comprehensive guide to website costs, putting real figures against all the must-have components so you can get something close to a usable ballpark. This is a general guide rather than an exhaustive exploration of every niche site type, and it has a very different focus from most of the guides currently ranking for related searches. We're speaking from our own area of expertise, so we'll talk about the cost of working with a reputable agency to build a B2B website that generates tangible revenue.
We won't spend much time on the cost of DIY-ing your own build with Wix or Squarespace. Not because we think those tools are rubbish (they have their place), but because there's a real dearth of honest content for in-house marketing executives under pressure to deliver a productive website, and that's where we want to put our attention. This is also a proper refresh of a post we first published back in 2023, updated to reflect what's changed since, AI search included.
In this post:
The bare necessities and their costs
To get the ball rolling, we'll walk through the must-have components and what they cost. These basics are needed to set up and run any website, from a bare-bones brochure site selling a single service through to the sprawling, expansive sites needed to support enterprise-level businesses like Halliburton. They're not exciting, but they all contribute to the final cost, and it's worth knowing exactly what's involved before you start talking to agencies. The must-haves are hosting, domain name registration, an SSL certificate and a CMS.
Website hosting
Hosting is what keeps the lights on. In simple terms, it's how you rent space on someone's server so that your website files can be retrieved by a web browser. It usually covers basic maintenance and upkeep too, though the exact service varies from provider to provider.
Some hosting companies will charge you a flat fee of £15 a year to host your site on a shared server that's slow to respond and light on configurable functionality (source: Hostinger). Others will charge you £506 a month to host on a dedicated server or cloud-based content delivery system that guarantees fast response times for thousands of simultaneous visitors and keeps your site up during periods of extremely heavy use (source: Kinsta). To complicate things further, some SaaS CMS systems (cloud-based content management systems, for the uninitiated) bundle the cost of hosting into their monthly licence fees, and then there are all-inclusive packages that roll in maintenance, security patching and backups too.
It's hard to put an average on hosting, but if you're running a mid-sized B2B or eCommerce website, expect to pay somewhere between £30 and £60 per month for decent hosting that keeps the lights on and your tech stack up to date.
Domain name registration
If your business were a brick-and-mortar store, your domain name would be the street address. It's what people type into their browsers when they want to find you. When you register a domain, you're effectively paying to stake a claim to that specific address so nobody else can use it. The fee is paid annually (registrations almost always last 12 months) and it's generally very small.
According to Forbes, standard domains (.com, .co.uk, .net and so on) generally cost between $5 and $50 (source: Forbes). We think that's a little on the high side. Most clients end up paying £5 to £30 for standard domains, though costs can creep up if you want an exotic extension like .io or .agency. If someone has already claimed the domain you want, you may be able to buy it, but be warned that some people squat on domains hoping to sell them for a small fortune. If you're quoted a ridiculous amount, it's usually worth picking a different domain.
SSL certificates
To make sure all data passed to and from your website is encrypted, you need an SSL certificate installed on your server. Without getting too geeky, your certificate contains your website's public key, which lets users' devices establish a secure connection with your server. Installing one changes the "http" in your web address to "https", a trust signal that reassures visitors and gives you a small ranking benefit on Google (source: Google).
There are several types. Domain Validated (DV) certificates are the most basic, quick to issue and fine for blogs or personal sites but rarely suitable for businesses. Organisation Validated (OV) and Extended Validation (EV) certificates require more rigorous verification and provide a higher level of trust, which is why B2B and B2C businesses, eCommerce stores and any site handling personal data tend to use them. Wildcard certificates cover a domain and unlimited subdomains, and multi-domain certificates secure several domains under one. You usually buy directly from a certificate authority like DigiCert, or through your hosting provider, and some security providers like Cloudflare bundle them into their subscriptions. ClickSSL puts the average at around £8 for single domain/DV certificates and £58 for OV/EV certificates (source: ClickSSL). If you buy directly from a CA, you may also need to pay a developer to install it.
CMS costs
The CMS is the software that sits behind your website, letting you and your marketing team edit content, write blog posts, add forms, or swap out images when photogenic but self-serving employees inevitably leave the business. They're not mandatory (you can hard-code every page if you really want to), but the overwhelming majority of modern websites are built on one, and if you want a site that generates genuine leads, you'll need a CMS to keep things current without constantly calling a developer.
There are two main types: open source and commercial. Open source systems like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal are technically free, in that there's no licence fee for the software itself, but you'll still pay a developer or agency to design and build the site, and you may also pay for themes, plugins, hosting, security patches and updates, all of which inflate the cost. Commercial systems like HubSpot CMS, Shopify (for eCommerce) or Craft do cost. Free or starter versions exist, but most features sit behind a monthly or annual licence. Those licences are reasonable, though: HubSpot Enterprise CMS pricing can stretch to £1,050 a month, HubSpot Professional CMS licences start at £351 a month, Shopify sits at around £344 per month for medium-sized business sites, and Craft charges a £299 upfront fee tapering to £59 a year for updates after that.
It's worth noting that the cost of a commercial licence generally covers hosting, updates, security patches and basic themes, so you may well end up saving money compared with an open source system once you've added everything up. In all honesty, the direction you choose depends on the specifics of your business. We've no real preference, we build most client sites on either HubSpot or Joomla, and we always advise people to pick the CMS that offers the right mix of features and benefits rather than choosing on brand perception or headline cost. If you're weighing it up, our guide on choosing between HubSpot CMS and WordPress goes deeper. The honest summary: you'll still be paying somewhere between £50 and £351 per month either to licence a commercial CMS, or to cover the hosting, security, maintenance and plugins an open source one needs.
Website design costs
Now that we've got the boring but necessary stuff out of the way, we can dig into the cost of design, the work that happens before development starts. First, an important point: the cost of design rarely has anything to do with the size of your website.
Oddly, most cost guides, including ones from otherwise reputable outlets like Forbes and GoDaddy, band design costs by the number of pages, saying a 0 to 16 page site costs £2,000 to £9,000 to design while a 16 to 75 page site costs £10,000 to £30,000 (source: Expert Market). As an agency that designs B2B websites regularly, we find this genuinely confusing. The time and effort go into developing a page template that can then be replicated as many times as you like without any additional design cost. Your home page and about page will always need custom templates, so you're always looking at five or six unique designs at least. But if your site is large because it has lots of near-identical pages, there's no reason to assume you'll pay more than a business with a much smaller 20 to 30 page site.
Case in point, we recently designed a fairly extensive website for a self-storage company. Counting the sales pages for various locations, the pages for businesses and consumers, the pages explaining the purchase journey, and all the peripheral information needed to drive conversions, it ran to roughly 40 pages of content. But it uses six unique page templates (with slight variations), so the design cost was relatively modest. At the other end of the spectrum, we've worked on much smaller sites that needed totally bespoke designs for every single page, and those ranged from £8k to £10k for the finished work.
Do complex designs cost more?
Yes, the complexity of a design absolutely affects what it costs. If you're asking a designer to create a homepage that finds inventive ways of combining still imagery and video, or that breaks the conventions of web design, they're going to bill you more than for a traditional layout. That's not to say you should err on the side of tradition, because inventive design can radically improve a site's ability to engage and convert, but the amount you pay will depend on the energy and effort your project demands. That's true for agencies that bill by the hour and for agencies like ours that take a more value-driven approach. Ultimately, you're paying for an expert's time and brainpower, and if it takes six times the effort to reinvent the wheel, those are hours they can't give to other work, so you should expect to compensate them accordingly.
UX research inflates design costs, and may not be worth the premium
UX research and user-focused design work will increase your design costs. These bolt-ons are increasingly common, and groups like Webflow, Hotjar and CareerFoundry will tell you UX research is now "required" if you want a site that meets the needs of the people using it. We're going to take a different tack and suggest you avoid them for now, for two reasons.
First, UX research for B2B websites is a lot more complicated than people let on. If you're selling shoes or handbags, it's easy enough to find members of your target audience and persuade them to give you their time for a gift card. If you're designing for C-suite executives or key decision-makers in the energy services industry, it's much, much harder to find willing participants, far more expensive to buy their input, and you may find the resulting research is either thin or so slow to obtain that your build ends up stuck in limbo.
Second, B2B lead generation websites are never finished. What you're really designing is a minimum viable product, something you can put in front of your ideal customer and use to start generating leads. That doesn't mean it can look shoddy, it absolutely must be polished, professional and persuasive, but the UX research, conversion rate optimisation and fine-tuning can all happen once the site is live. In fact, that process of continual improvement is the only way to guarantee your website performs and generates revenue. It's often called growth-driven design, and it's an approach we're firm believers in, as we explain in our piece on building the website you need using growth-driven design. Spending inordinate amounts of time researching your way to the "perfect site" is a waste, and shouldn't get in the way of getting a good site up and running quickly.
The bottom line? Budget between £5k and £15k for web design. £5k is perfectly reasonable for a small site that needs only a handful of unique templates. £15k is the upper end, reserved for very large or complex sites that need many unique templates and put real pressure on designers.
Website development costs
Like design, the cost of actually building your site depends on a multiplicity of factors. Whenever we quote for build work, we consider the complexity of the designs, your approval process, the need for custom functionality, and any costs involved in building or buying add-ons and plugins.
Implementing a complex design takes more time, doubly so if it needs to be flexible, work for long and short pages, support optional elements and do lots of clever stuff. We're currently working on a build that features many overlapping image and video layers, mixed with content using a subtle parallax effect to give each page a dynamic feel. The videos need to autoplay when users scroll to a specific point, and the overlapping layers have to look right on every conceivable screen size. That build is expensive because there's a lot of work in making sure the finished piece functions correctly and looks the part. Designs that ask less of a developer generally cost less to build, even if they look more visually complex. You'll also pay more for designs heavy on imagery, because the developer needs to make sure everything displays in high resolution without compromising speed or usability.
You're not only paying for time, though. Sometimes agencies charge more for a highly technical design because they've already sunk a lot of effort into learning how to do something difficult, or because they know they're among the few who can code the functionality your design needs to work across the huge variety of screen sizes out there. Generally it's more cost-efficient to work with an agency that sets realistic prices and has the experience to get the job done, rather than one offering bargain-basement prices that ends up overcharging at the end or delivering an inferior product that has to be rebuilt later.
Communication matters
Poor communication inflates dev costs too. To be clear, we're not saying agencies will tax you for taking time to approve their work. We mean that a lot of back and forth, tweaking and revising of pre-approved designs inevitably adds to the bill. A certain amount of snagging is expected, and we're not talking about minor changes to spacing or a second look at the kerning. We're talking about the situation where a client approves a design, we build it, and then the CEO, CTO or director of business development wades in and asks for substantial revisions to the overall look and feel. We've ended up rebuilding the same site two or three times before now, and there's always a cost to that sort of busywork. If you know multiple stakeholders will want to weigh in at various stages, factor in a slight overspend, and if you can streamline the approval process, do, because you'll save a significant amount by making life easier for your development agency.
Custom functionality
Costs tend to rise once you start adding custom functionality, but the relationship between features and cost isn't as linear as you might think, because it all depends on what you're trying to make the website do. If you want to add a quote calculator or bolt on an online shop, you might be looking at an extra £1k to £2k. If you're trying to get your site to talk to a third-party database in real time and generate pages from the data it receives, you might be looking at £3k to £5k on top. You need a lot of domain knowledge to judge how hard a given feature is to implement, so our best advice is to talk to your agency. They'll walk you through the process and explain why it costs what it costs, or help you brainstorm alternatives if the numbers are prohibitive. Don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion, either, because some agencies overquote for work they expect to find challenging, and there's a good chance a more specialised agency is more confident and can quote accordingly.
Add-ons and plugins
A quick word on add-ons and plugins. These are pre-made modules that bolt on to your web code to enable custom functionality. They're usually built by third-party coders and sold to agencies and developers so they can make a website do something interesting at a fraction of the cost of building it from scratch. Yoast for WordPress is a prime example, an SEO plugin that lets you add metadata to your content pages, something WordPress's default setup doesn't really allow, and it's now used on more than 20 million websites (source: BuiltWith).
Plugins aren't innately bad. We make extensive use of third-party plugins in most Joomla builds because they let us provide complex functionality at reduced cost, and a lot of them are field-proven and looked after by dedicated teams. The only catch is that some are paid, which means a perpetual fee to keep them updated and secure. If your development agency intends to use a lot of paid plugins, budget for that ongoing cost, because you won't be able to switch them off later and keep the same functionality. We see paid plugins as a compromise best made case by case: make sure you really need the functionality and are happy to pay, or look into having your agency replicate it with custom code you can use for free.
Budgeting to be found in AI search
Here's the line item that didn't really exist when we first wrote this guide, and the one we're now asked about most. A growing share of your buyers no longer start with a Google search and a page of blue links. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google's own AI Overviews, and they get a written answer, often with only a couple of sources named and everyone else left invisible. If the assistant your prospect is chatting to never mentions you, you're not on the shortlist, and you may never know the conversation happened.
So how does that affect what a website costs? Mostly it changes where some of your design, development and content budget needs to go, rather than adding an enormous new bill. The reassuring part is that the work which gets you cited in AI answers overlaps heavily with the work that's always made good websites rank well. The catch is that a few specifics now matter more than they used to, and they're worth pricing in from the start rather than retrofitting later.
On the build side, that means budgeting for clean structure and structured data, the behind-the-scenes markup that tells machines exactly what a page is about. It means making sure AI crawlers can actually read your site, because if they can't, you can't be cited, full stop. And it means the same technical housekeeping that helps Google, fast loading, sensible headings, a clear hierarchy, done with a bit more care. None of that is expensive in isolation, but it does need to be in the brief, and a cheap build that skips it will quietly cost you visibility you'll never see in a report.
On the content side, AI engines favour pages that answer real questions plainly and back them up with genuine expertise. That rewards original insight, named authors and a real point of view, and it gives thin, me-too content no reason to get picked. It's the same kind of useful, experience-led content we've banged on about for years, which means the businesses already doing the honest work tend to do well here. We've written about this shift properly, so rather than cram it all in, have a read of AI search and B2B: what engineering companies need to know and our wider AI search strategy for marketers. The practical upshot for your budget is simple: when you're scoping a new site, make AI search readiness part of the design, development and content conversation, not an afterthought you pay to bolt on in eighteen months' time.
Ongoing support and maintenance
Often overlooked, hands-on support can and will inflate your website costs, and you can't really go without some form of ongoing management. We're not talking about hosting here, which we've covered above, though there is some crossover between a website management package and a top-end hosting package that handles security updates and patches.
When agencies talk about ongoing support or maintenance, they usually mean a pre-packaged service designed to keep your site up to date. That covers security patches, module and plugin updates, regular backups and technical tweaks to keep the site performing. Management packages also tend to cover content updates, adding new pages when you launch a service, updating the team page when you hire someone, installing new CTAs or tweaking imagery. Think of it as hiring a fractional web developer to keep everything running smoothly. You could hire an in-house developer to do the same, but the overheads of onboarding and retaining good developers can be eye-watering, which is why most organisations have their web agency provide ongoing support. For a fuller picture of what's typically included, our guide on what website maintenance includes breaks it down.
Amusingly, organisations like Hostinger say maintenance packages can cost anywhere from $5 to $5,000 a month, a range so broad it's basically meaningless, so we'll explain our own structure instead. At the time of writing we charge roughly £2,000 a month for website management on most B2B sites. We charge some clients more, but only where they need extensive hands-on support or an exceptionally large number of content updates. Budgeting £1,000 a month is a sensible place to start and should cover most cases. Our packages include hosting by default, and all in all we think most B2B organisations spend between £1,000 and £1,500 per month to keep the lights on and the site running well. As ever, check what's covered by the agency you're talking to, and what your CMS provides if you're on a SaaS platform like HubSpot. A well-chosen CRM matters here too, which is why we almost always recommend HubSpot's CRM for keeping track of who does what on your site.
Digital marketing costs
Strictly speaking, marketing isn't a website cost. That said, the world's best website won't convert if nobody ever sees it, so if you want your site to be a genuine business asset that generates a steady stream of quality leads, you'll need to set aside money for ongoing marketing.
We've covered marketing budgets in detail before, in our article on estimating your ideal marketing budget, and we've waxed lyrical on the subject more than once over at Digital Marketing From The Coalface. The bottom line is that it depends on your market and audience, but serious B2B businesses in a relatively competitive niche should expect to spend £2k to £5k per month (£12,000 to £60,000 a year) on activities designed to attract decent prospects. That spend might be split between PPC, social media, search engine optimisation and conversion rate optimisation, and between agencies, in-house teams, freelancers or third-party platforms.
One thing worth setting expectations on: organic search and AI visibility are a long game, not an instant return, so if you're relying on them, build patience into the plan. We've written honestly about how long B2B SEO actually takes rather than quoting the fantasy timescales some agencies use to win the work. To figure out where your money should go, we'd strongly recommend talking to a trustworthy agency with a proven track record, who can help you scope your opportunities, allocate budget, and draft a proper strategy that gets the right eyeballs on your website. Beware anyone who plucks figures out of thin air, because a sound budget is normally informed by fairly in-depth research, and skipping that step tends to mean wasting money on tactics that don't work.
So how much does a B2B website actually cost?
How long is a piece of string? If you've got this far, you'll know there's a fair bit of maths involved in estimating B2B website costs, and that you have to start with a decent understanding of what you want the site to do and which tech stack you want powering it. If you already know what you want and need, you're in a good place to start chatting with reputable agencies.
We'll resist the temptation to give you a meaningless "final range" and instead end with a note of caution. Websites that cost less than £10k probably won't generate revenue. There are exceptions, but it's a decent rule of thumb. Websites that cost more than £40k are probably overpriced. Again, allow exceptions for insanely large or complicated sites, but the relationship between cost and value isn't linear, and we don't think many £40k-plus websites genuinely outperform their £30k cousins. If you'd like a more detailed look at the figures specifically for lead-generating sites, our companion piece on what it costs to create a website that generates enquiries is worth a read.
If you still need a steer, get in touch. We're always happy to give obligation-free advice to B2B marketing managers, and we genuinely enjoy talking shop with like-minded people. We'll spend some time grilling you about your business, help you estimate a top-level budget, talk you through the finer points of choosing a CMS, and help you land on a reasonable marketing budget too. You get hands-on advice from seasoned experts, and we get to chew your ear off about the intersection of web design and digital marketing. There's no hard sell, and if we think you're better off saving your money, we'll say so. We're a B2B web design agency with the skills to give your website a proper shot, so it sounds like a win-win to us.
If you'd like to discuss a web design project, please fill in this form, and we'll arrange a suitable time. Alternatively, simply book a time now.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a B2B company budget for a new website?
For a B2B website genuinely capable of generating leads and revenue, budget from around £10,000 upwards. Sites built for less tend to be brochure-style, looking fine but lacking the strategy, content depth, technical SEO and conversion design needed to win business. Serious lead-generating B2B sites typically land between £15,000 and £50,000 depending on scope, integrations and content requirements.
Do I need to budget extra to appear in AI search results?
Not a huge separate bill, but you should make AI search readiness part of the brief rather than a later bolt-on. In practice that means budgeting for clean site structure, structured data markup, fast performance and crawlability so AI tools can read and quote your pages, plus genuinely useful, expertise-led content that gives engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews a reason to cite you. Most of this overlaps with good SEO, so a well-scoped build covers it without a dramatic premium, whereas a cheap build that skips it quietly costs you visibility.
Why do B2B websites cost more than small business websites?
B2B websites have a harder job. They need to speak to multiple stakeholders in long buying cycles, demonstrate technical credibility, integrate with CRM and marketing automation tools, and support detailed service or product information. That means more strategy, more content, more custom design and more development time than a typical small business site, which is why costs are higher.
Is WordPress cheaper than HubSpot CMS for a B2B website?
WordPress has no licence fee, so on paper it looks cheaper, but the total cost of ownership is often similar to HubSpot once you factor in hosting, security, plugins, maintenance and developer time. HubSpot CMS comes with a subscription but bundles hosting, security, CRM integration and marketing tools, which often makes it better value for B2B marketing teams who need everything working together.
What ongoing costs should I expect after launching a B2B website?
Plan for hosting, SSL certificates (roughly £8 a year for basic DV certificates up to around £58 for OV/EV), CMS licence fees if applicable, regular security updates, content updates, SEO and AI search work, and performance optimisation. Most B2B businesses should budget for a monthly retainer, often between £1,000 and £1,500, to keep the site improving rather than letting it stagnate after launch.
How do I know if a website quote is realistic?
A realistic quote is backed by discovery work. The agency should understand your audience, goals, technical requirements and content needs before giving you a number. Be wary of fixed prices given without that groundwork, and of anyone quoting significantly below market rate. Cheap websites almost always cost more in the long run through lost leads, rebuilds and missed SEO and AI search opportunities.
