How Much Does a Website Cost?
The honest answer: it depends on what you need. But here is what typical projects look like, and why hand-coded costs more than a template - and why it pays for itself.
Typical Project Ranges
These are starting points. Every project is quoted individually after we understand what you actually need.
Landing Page
From £800
Single page, focused message, contact form. Perfect for product launches or simple service businesses.
Brochure Site
From £2,400
5-10 pages, multiple services, about page, contact. Most common for small businesses.
Complex Build
From £5,000
Custom functionality, integrations, member areas, or web applications. Quoted per project.
Why ranges? Because a 5-page site with content you have ready is very different from a 5-page site where I need to write everything, source images, and build custom forms. The scope determines the price.
How This Compares
| What you get | Blue Penguin | Typical Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | £800 - £1,500 | £1,200 - £2,500 |
| 5-page brochure site | £2,400 - £3,200 | £4,000 - £6,000 |
| 10-page site with content | £3,200 - £4,000 | £5,000 - £8,000 |
| Custom web application | £5,000+ (quoted per scope) | £8,000 - £20,000+ |
| Who you speak to | The person building it | Account manager |
| Hosting (per year) | £180 (via Unity Tech, direct contract) | £300 - £600+ |
| Optional care plan | £75/month (static) / £120/month (web app) | £200 - £500+/month |
| 3-year total (typical) | £3,500 - £8,500 | £5,000 - £15,000+ |
Why the difference? Agencies have offices, account managers, project managers, and junior developers. You pay for the chain. I am one person with low overheads. You get senior-level work at a fair price because there is no markup for middlemen. My prices reflect the actual time it takes to build a proper hand-coded site - not a template that loads in 10 seconds and looks like every other business in town.
What About £25 Template Sites?
You can build a website for £25/month on Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy. Here is what you actually get:
Template Sites
- A template used by thousands of other businesses
- Bloated code that loads slowly
- Generic design that does not reflect your brand
- Limited technical foundation
- You are locked into their platform
- Hidden costs for features you actually need
- No one to call when something breaks
Hand-Coded by Blue Penguin
- Bespoke design, built for your business
- Clean code that loads in under 2 seconds
- Unique look that stands out from competitors
- Full technical foundation: schema, Core Web Vitals, semantic HTML
- You own the code outright
- No hidden fees or plugin costs
- One person to call - the person who built it
The real cost: A template site that takes 10 seconds to load and looks like every other business in your town will cost you more in lost customers than a proper build ever will. Google penalises slow sites. Visitors leave before the page loads. And when you outgrow the template, you are rebuilding from scratch anyway.
Why the price difference? A £25 template takes 30 minutes to set up. A hand-coded site takes 60-80 hours of design, coding, testing, and optimisation. You are not paying for a website - you are paying for a faster, more reliable tool that brings you customers. The question is not "can I afford a proper site?" It is "can I afford to keep losing customers to a slow template?"
Hosting and Ongoing Costs
All hosting is through our partner Unity Tech. The contract is direct with them, billed at £15/month. This includes:
- UK-based servers with NVMe storage
- Daily backups and automatic failover
- SSL certificate and security monitoring
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
Domain renewals: We can manage your domain and roll the renewal cost into your monthly hosting payment. When renewal comes around, there is no upfront bill - it is already covered.
Static sites vs web applications: A static website (brochure site, landing page) uses standard hosting. A web application (member portals, booking systems, custom functionality) requires database support, API integrations, and more server resources. These need a different hosting setup and are quoted per project.
What Affects the Cost
Content
Do you have text and images ready, or do you need me to create everything? Writing 10 pages of quality content takes time.
Pages and Complexity
A simple contact form vs a multi-step quote calculator. A gallery vs a filtering portfolio. Each adds time.
Custom Features
Booking systems, member logins, payment integration, API connections. These need proper planning and testing.
Timeline
A relaxed 6-week build vs a urgent 2-week deadline. Rush work costs more because I need to prioritise it.
How I Quote
We Have a Proper Chat
Not a 10-minute call. I need to understand your business, your customers, and what you actually need the site to do. I take detailed notes and ask awkward questions.
I Do Research
I look at your competitors, your industry, and what your customers are searching for. This helps me understand the scope properly.
I Write a Detailed Brief
This document outlines exactly what is included, what is not, and how many rounds of changes you get. No scope creep because we agreed the boundaries upfront.
You Get a Fixed Quote
The price I quote is the price you pay. It is based on the hours the work will take at £40/hour, plus a small buffer for revisions and testing. If you want to add things later, we discuss it separately. No surprises.
What Is Not Included
Transparency means being clear about what costs extra:
- Domain registration (we can manage this and roll it into your monthly hosting cost)
- Ongoing content updates (available at £50/hour ad-hoc, or included in care plan)
- Professional copywriting beyond basic web content (we can refer you to a specialist partner)
- Photography or video production (you provide images, or I can recommend local photographers)
- Major scope changes after work has started (these are quoted separately)
Build-as-a-Service (BaaS) Retainers
For agencies and clients with ongoing build needs. Pre-purchased hours at a discounted rate. Use them for new features, landing pages, or technical tweaks.
Starter
£1,100/month
25 hours of development time
- ✓ Priority scheduling
- ✓ Unused hours roll over 1 month
- ✓ £44/hour (vs £50 ad-hoc)
Professional
£2,000/month
50 hours of development time
- ✓ Priority scheduling
- ✓ Unused hours roll over 1 month
- ✓ £40/hour (vs £50 ad-hoc)
Enterprise
£3,600/month
100 hours of development time
- ✓ Priority scheduling
- ✓ Unused hours roll over 1 month
- ✓ £36/hour (vs £50 ad-hoc)
How BaaS works: You pre-purchase a block of hours each month. Use them for anything: new landing pages, feature builds, technical tweaks, or white-label work for your clients. Hours roll over for one month if unused. Cancel anytime with 30 days notice. Perfect for agencies with regular build needs or businesses with ongoing development.
Want a Proper Quote?
No obligation. No sales pitch. Just a straight conversation about what you need and what it will cost.
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