How much to charge for a website (and how to work it out)

Why there is no useful “average” price

People search “how much do web designers charge” or “average cost of website design for small business” hoping for one number. There isn’t a useful one. A one-page site for a dog groomer and a twelve-page site with booking for a dental practice are both “a small business website”, and the person quoting may be a student, a solo designer or a ten-person studio. An average across all of that tells you nothing about what you should charge.

What helps is a price you can defend line by line, built from three inputs only you know: your target income, your real hours, and the value of the work to the client.

Five ways to price web design work

You will often mix these.

For local businesses, fixed packages plus a care plan are a practical default: the owner sees a clear price and a clear result, and you get recurring income. Hourly stays useful for one-off edits outside a plan. Value-based thinking is how you check that a package price is not too low.

Step 1: work out the hourly rate your business needs

Even if clients never see it, you need an internal hourly rate. It is your floor: below it, a project loses money.

1. Pick the yearly income you want to pay yourself before tax.
2. Add your yearly business costs: software, hosting you don’t resell, equipment, insurance, accountant, training, and the cost of finding clients.
3. Count the weeks you will actually work (take out holidays, sick days and quiet weeks).
4. Count billable hours per week. Selling, admin, invoicing and learning are not billable, so this is well under your total hours.
5. Divide: (income + costs) ÷ (weeks × billable hours per week) = your minimum hourly rate.

Be honest about billable hours. If you also prospect, take calls and chase invoices, a large part of your week is not billable. Start with a conservative number, track your own time for a month, and correct it.

Step 2: turn your rate into a project price

Break the project into phases and estimate each one from your own past work.

Then sanity-check against value. If the owner is a kitchen fitter and one extra job a year covers the site several times over, your price is easy to justify. If it is a market stall that takes cash on weekends, a smaller package fits better. Don’t cut your rate to fit a client; cut the scope.

Step 3: build two or three packages

Packages let you quote fast and stop every sale from turning into a custom negotiation. Build each one from your hour estimate, not from a round number you like.

Starter: one-page site

• One page: who they are, services, area served, photos, reviews, hours, a call button and a contact form.
• Mobile layout, basic on-page SEO (title, description, headings), analytics.
• One revision round, launch in a set number of working days once you have their content.

Standard: small multi-page site

• Home, about, contact, plus a page per main service and per main town served.
• Gallery or case studies, quote or booking form, two revision rounds.
• Business listing setup linked to the new site (see our guide to selling Google Business Profile optimization).

Growth: site plus a working tool

• Everything in Standard, plus online booking, ordering or a quote calculator.
• Copywriting from a call with the owner instead of editing their text.
• A short training session so staff can update hours and photos.

Care plan: the monthly part

• Hosting, backups, updates, uptime checks.
• A fixed allowance of edits per month (say, up to one hour), with extra time billed at your hourly rate.
• Price it from your time too: monthly hours × your rate + your hosting and tool costs.

Owners who want ongoing search work can move from the care plan to a local SEO retainer; this article on SEO pricing for small businesses shows how to scope and price one.

How to present the price

How you show the number matters as much as the number. A few habits help owners say yes:

• Lead with the result, then the price. “A site that gets you quote requests from your phone, live in two weeks, for 2,900.”
• Show three options, recommend the middle one. The top option makes it look reasonable, and the bottom one gives a careful owner a way in.
• Always quote the care plan with the build. If the monthly fee shows up after launch, it feels like a surprise.
• Split the payment. For example 50% to start and 50% before launch, or three instalments for larger builds. Never launch an unpaid site on your hosting.
• Put a validity date on the quote, for example 30 days, so it doesn’t get reopened a year later at the old price.
• Show, don’t describe. A homepage mock-up made before they pay does more than any feature list. The guide to making money building websites explains how to make one.

Hi [Name],

Thanks for the call today. Based on what you told me (more quote requests from people on their phones, and a page for each town you cover), here are three options:

1. Starter: one-page site, live in 7 working days: [price]
2. Standard: home, about, contact, a page per service and per town, quote form: [price] (what I’d recommend for you)
3. Growth: Standard plus online booking: [price]

All three include hosting and updates on the care plan at [monthly price] a month.

Payment: half to start, half before launch. This quote is valid until [date].

Want me to block a start date?

[Your name]

Stop scope creep before it starts

Fixed prices only work if the scope is fixed too. Margin is easily lost to small extras nobody wrote down.

• List what is included and what isn’t (copywriting, photography, logo, extra pages, third-party fees).
• Set the number of revision rounds and what counts as a round: one consolidated list of changes, not a drip of emails.
• Make the client responsible for content by a date, and say what happens to the timeline if it arrives late.
• Price extras before doing them: “Happy to add that. It’s outside the package, so it’s [hours] at [rate]. Shall I go ahead?”
• Keep a written change log, even if it’s three lines in your CRM notes.

Changes outside the scope above (new pages, features, or a third round of revisions) are quoted in writing before work starts, at [your hourly rate] per hour or as a fixed price. Approved changes may move the launch date.

When and how to raise your prices

Your first price is a guess. Review it every few projects against the hours you actually logged, and fix the estimate or the scope if you keep going over.

Raise prices for new clients first, and give existing care-plan clients written notice before any change. A simple way to keep that pipeline full is one trade in one town each week; the businesses without websites page shows how to build that list, and the prospecting calculator helps you estimate how many conversations you need for your goal.

Frequently asked questions