You get a quote for a website and it sounds reasonable. £1,800 for a five-page site. You say yes. Then the invoices start arriving. Hosting. A premium plugin. An SSL certificate. An hour of the designer's time to change the phone number. Updates to make it work on the latest iPhone.
Three years later, that £1,800 website has cost you considerably more. Here's what to look out for - and how to avoid the surprise.
The costs most quotes leave out
Domain name
Your domain (yourcompany.co.uk) is registered separately and renewed annually. A .co.uk domain costs around £10-£15 per year. Some agencies register it for you and mark it up; others expect you to sort it yourself and then can't help when something goes wrong. Make sure you know who owns it and where it's registered - it should always be in your name, not the agency's.
Hosting
Every website needs to be hosted on a server. Basic shared hosting starts around £5-£10 a month; managed WordPress hosting can run £20-£50 a month. Some agencies include a year's hosting in their quote, then bill separately from year two onwards. Others never mention it.
Cheap hosting is a false economy - a slow server makes for a slow website, and a slow website loses visitors and ranks poorly on Google.
Content writing
This is the biggest hidden cost that most people don't anticipate. Web designers design. They don't usually write. The expectation is that you, the client, will supply the text for every page of your new website.
If you need a copywriter, expect to pay £200-£500 per page for a professional. A five-page site can easily add £1,000-£2,500 to the project cost. Most businesses don't budget for this and end up writing the content themselves - often poorly, and under pressure.
Photography
Most agencies will use stock photography if you don't supply your own images. Generic stock photos look generic, and savvy customers notice. A professional photographer costs £300-£800 for a half-day session. If you use stock photography subscriptions, add £10-£30/mo. If your designer sources images, they may charge for the licence.
The content trap: Many projects stall because the client can’t write their own content quickly enough. The designer is waiting, the clock is ticking on any payment terms, and the business owner is trying to write web copy between jobs. It’s one of the most common reasons websites launch late — or launch with placeholder text that never gets updated.
Ongoing updates and changes
Once your site is built, any change - updating your phone number, adding a new service, changing your opening hours - typically requires going back to your designer or agency. They charge by the hour, usually £50-£100/hr. A "quick change" that takes 15 minutes is still likely to be billed at a minimum of 30 minutes or one hour.
Most small businesses need at least 3-4 updates per year. At £50-£100 a time, that's £150-£400 annually just to keep your site accurate.
Security, backups, and maintenance
Websites - especially WordPress sites - need to be kept updated to remain secure. Plugins need updating. WordPress core needs updating. If something goes wrong during an update (it happens), you need a backup to restore from. Some agencies offer a maintenance retainer (£30-£100/mo). Many don't mention it at all until something breaks.
SSL certificate
The padlock in the browser bar. Free options (Let's Encrypt) are widely available and most decent hosts include it. Some older agencies still charge for this. If you see it as a line item on a quote, push back.
What does it really cost over two years?
| Cost item | Agency build (typical) | GetOnWeb managed |
|---|---|---|
| Initial build / setup | £2,000 | £0 |
| Content writing | £800 – £1,500 | Included |
| Hosting (2 years) | £240 – £480 | Included |
| Domain (2 years) | £20 – £30 | Included |
| Updates & changes (2 years) | £300 – £600 | Included |
| Security & backups (2 years) | £0 – £600 | Included |
| Total over 2 years | £3,360 – £5,210 | £839.76 |
These are conservative estimates. Projects with more pages, more revisions, or more changes will cost more. The point isn't that agencies are being dishonest - it's that the headline build cost is rarely the full picture, and the extras are easy to miss until they land in your inbox.
One price. Everything included.
£34.99/mo covers your design, content, hosting, domain, security, and monthly updates. No invoices. No surprises.
See what’s included →Questions to ask before you sign anything
- Does the quote include content writing, or do I supply the text?
- Is hosting included, and for how long?
- What happens to my domain name if we stop working together?
- How are ongoing updates charged?
- Is there a maintenance or security package, and what does it cost?
- What's not included in this quote?
A reputable agency or freelancer will answer all of these without hesitation. If you get vague answers, treat that as a warning sign.
The bottom line
The cost of a website isn't the build price - it's the total cost of ownership over two or three years. When you factor in everything, a managed monthly service often works out significantly cheaper than a one-off build, with none of the surprise invoices and none of the admin.