Free website builders — what you don't get

Wix, Squarespace and Google Sites all have free tiers. The sites they produce look reasonable. But free plans come with significant restrictions that matter for a business.

On Wix's free plan, your website address is something like username.wixsite.com/yourbusiness — not yourbusiness.co.uk. That looks unprofessional to clients and tells Google this is a free hosted site, not a serious business. Squarespace free plans show a branded banner across your site. Neither includes a custom domain.

Free plans also typically show adverts from the platform, restrict how many pages you can have, limit storage, and give you no control over technical SEO settings. They work for hobby projects. They don't work for a business trying to rank on Google.

DIY paid builders — £10-25/month

Upgrading to Wix's Business plan or Squarespace's Basic plan removes the branding and gives you a custom domain. You're looking at £12-25/month depending on the platform and plan.

The financial cost is low. The time cost is not. Building a website on a page builder, even a good one, takes 20-40 hours if you've not done it before. That's designing pages, writing copy, adding photos, setting up navigation, connecting a domain, configuring contact forms. Most business owners underestimate this significantly.

Beyond time, there are SEO limitations. Wix and Squarespace have improved their SEO capabilities, but they still lag behind custom-built sites on page speed, schema markup, and technical SEO control. If your goal is ranking on Google for competitive local searches, these gaps matter.

The real DIY cost: 30 hours of your time at your hourly rate, plus £20/month ongoing, plus the cost of whatever SEO knowledge gaps mean your site doesn't rank. Add those up before assuming DIY is the cheapest option.

Freelancers — £500-3,000 one-off

A freelance web designer or developer can build you something that looks and works better than a DIY builder site. The price range is wide because the skill range is wide.

At £500-800, you're typically getting someone relatively junior, a basic template customised with your branding, minimal content, and limited SEO work. At £1,500-3,000 you're more likely to get a properly designed site, original layout, and someone who understands at least the basics of on-page SEO.

What to check before hiring a freelancer: ask to see 3-5 live sites they've built and look them up on Google. Search for the service and location the client offers. Do their sites appear? That's the only meaningful quality test. Portfolios that look beautiful but don't rank aren't serving the client.

The other consideration with upfront freelancer builds is what happens next. Once the site is handed over, you're responsible for hosting (typically £5-15/month from a hosting provider), security updates, software updates (if it's WordPress), content changes (back to the freelancer at £50-100/hour), and any SEO work going forward. These ongoing costs are rarely factored in at the buying decision stage.

Agencies — £2,000-15,000

Web agencies produce sites at the higher end of the quality range. The price reflects the team involved: account manager, designer, developer, sometimes a copywriter and an SEO specialist. You get a proper process — discovery, strategy, wireframes, design, build, testing, launch.

For large businesses with complex requirements, this process is worth paying for. For a plumber, electrician, roofer or small accountancy firm, it usually isn't. You don't need a discovery workshop to build a site that ranks for "plumber in Norwich". You need someone who's done it before and knows what works.

Agency websites also take longer — typically 8-16 weeks from start to launch. And the same ongoing cost question applies: once built, who maintains it?

Managed monthly — £50-150/month

The managed monthly model means someone builds and hosts your site, then continues to maintain it, update it and manage its SEO for a flat monthly fee. No upfront cost, no surprise invoices for changes, no one to chase when something breaks.

At the lower end of this range (£50-70/month) you tend to get basic hosting and minimal support. At £99-150/month, a good provider includes the full site build, hosting, domain, SSL, ongoing updates, content changes, SEO monitoring and Google Business Profile management.

For trade businesses and local service firms, this model tends to win on total cost of ownership. You're not paying a large upfront sum, you're not managing hosting yourself, and someone is actively keeping the site performing. One additional enquiry per month typically pays for the whole thing several times over.

The hidden cost of upfront-built websites

The number quoted for a one-off website build rarely reflects the real cost of having a website over three to five years. Here's what typically adds up:

None of this means upfront builds are always the wrong choice. But going in with eyes open about the real ongoing cost leads to better decisions.

What's right for a trade business or local firm?

For most trades and local service businesses — plumbers, electricians, roofers, accountants, solicitors, physios — the managed monthly model is the most cost-effective route. The site gets built properly, it's maintained, it's optimised for local search, and the monthly cost is fixed and predictable.

The comparison isn't DIY free vs £99/month. It's DIY free (which won't rank) vs professionally built and maintained (which can generate 5-10 enquiries per month from Google). At that point the monthly fee is a business expense that pays for itself.