If you’ve asked three web agencies in Lancashire for a quote, you’ve probably got three wildly different numbers back — anywhere from £300 to £30,000. That’s not agencies being cagey, it’s because “a website” isn’t one product. Here’s what actually drives the price, and what you should expect to pay.
Why quotes vary so much
Most of the variation comes down to three things: whether the site is a template or built from scratch, whether it’s a static brochure site or something with bookings, e-commerce or integrations, and whether the agency is charging for their time or for a finished product.
A £300 “website” is usually a theme with your logo dropped in. It’ll look fine for a week, then you’ll want to change a headline and discover you need to pay someone every time you touch it. A £30,000 website is usually a fully bespoke build from a larger agency, with project management overhead baked into the price — often for a business that didn’t need anything close to that scale.
What a bespoke site should actually cost
For a genuinely hand-coded, bespoke 1–3 page site — designed around your brand rather than a template — expect somewhere in the region of £1,250–£2,000 as a one-off, or a monthly lease with no upfront cost. A larger 5–8 page site with more design work sits nearer £2,500–£4,000. Anything involving bookings, e-commerce, or custom integrations is genuinely bespoke work and should be quoted individually.
On top of the build, most agencies (us included) charge a small monthly platform fee — covering hosting, security, domain and support — typically £30–£50/month. If anyone quotes you a one-off price with no ongoing fee at all, ask who’s paying for hosting and who you call when something breaks.
The cost nobody mentions: changing it later
This is the bit that actually matters long-term. Traditional agencies build your site, hand over an invoice, and then charge you again — often £50–£150 per change — every time you want to update a headline, swap a photo, or add a new offer. Over two or three years, this “small print” cost frequently exceeds the original build price.
We built Soft Sell Digital specifically to remove that cost: every site we build is editable by you, in plain English, at no extra charge. Type what you want changed, and it happens in seconds — no invoice, no ticket queue.
A sensible way to budget it
If you’re comparing quotes, ask each agency three questions: Is this hand-coded or a template? What happens when I want to change something in six months? And is there a lease option so I’m not paying £3,000 upfront before I’ve seen a single visitor?
If you’re based in Chorley, Preston, or anywhere else in Lancashire and want a straight number rather than a sales call, get in touch — we’ll tell you honestly what your project should cost, even if that’s less than you expected to pay.