Website builder or web designer?
What each route costs over three years, how many of your evenings it takes, and what you own at the end.
Quick facts
Builder vs designer: the short answer
- A website for your business costs £350 all in, with no per-page charges.
- That covers design, build, your domain name, a business email address, SSL and the first three months of hosting.
- After that, hosting, updates and support are £19.99 a month, with no minimum term.
- Your site goes live within 48 hours of you approving the design. Payment is a 50% deposit to start, balance on completion.
- I work from my Nuneaton studio with businesses anywhere in the UK.
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Price breakdown
What small businesses get for £350
| Custom design and build | Included |
|---|---|
| Domain name, registered in your business name | Included |
| Business email address on your domain | Included |
| SSL certificate (secure padlock) | Included |
| Hosting for the first three months | Included |
| Mobile layout, tap-to-call and WhatsApp buttons | Included |
| Page titles, descriptions and sitemap for Google | Included |
| Total to launch | £350 all in |
| Hosting, updates, backups and support afterwards | £19.99 a month, no minimum term |
Need online booking? That is £479 all in. A website with a new logo, flyers and business cards is £679 all in.
Before you buy anywhere
Five things to check
- 1.Is the domain registered in your name, or the designer's?
- 2.Is business email included, or an extra monthly cost?
- 3.Is there a per-page charge or a setup fee on top?
- 4.Is there a minimum contract before you can leave?
- 5.Can you see real websites they have built for businesses like yours?
Builders like Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy are genuinely good products. The mistake is comparing their monthly fee with a designer's one-off price and stopping there.
The fair comparison includes your time and what you end up owning. Here is that comparison, with this studio's real numbers: £350 all in, then £19.99 a month.
The comparison
Three years, both routes.
Builder: the money
A monthly subscription plus a domain, usually plus a premium plan to remove limits and often plus paid apps for forms or bookings. Modest on its own, ongoing forever.
Builder: your time
Every design decision, every word, every photo crop, every page structure and all the search groundwork is yours to do. Most people I speak to got two pages in and stalled.
Designer: the money
£350 once, including the domain in your business name, business email, SSL and the first three months of hosting, then £19.99 a month for hosting, updates, backups, changes and support.
Designer: your time
A phone call, sending your logo and photos, and approving the design. The site is live 48 hours after that approval.
What you own
The part the price comparison misses.
On a builder
Your site lives inside their system. Stopping the subscription generally means the site stops with it, and moving it elsewhere means rebuilding.
Here
The domain is in your business name and the website is yours once paid for. If you stop the monthly support you keep both.
Either way, keep the domain in your name
Whichever route you take, make sure your website address is registered to your business and not to anybody else. It is the one thing that is painful to fix later.
Common questions
Straight answers.
Is Wix cheaper than a web designer?
Can I move a builder site to you?
Are builder sites bad for SEO?
What if I have already started building one?
Let's design the websiteyour business deserves.
Leave your name and number and I’ll come back to you personally with a clear, fixed quote. Websites are £350 all in. No obligation.