How much do web designers charge in the UK?

Freelance web designers in the UK charge about £25 to £120 an hour, with experienced freelancers at £40 to £80 (ExpertSure). Bark's range runs from £35 an hour for newer designers to over £150 for experienced professionals.

There is no neutral UK survey of web designer rates. What exists are price guides published by companies in the market. The table sets out two of them exactly as each publishes its figures.

You may also see £40 to £70 an hour and £180 to £550 a day quoted widely. Those are Expert Market's figures, last updated in April 2023, so we use the 2026 guides above instead.

Experience, more than anything, explains the spread: both guides tie the low end to newer designers and the top end to senior ones. Before you compare anyone's rate, it helps to know what your current site actually needs. A free Growth Audit gives you that list in writing.

Usually not: agencies quote per project, from £2,000 to £5,000 for a micro agency to £8,000 to £30,000+ for a London full-service agency (ExpertSure). None of the guides we checked publishes an hourly rate for an agency building a site. The only agency hourly figure ExpertSure gives is £50 to £100 an hour for content updates after launch, where they are not covered by a monthly retainer. Bark gives no agency hourly rate; it says agencies have more overhead to cover, which means higher prices but a more complete service.

On the published figures, the gap is real but the ranges overlap. Bark puts a small business site at £1,000 to £3,000 from a freelancer and £2,000 to £7,000 from an agency. ExpertSure's smallest agencies (2 to 5 people) charge £2,000 to £5,000, which overlaps its £1,500 to £3,000 freelance business site between £2,000 and £3,000.

• A freelancer usually costs less, and you deal with the person doing the work. The risk is that one person may not write, design, build and set up search equally well, and holidays or illness stop the job.
• An agency has more people and more process, which suits bigger sites, shops and projects with several people signing off. Bark says agencies have more overhead to cover, so prices are higher.

For a small service business, the bigger question is whether they have built sites like yours that bring in work. Ask to see some, and ask the owners. Ours are on the projects page.

For a whole small business site, the guides overlap. A freelance quote of £1,500 and an agency quote of £5,000 can both be normal.

London and the rest of the UK. Bark says you can expect to pay more for a web designer in London than elsewhere, and that the South East may charge more than the North or Wales. ExpertSure puts numbers on it for agencies: £3,000 to £8,000 for a regional agency, against £8,000 to £30,000 or more for a London full-service agency. Neither guide gives a London figure for freelancers.

Time-based billing leaves you carrying the risk if the job takes longer. On VAT: a designer has to register when taxable turnover goes over £90,000 in a rolling 12 months, or is expected to within the next 30 days (GOV.UK), so many freelancers do not charge it. Ask every quote whether VAT is included. Our guide to what a website costs in total adds up the other costs around the build. If you are replacing a site you already have, see what a website redesign costs.

The same five-page site can be quoted at very different prices because the quotes describe different work. These are the things that move the price most:

• Experience. Both guides above tie higher rates to more experienced designers.
• Who writes the words. ExpertSure calls copywriting “often the biggest hidden cost in agency projects”.
• Custom design or a template. A design worked out for your business takes longer than one dropped onto a theme.
• Features. Online booking, a shop or links to other systems add build and testing time.
• Agency or freelancer. Bark puts the same small business site at £1,000 to £3,000 freelance and £2,000 to £7,000 from an agency.

Red flags in very cheap quotes. A low quote is not a bad sign on its own. These three are worth a direct question:

• Template resale. A bought theme with your logo and colours added, sold as a custom design. Ask whether the design is a theme, and which one. A theme can be fine; not being told is the problem.
• No writing included. The price covers building pages, and you supply every word. Writing is usually the hardest part for an owner, and the words do most of the selling.
• The domain registered in the designer's name. If they own your address, they control your website and email. Ask for it in your name from the start.

Wise, writing for freelancers, describes the two main models. Time-based pricing is "charging based on the number of hours or days it takes to complete a project". Project-based pricing is "one sum for the entire web design project, irrespective of how long it takes". Per-page and monthly pricing are variations on those.

How much do web designers charge per page? The only per-page figure we found is ExpertSure's: for agencies, it says to expect costs to rise by roughly £200 to £500 for each additional page. Per-page pricing is easy to compare, but it rewards adding pages whatever their quality, and the expensive parts of a site (working out what to say, the words, the enquiry form, the set-up for Google) do not sit on any one page. If a quote is per page, ask what one page includes: the writing, the photos, the mobile version.

Quotes vary mostly because they cover different things. Compare what each quote lists before you compare the totals. Use this checklist on every quote you get, including ours.

Ownership deserves its own check. Our guide on who owns your website explains how to confirm the domain is in your name.

Two different things get sold monthly. A pay-monthly website spreads the build into a subscription: Brave Bear lists £30, £55, £70 and £90 a month, and Websites 4 Trades charges £30. A care plan looks after a site you already own: from £30 a month (Website Helper) to £89 a month plus VAT (Matthew Temple's top plan; its others are £35 and £59 plus VAT). Coltura's optional Growth Care is £149 a month (£1,788 a year), more than the cheaper plans, or you can host the site yourself. Before you sign up to a term, read do you have to pay monthly for a website?

Yes, some do. Wix calls Wix Studio “the web platform built for agencies and enterprises”, and its Marketplace lists partners for web design and site redesign. The catch is leaving: Wix says a site “needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers”, so you pay for a plan as long as the site exists, from £9 a month billed annually (ExpertSure), plus VAT. Building it yourself on Wix suits a tight budget and word-of-mouth work. Our Wix vs custom websites guide covers the trade-offs.

A fixed price: £1,400 for a complete Growth Website of up to 6 pages, or £3,500 for the larger Signature Website. There is no hourly billing, per-page charge or setup fee. It starts with a free audit, then the writing, design, build, local search groundwork, tracking, speed work and launch, with old pages redirected. Build takes about 14 working days once we have agreed the direction and you have got us your content. You get one round of considered changes, and anything that does not work as built is fixed at no charge for 30 days after launch. You own the website, domain, content and accounts.

It is not for you if you need a large online shop, a big multi-team agency process, or you would rather build and edit everything yourself. In those cases an agency, a shop platform or a DIY builder will suit you better. If you are still deciding whether you need a website at all, start with do I need a website for my business?