Why we charge £999 when agencies quote £5,000

Published figures for UK web design in 2026 put a small business website between £1,500 and £10,000. Regional agencies typically fall in the £3,000–£8,000 band; London agencies commonly start around £8,000. Hourly rates run £50–£100 regionally and £100–£200 in London.

We start at £999.

That gap is large enough that a sensible buyer should be suspicious of it, so this article explains exactly where it comes from. If the explanation does not satisfy you, that is a reasonable outcome — and there are cases below where we would tell you to spend more.

Where the difference actually is

1. No offices, no city premium. A London agency's rate carries London rent. We work remotely, so there is no building in the price. This is not a clever efficiency; it is simply a cost we do not have.

2. Fewer people touching the job. A £6,000 quote often covers an account manager, a project manager, a designer, a developer and a QA pass, plus the coordination between them. That structure exists because it scales, and you pay for the coordination as well as the work. On a five-page brochure site, most of that coordination is overhead rather than quality.

3. We are not writing your content. Copywriting and image sourcing are frequently bundled into agency quotes at £1,500–£4,000. Our starting price assumes you provide the words and pictures. If you want us to write them, that costs more — because it costs us more.

4. The build is genuinely faster than it used to be. A modern brochure site does not need a database or a server to be assembled per visit. Ours are built once and served as files, which removes work, cost and a class of problem — we explain the shift in static, serverless and the edge. An agency quoting a WordPress build with hosting and maintenance is quoting a genuinely bigger job.

5. We reuse our own foundations. Accessibility, performance, structured data and the responsive system are solved once and applied, not rebuilt per client. That is not cutting corners — it is why every site gets WCAG 2.2 AA rather than it being a line item.

What is genuinely not in the £999

Being explicit, because a low headline price that hides scope is worse than a high honest one:

• Copywriting and image sourcing.
• Ecommerce — that starts at £2,999 and it is a different job.
• Custom functionality, integrations, portals or booking systems.
• Ongoing marketing. The site does not promote itself.
• Unlimited revisions. There is a defined round, then changes are billable, because “unlimited” is priced into every quote that offers it.

You can see exactly what a specific build comes to with our instant estimate — it itemises rather than giving a range.

When you should pay an agency more

We would rather say this plainly than pretend we are right for everyone:

• You need strategy, not a website. Brand positioning, market research, a full identity programme — that is a different discipline and worth paying a specialist for.
• You need a lot of people, fast. A twelve-week multi-site launch needs a team with bench depth. We are small; that is a real limit and not a boast.
• You want someone in the room. If workshops in person genuinely matter to how you work, hire local. We work remotely, and remote is not the same thing.
• Your procurement requires it. Some organisations need a supplier with particular certifications, insurance levels or a track record of similar size. That is a legitimate constraint.

The question worth asking any quote

Cheap and expensive are both meaningless without this: ask what is included, in writing, itemised.

A £999 site with no content, no revisions and no support is not cheaper than a £3,000 site that includes all three — it is a different purchase. Most of the confusion in this market comes from comparing headline numbers that describe different things.

Then ask three more:

1. Who owns it afterwards? The domain, the hosting account, the code. If the answer is not “you”, the price is not the price. See what a domain actually is.
2. What happens when I want a change in six months? Hourly, retainer, or not at all.
3. What is the running cost? Hosting, maintenance and licences add up — itemised here for WordPress.

What we will not claim

That cheaper is automatically better. It is not. There are agencies charging £8,000 who earn it, and the difference shows in strategy, research and the depth of the team.

What we will claim is that a five-page site for a local business does not require an £8,000 process, and that a large share of what separates those quotes is structure rather than outcome. For that job, we think £999 is the honest price, and we would rather explain it than dress it up.

If you want a fixed number for your actual project rather than a range, the instant estimate itemises it in about two minutes, or book a free call and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right size for the job.