1. Quick answer — website cost in London at a glance
WebAnts is a London-based web design and development agency. The prices below are what clients actually pay in 2026 — from agencies that build properly, in-house, without offshore handoffs or page builders.
| Project type | Typical range (GBP) | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | £1,500 – £3,500 | 1–2 weeks |
| Brochure site (5–10 pages) | £3,500 – £8,000 | 3–5 weeks |
| CMS / blog site | £5,000 – £12,000 | 4–7 weeks |
| Ecommerce store (Shopify / WooCommerce) | £4,000 – £15,000 | 4–8 weeks |
| Custom web application / SaaS MVP | £8,000 – £50,000+ | 8–20 weeks |
| Enterprise / complex platform | £20,000 – £100,000+ | 12 weeks+ |
These ranges assume in-house development in London, custom design (not templates), and proper SEO setup included. Quotes below these ranges for equivalent scope almost always involve offshore work, page builders, or scope omissions.
2. What drives website cost
Website pricing is not arbitrary. Every figure in a proposal maps to one or more of these cost drivers. Understanding them helps you evaluate quotes intelligently rather than simply choosing the cheapest.
Driver 1 — Project type and scope
The number of pages, content types, user roles, and functional requirements directly sets the floor for any quote. A five-page brochure site and a five-page site with a booking system, payment gateway, and client portal are not comparable scopes — even if they look similar to a non-technical client.
Driver 2 — Design complexity
Custom design from scratch in Figma costs more than adapting a premium theme, which costs more than picking a template from a library. All three produce different results at different price points. Bespoke design gives you full visual differentiation and optimised layouts for your specific conversion goals. Templates and themes give you speed and lower cost at the expense of uniqueness and flexibility.
Driver 3 — Platform choice
Platform selection affects both the build cost and the ongoing cost. WordPress custom theme development is more expensive than Webflow but cheaper to host. Shopify has a predictable monthly fee but lower developer rates for standard builds. Custom Next.js applications have the highest developer rates but the most flexibility. See section 4 for a platform-by-platform breakdown.
Driver 4 — Content and copy
Most agency quotes assume you provide your own content — text, images, logos. If the agency also writes your copy, sources or creates images, or produces video, these are separate line items. Copywriting for a 10-page site typically adds £1,000–£3,000. Professional photography adds £500–£2,000. Stock photography (where appropriate) is often included at no extra charge.
Driver 5 — Integrations and third-party connections
Every integration adds time. CRM connections (HubSpot, Salesforce), payment gateways (Stripe, Klarna), booking systems, membership platforms, and email marketing tools all require configuration, testing, and often custom logic. A site with five integrations costs meaningfully more than one with none — even if the page count is identical.
Driver 6 — Where the team is based
London agencies with London-based teams have higher day rates than agencies with offshore development teams. UK rates for a senior web developer run £350–£600/day. Offshore equivalents run £100–£200/day. The difference shows in communication quality, code standards, and accountability — but not always in ways that are visible on delivery.
3. Cost by project type
Landing page
£1,500 – £3,500
A single-page focused site with one conversion goal — typically a form submission, call booking, or product purchase. Used for PPC campaigns, product launches, and service-specific ad traffic. At this price range, expect custom design, mobile responsiveness, GA4 + GTM setup, and one round of revisions. Below £1,500 is generally template work. Above £3,500 for a single page usually means significant animation or interactive complexity.
Who it's for: Campaign-specific traffic, MVPs, product pre-launches, A/B testing.
Brochure / business site (5–10 pages)
£3,500 – £8,000
The most common type of project. Includes homepage, about, services (one page or individual service pages), contact, and potentially blog/news. A properly scoped brochure site includes: custom Figma design for desktop and mobile, SEO setup (meta titles, descriptions, canonical tags, sitemap, schema), contact form with email notifications, and CMS for blog posts. Anything below £3,500 at this scope is almost always template-based or has significant quality trade-offs.
Who it's for: SMEs, professional service firms, startups, local businesses.
CMS / content-heavy site
£5,000 – £12,000
Sites where content volume, publishing workflows, and SEO architecture are central to the project. Includes blog platforms, resource libraries, case study archives, team directories, and multi-author publishing systems. The additional cost vs a basic brochure site comes from custom content types, editorial workflows, pagination and filtering, and per-item SEO configuration. This is the category where the difference between a well-configured CMS and a poorly planned one is most visible in Google rankings.
Who it's for: Law firms, medical practices, media brands, SaaS with content strategies.
Ecommerce store (Shopify / WooCommerce)
£4,000 – £15,000
The range is wide because ecommerce scope varies enormously. A Shopify store with 30 products, a customised theme, and standard checkout costs £4,000–£6,000. A custom Shopify build with bespoke product page logic, subscription commerce (ReCharge), CRM integration, and multi-currency support runs £8,000–£15,000. WooCommerce stores with complex product configurations, B2B pricing tiers, or custom fulfilment workflows sit toward the upper end. Platform subscription fees (Shopify: £25–£344/month) are separate from the build cost.
Who it's for: DTC brands, B2B suppliers, subscription businesses, retailers.
Custom web application / SaaS MVP
£8,000 – £50,000+
Custom-coded applications built in React, Next.js, or similar — not CMS-driven sites. Includes SaaS dashboards, booking systems, membership portals, B2B ordering platforms, and internal tools. The wide range reflects scope: a focused MVP with one core user flow and basic auth costs £8,000–£15,000. A multi-role platform with complex data relationships, custom APIs, Stripe billing, and admin dashboards runs £25,000–£50,000. Enterprise platforms with multiple integrations, compliance requirements, and large engineering teams run £50,000–£150,000+.
Who it's for: Startups building digital products, businesses automating complex workflows.
4. Cost by platform
The platform you choose affects both build cost and ongoing monthly spend. Here is how the four most common platforms compare in practice for UK businesses in 2026.
| Platform | Typical build cost | Monthly platform cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | £3,000 – £15,000 | £10 – £80 (hosting) | SEO-led content sites, WooCommerce stores |
| Webflow | £1,500 – £15,000 | £31 – £59 (plan) | Design-led sites, SaaS marketing, CMS publishing |
| Shopify | £4,000 – £15,000 | £25 – £344 (plan) | Consumer ecommerce, DTC brands, retail |
| Next.js / React | £8,000 – £50,000+ | £20 – £200 (hosting) | SaaS apps, custom platforms, headless builds |
| Framer | £1,500 – £6,000 | £15 – £50 (plan) | Startup marketing sites, motion-led design |
WordPress
The most flexible CMS for SEO-led growth. Custom WordPress development (no page builders) gives you full control over URL structure, schema markup, and technical performance. WooCommerce for ecommerce is particularly powerful for B2B use cases, subscriptions, and complex product configurations. The ongoing cost is hosting (£10–£80/month) plus maintenance — either DIY or via a monthly plan (£99–£350/month from a London agency).
Webflow
The designer's platform. Webflow gives pixel-perfect design control with a visual CMS your marketing team can edit without developer support. Hosted on Fastly's CDN, sites load fast without plugin maintenance. The platform plan (£31–£59/month) covers hosting, SSL, CDN, and CMS. The main constraint vs WordPress is SEO depth — Webflow's SEO tools are good but not as configurable as WordPress for large content strategies. See our Webflow development service for full details.
Shopify
The managed ecommerce platform. Shopify handles hosting, payments, SSL, and uptime at a monthly fee — £25/month (Basic) to £344/month (Advanced), billed annually. The build cost for a custom Shopify theme runs £4,000–£15,000 depending on scope. Using Shopify Payments (GBP settlement, 0% transaction fee) makes the ongoing cost predictable. Using a third-party payment gateway incurs an additional 0.5–2% transaction fee per order.
Next.js / React
For projects that are genuinely applications rather than content sites — SaaS dashboards, custom booking platforms, member portals, and internal tools. Higher build cost reflects higher engineering complexity. Hosting on Vercel or similar starts from £20/month and scales with usage. This is the right choice when you have functionality that WordPress, Webflow, or Shopify simply cannot accommodate cleanly.
6. Red flags: how to spot a cheap quote
A quote that is significantly below market rate is not a bargain — it is a signal that something has been omitted, outsourced, or compromised. Here are the most common ways low quotes are achieved.
Page builder development
Elementor, Divi, and WPBakery let developers build WordPress sites in a fraction of the time — and charge accordingly. The result is bloated code, poor performance, and a site that is difficult to maintain as it ages. Always ask: do you use page builders?
Offshore development teams
Some London-facing agencies have their entire development team based overseas. This is not inherently wrong, but it creates communication friction, code quality variability, and accountability gaps that only become visible after handover. Ask where the team building your site is based.
SEO not included
A quote with no mention of meta titles, descriptions, canonical tags, sitemap, or schema markup is a quote for a site that Google cannot properly rank. This is the most common scope omission in low quotes — and the most expensive to fix later.
Unlimited revision promises
Agencies that promise “unlimited revisions” are either planning to deliver something so generic that few revisions will be needed, or they are counting on scope creep disputes to recover margin. Real creative work needs defined revision rounds, not open-ended commitments.
Large upfront deposit
Requiring 50–100% upfront is the agency managing their cash flow risk at your expense. It also removes the main incentive to deliver on time and to your satisfaction. Milestone payment models protect both parties and keep quality standards high throughout the project.
7. WebAnts pricing
WebAnts is a London-based web design and development agency. We build on WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and Next.js — choosing the platform that fits your business, not the one that is most convenient for us. All projects are scoped individually after a free 30-minute discovery call. No hourly estimates. Flat written quotes. No deposit.
| Service | Starting from | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | From £1,800 | 1–2 weeks |
| Business website (5–10 pages) | From £3,500 | 3–5 weeks |
| Ecommerce (Shopify / WooCommerce) | From £4,500 | 4–7 weeks |
| Custom web application / SaaS MVP | From £8,000 | 8–16 weeks |
| Website maintenance | From £99/month | Ongoing |
Our delivery is approximately 1.8× faster than the industry average. Milestone payments — you pay as each deliverable lands, and you own every piece of work immediately. 4.9★ on Google. 5.0★ on Clutch. Top Web Designers 2025 — DesignRush. No prepayment required.
Book a free 30-min discovery call and get a flat written quote →