The Honest Answer: £0 to £5,000+
Ask five web companies what a trades website costs and you'll get five wildly different numbers. That's because "a website" can mean anything from a DIY template to a custom-built marketing machine. Here's what the market actually looks like in 2026 — and what each price band really buys you.
Option 1: DIY Builders (£0–£30/month)
Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy. You drag, you drop, you publish.
The real cost: your evenings. Most tradespeople spend 20–40 hours fighting a template, end up with something that looks DIY, and quietly stop updating it. The monthly fees also never stop — £25/month is £300 every year, forever.
Option 2: Freelancer or Small Studio (£300–£1,500 one-off)
This is the sweet spot for most sole traders and small firms. A professionally designed site, built around your trade, your areas, and your photos — for a one-time fee.
What a good one includes:
- Mobile-first design (most of your visitors are on phones)
- Pages for your services and the towns you cover
- Click-to-call, quote forms, and your reviews on display
- Basic SEO: titles, descriptions, and Google indexing done properly
- Fast hosting — slow sites lose visitors and rankings
At ForgeMason this is exactly the model we run: a professional trades site from £300, one-off, no contract tying you in. The point isn't cheapness — it's that a sole trader shouldn't need agency budgets to look established.
Option 3: Agency Builds (£2,000–£5,000+)
Full agencies offer brand workshops, custom development, and ongoing retainers. For multi-van firms with staff and ambitions across several regions, this can be worth it. For a sole trader, most of that budget pays for meetings, not results.
The Costs Nobody Mentions Upfront
- Domain name: £10–£15/year
- Hosting: £0–£20/month depending on setup
- Email at your domain: roughly £5/month, and worth every penny for credibility
- Content changes: ask before you sign — some firms charge £50+ for swapping a photo
What Actually Makes a Trades Website Pay for Itself
A website is an expense until it wins work. The features that turn it into an asset:
- Local pages that rank for "your trade + your town" searches
- Reviews pulled in and displayed prominently
- Instant response — a form or booking option for people who won't ring, and call handling for people who will
- Proof — real photos of real jobs, not stock images of smiling models
The Bottom Line
In 2026, a tradesperson should expect to pay £300–£800 one-off for a professional site that wins local work, or £2,000+ if you're a growing firm wanting custom everything. Avoid long monthly contracts dressed up as "low entry prices" — over three years, a £40/month deal costs more than most one-off builds and you often don't even own the site at the end.
