For a UK small business, a Wix or Squarespace site costs roughly £240 to £360 a year and you build it yourself, a freelancer charges £1,000 to £5,000, and a professional agency build runs £3,500 to £6,000, with efficient agencies delivering agency quality from around £1,500. But the sticker price is the wrong number to compare. What actually matters is what each option is engineered to do, and the three-year cost of ownership once you add your time, lost enquiries and the cost of rebuilding when the cheap option fails. This guide compares the real options honestly.
Wix vs agency: the real comparison
The two are not the same product at different prices, they solve different problems.
Wix / Squarespace (DIY builders)
Roughly £240 to £360 a year. You design and write it yourself using templates. It is genuinely fine for a sole trader, a pre-revenue idea, or a simple presence you do not expect to drive leads. The hidden costs are your time, templates that hundreds of others also use, limited control over speed and structure, and a site that is rarely built around what your buyers actually search for. Good enough until the website needs to earn money.
Freelancer
Typically £1,000 to £5,000. Quality varies enormously by person. A strong freelancer can deliver an excellent site; the risks are availability, what happens when they move on, and whether strategy, copy, SEO and conversion are all covered or just the build. Best when you have a clear brief and a freelancer you trust.
Agency
Usually £3,500 to £6,000 for a small business brochure site, and £8,000 to £15,000-plus for ecommerce or custom builds. You get strategy, design, copy, conversion structure and SEO foundations as a package, plus a team rather than one person. The catch is that traditional agencies can be slow and expensive for a small business. The sweet spot is an efficient agency that delivers that standard from a lower starting point, around £1,500, by reusing a proven premium foundation rather than starting every project from a blank canvas.
Why the cheapest option is usually the most expensive
A £299 template gives you a page that exists; a proper build gives you a page that performs. The cheap route looks fine on day one but tends to fail on the things that actually generate enquiries: it is not written around what your buyer searches for, the structure is not readable by Google or AI engines, page speed is poor, and there is no clear path from visitor to phone call or form. The result is a site that sits there. When it never wins a customer, and then has to be rebuilt properly, the cheap option has cost you far more than the difference in build price.
What is the three-year cost of ownership?
Compare options over three years, not on day-one price. Add the annual subscription or hosting, your own hours maintaining it, the value of enquiries won or lost, and the likelihood of a rebuild. A £300-a-year DIY site that wins nothing can quietly cost more in lost enquiries than a one-off £1,500 build that brings in a single extra customer a month. The build price is the smallest number in the equation.
What actually moves the price of an agency website?
Six factors: the number of pages (a focused 5-page site costs less than a 20-page site with service and location pages); custom design versus an adapted theme; functionality such as booking, ecommerce, integrations or member areas; whether the agency writes the copy or you supply it; SEO depth, from a simple launch to a build optimised to rank and earn AI-search citations; and ongoing support, whether project-only or a retainer.
Will any of these rank on Google and AI search?
A site only ranks if it is built for it: clean structure, fast Core Web Vitals, structured data, sensible internal linking, and pages written around real buyer questions. DIY templates rarely ship with these; a good agency build does, which gives you the strongest possible starting point. Top rankings for competitive terms then come from ongoing SEO and content. For how that ongoing work compounds, see our guide on getting your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI Overviews.
How to choose
Be honest about the job. If the site just needs to exist, a DIY builder is fine. If it needs to win enquiries, do not buy on price alone, buy on what it is engineered to do and what you own at the end. Insist on full ownership of the site and content with no lock-in, whichever route you take, so leaving never means losing your website.
Written by Deen Dayal Yadav, Founder of Transformation Junction, with 25+ years in digital and 50-plus projects delivered. If you want a conversion-led build, see our small business website design service.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wix good enough for a small business?
For a sole trader or a simple presence, yes. If the website needs to win enquiries, ranking, conversion structure and buyer-focused copy matter more than a template can deliver, and an agency build usually pays for itself.
How much does a small business website cost in the UK?
Roughly £240 to £360 a year for DIY builders, £1,000 to £5,000 for a freelancer, and £3,500 to £6,000 for a professional agency build. Efficient agencies can deliver agency quality from around £1,500.
What is the three-year cost of ownership?
The total of subscription or hosting, your maintenance time, enquiries won or lost, and any rebuild, over three years. It is the number to compare, not the day-one build price.
Should I own my website?
Yes. Insist on full ownership of the site and content with no lock-in from day one, so moving away never costs you the website.
