Does a new business need a website in 2026? What it costs and what it returns

Yes, almost every new business in the UK needs a website in 2026, but it does not need to be big or expensive. Customers look you up before they call, and a website is the one place online you fully own. For most start-ups a fast five to ten page site with clear services, a price guide or quote form and easy contact details is enough. Built professionally, that costs from £430 + VAT with us, and a realistic first-year budget including hosting, domain and email is roughly £750 to £1,500. If one new customer is worth a few hundred pounds to you, the site usually pays for itself within months. Here is how to decide, what to build first and how to check the return.

Why the answer is still yes

Social media, marketplaces and Google Business Profiles have all grown, and some people argue a website is now optional. In practice those channels work best when they point somewhere you control.

People check you out before they buy

Ofcom’s Online Nation research has consistently found that UK adults spend several hours a day online, most of it on smartphones. When someone hears about you from a neighbour, a flyer or your van parked outside a house in Swindon, the next step is usually a search. If they find nothing, or a social profile with four posts from last spring, a competitor with a tidy website looks like the safer bet.

You own it

Your Instagram account, Facebook page, Etsy shop and directory listings belong to someone else. Algorithms change, reach falls, accounts get suspended with no one to phone. A website on your own domain, with an email address on that domain, is the asset you keep no matter what any platform decides.

It works while you are on the job

A website answers the same ten questions at 10pm, takes enquiries on Sunday and can take bookings or deposits while you are with another customer. For a sole trader that is the nearest thing to a receptionist who never has a day off.

It makes everything else work harder

Your Google Business Profile, social posts, adverts, email signature and printed leaflets all need a destination. Google also reads your website to understand what you do and where, which supports how you appear in local results. Our guide to local SEO covers that in detail.

It makes a new firm look established

A professional site with your company details, real photos and clear services tells a cautious buyer you are a proper business. For new firms without years of reviews, that credibility does a lot of work.

When you can reasonably wait

Not every business needs a site on day one. You can hold off if:

• all your work comes from one or two contracts or a single referral partner, and will for the foreseeable future;
• you are testing an idea with a handful of customers before committing money;
• you only sell through a marketplace and have no plans to sell direct.

Even then, do three free or cheap things now: register your domain name, set up a professional email address on it and claim your Google Business Profile. When you do build, your name will not have gone. Not sure which extension to buy? Read .co.uk vs .uk vs .com for a UK business.

What your first website needs to do

You do not need every feature from day one. A first site has one job: turn a curious visitor into an enquiry. This checklist covers what matters.

• **Say what you do, where and for whom** in the first screen on a phone. “Boiler servicing and repairs in Cardiff and the Vale” beats “Welcome to our website”.
• **Make contact effortless.** A tap-to-call number, a short form (name, phone, what you need) and a reply time you can actually keep.
• **Show proof.** Photos of real work, qualifications, trade body memberships, insurance and, as they arrive, reviews.
• **Give an idea of price.** “From £X” or typical ranges filter out time-wasters and build trust.
• **Load fast on mobile.** Many local searches happen on phones on patchy 4G. Slow sites lose people before the page appears.
• **Be findable.** A page per main service, the areas you cover, consistent business details and basic structured data.
• **Be legal.** If you trade as a limited company, the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations require your registered company name, number and registered office address on the site. You also need a privacy policy under UK GDPR, and cookie consent if you use analytics or advertising tags (see our guide to UK cookie banner rules).
• **Be accessible.** Readable text, keyboard-friendly forms and proper labels. It is good practice, it widens your market and it is expected under the Equality Act 2010.

Things you can safely leave for year two: a blog with weekly posts, an online shop if you are not yet selling online, a client portal, multiple languages and anything animated.

What a website costs in 2026

There are three broad routes.

DIY builders

Wix, Squarespace and similar tools cost roughly £10 to £30 a month for business features, plus a lot of your time. They are fine for testing an idea. Over several years the subscription adds up and you never own the working site. We did the full sums in Wix vs a web agency over three years.

A fixed-price agency package

For most new businesses this is the sensible start. Our fixed-price packages, all excluding VAT:

Our advice for a typical start-up: if you need a handful of pages and want to edit them yourself, take the Startup Website with the CMS and responsive add-ons (£678 + VAT). If you are a service business that will rely on Google for leads, the Pro Website gives you room for a page per service. If you take bookings or deposits from day one, go straight to Elite.

Hourly or bespoke work

If you need something specific, such as a quote calculator or a booking system tied to your calendar, you can book hours online. Website design is £45 an hour, WordPress development £50 and custom web development £60, all plus VAT, with discounts from 5 % at 10 hours to 25 % at 100 hours. Hours never expire, so you can build in stages as cash flow allows.

A realistic first-year budget

Here is a worked example for a new service business, say a dog grooming salon in Nottingham, taking our Pro Website.

If you are VAT-registered and reclaim VAT, knock about £190 off. The Startup route with add-ons brings the first-year total nearer £1,300, or about £750 if you skip the add-ons and the paid changes. From year two, without a rebuild, you are typically looking at £300 to £600 a year for hosting, domain, email and a few hours of updates.

What it returns: a simple way to work it out

You do not need a spreadsheet model. Answer three questions.

1. What is a new customer worth in gross profit over a year? Include repeat business. A groomer’s customer who comes back every six weeks is worth far more than one visit.
2. What share of enquiries become customers? If you win one quote in three, that is about 33 %.
3. How many extra enquiries would the website need to bring in to cover its cost?

Worked through for our salon: a regular customer brings in about £45 a visit, eight visits a year, so £360 in revenue. Say £220 of that is gross profit. The first-year budget above is about £1,450, so the site needs around seven new regular customers to break even. At one in three enquiries converting, that is about 20 enquiries across the year, fewer than two a month. For a business people search for by name and by service, that is a modest target. For a solicitor or builder where one customer is worth thousands, a single job can cover it.

This is a hypothetical example. Your numbers will differ, which is the point: do the sum for your own business before you spend.

Track it from day one

Set up these on launch, or you will never know whether the site is working:

• Google Search Console to see which searches show your site.
• Privacy-friendly analytics, with consent where required.
• Form submissions counted as conversions.
• A tracking phone number or a simple “how did you hear about us?” question.

Five mistakes we see with first websites

1. **Building for the owner, not the customer.** A long “our story” home page while the services and prices are buried three clicks deep.
2. **No prices at all.** Even a range helps. “Call for a quote” with nothing else makes people call your competitor who shows one.
3. **Hiring the cheapest option with no ownership.** Some low-cost providers keep the site on their platform; when you leave, the site stays behind. Ask who owns the domain, the hosting account and the files.
4. **Launching and forgetting.** Out-of-date opening hours and a 2023 “latest news” post tell people you may have stopped trading.
5. **Ignoring the phone.** Test every page on your own phone, over mobile data, before launch.

Getting started

If you are setting up a business anywhere in the UK, we can get a professional site live in about two to three weeks. We are based in London, work remotely with clients nationwide and meet in person in London and the Home Counties. Have a look at our packages, our web development service, or tell us about your business and we will recommend the smallest site that does the job. For a wider view of prices, read how much a website costs in the UK.

Photo: Vitaly Gariev via Unsplash