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Insights · Pricing
What a website should cost in Manchester (2026): the honest ledger.
Our one-page website package starts at £299. Bespoke agency projects can cost several thousand pounds or more. Page count alone does not explain the difference: research, design, content, integrations and ongoing support all matter. Here is how we would compare the scope before comparing the price.
The four tiers, priced honestly
| Who builds it | Typical range | What you actually get | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder Wix, Squarespace, Shopify themes | £10–40/mo | A template you fill in yourself | Allow for your time, subscription costs and export limitations |
| Freelancer | £500–£2,500 | A build, quality varies wildly | Check whether updates, security and support are included in the contract |
| Template agency | £1,500–£5,000 | A purchased theme, restyled | Ask how much is bespoke and how amendments are priced |
| Full agency | £5,000–£15,000+ | Custom design and build | Often the right call for complex builds, but interrogate the line items below before signing |
Ranges are our reading of published UK guides, reviewed 3 October 2026: Mapletree Studio, October 2025 (custom one-page £400 to £800, multi-page small business £800 to £2,000, bespoke £5,000 and up); Hollis Web, 2026 (customised theme £1,200 to £3,000, custom-coded £5,000 and up); AJ Web Design, April 2026 (freelancers from £297, small agencies £2,500 to £10,000 and up). Quotes vary with scope, so treat the table as bands, not prices.
Our own fixed prices sit deliberately under the agency tiers: £299 all-in for one page, £999 with booking built in, £3,499 for a bespoke Signature build, care included on all three, half paid on order and half when you approve the work. We productised the process rather than billing it hourly. That's a structural choice, not a discount. The published prices cover those packages; if your brief needs a different scope, we confirm a tailored quote after a consultation.
The five line items to interrogate
1 · Hosting markup. Ask what the monthly fee covers: infrastructure, monitoring, backups, security updates and human support are different things. A low hosting bill alone does not tell you the cost of maintaining a reliable service.
2 · "SEO package" add-ons. Ask which technical foundations are included in the build and which research or ongoing work is separately scoped. Titles, redirects, crawl access and useful content need an owner. Content strategy, migrations and sustained search work can justify a separate budget.
3 · What happens after launch. The most expensive website is the one that quietly rots: broken forms, expired certificates, a hack nobody notices. Ask every provider one question: "who looks at my site in month seven, and what do they check?" If the answer is vague, the real price of the site is unknown.
4 · Who owns it. Domain in whose name? Can you leave with the site? Builder platforms lock you in by design; some agencies do it by contract. Ownership should be yours, in writing.
5 · Hourly billing on changes. "£85/hour for amendments" turns a £3,000 site into a £6,000 relationship. Fixed care pricing exists. Insist on knowing the change process before you sign, not after.
When not to pay us, or any agency
Honesty cuts both ways. If you need a holding page and you enjoy tinkering, Squarespace is fine. If your business lives entirely on Instagram and bookings come through DMs, a website may genuinely be your third priority. And if you've been quoted £15,000 for a five-page brochure site with no bespoke systems behind it, the number isn't wrong because it's big. Ask which research, design, content and delivery work explains it. A high price is not, by itself, evidence of poor value.
A website earns its keep when it has a job: enquiries, bookings, sales, credibility in a procurement process. Price against the job, not the page count.
Asked about pricing
Why are your fixed prices lower than agency rates?
Because they're productised. We build on a system we've refined across our own sites and client builds, so a one-page site is genuinely a known quantity: £299 all-in, with twelve months of care included. Larger, bespoke builds (live 3D, full brand builds, client systems) are scoped individually beyond the packages, like any agency.
What does "care included" actually mean?
Monthly checks on speed, uptime, security and the enquiry path, plus content amendments. Twelve months included with every package, then optional care priced upon consultation, cancel any time. It's the month-seven answer, in writing.
Is a £299 website actually any good?
Judge it by the site you're reading: same studio, same system, same standards: performance-tested, accessible, structured for search and AI engines. One page, done properly, beats five pages done cheaply.
Getting quotes? Send us the ledger you've been given and we'll tell you honestly what's fair, even if the answer is "take it."
Ask us anythingCompare the whole scope before the price
Write down the number of pages or sections, who supplies copy and photography, revision rounds, integrations, hosting and third-party subscriptions. Ask who owns the domain, content and source files; what is included in care; how changes are quoted; and what happens when the relationship ends. A useful comparison names these responsibilities rather than assuming the cheaper or larger provider is better.
Our current package page is the source for LYM’s prices and terms. Larger showcased client builds can have a different scope. If bookings are part of the brief, use our booking-website checklist before choosing a package.