Where to economise safely
Plenty of things can be trimmed from a website project without damaging the result:
- Page count. Five well-written pages beat fifteen thin ones. You can always add more later.
- Custom photography. Carefully chosen stock or illustration works when budget is tight.
- Bespoke illustration and animation. Nice, rarely decisive.
- Writing your own copy. If you can write clearly, this saves a meaningful amount.
- Phasing. Launch the essentials, add the blog or booking system next quarter.
Where cutting costs more later
Some savings are false economies:
- Performance. A slow site costs you rankings and conversions indefinitely. Fixing it afterwards costs more than building it right.
- Site structure. The hardest thing to change later, and the one that most affects whether anyone finds you.
- Accessibility. Retrofitting is expensive, and in some jurisdictions the exposure is legal rather than just commercial.
- Content editing. If you cannot update the site yourself, you pay for every change forever.
- Owning your assets. Cheap builds that lock you into a platform get expensive at exactly the moment you want to leave.
What genuinely cheap usually means
A £400 website usually means a purchased template with your logo dropped in, minimal configuration, no strategy and no ongoing support. For a very small business needing something presentable immediately, that can be a reasonable decision — but be clear about what you are buying.
The trap is paying £400 twice, then £2,000 for someone to fix it, when £1,450 would have produced something that lasted.
Our approach at the lower end
Our Launch package starts at £1,450 and includes up to five custom-designed pages, a mobile-first build, on-page SEO and schema, analytics, a WordPress CMS you can actually edit, and 30 days support.
It is not a stripped-down version of our process — it is the same process applied to a smaller scope. The performance standards, accessibility standards and code quality are identical.
Registered charities
We offer reduced rates to registered charities and non-profits, typically 20 to 30 percent below standard pricing. See our non-profit services.
To see how we deliver this work ourselves, read our Web Design Services and Website Development page.
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