When one page isn't enough to explain what you do.
A proper website of several pages, on your own domain. Fast, quiet, nothing to log into and nothing to break. £595 to build up to six pages, or £995 if you'd like the writing done with you, then £199 a year.
All prices exclude VAT. The price reflects how little there is to build, rather than what an agency would charge for the same thing.
Before anything else
Whether you actually need this
If your business does one thing, in one place, for one kind of customer, the £99 one page website will do the job and you should buy that instead. Your phone number, your hours, what you do and where you do it answers nearly everything somebody wants to know before they ring.
This is for when that genuinely isn't enough. You have six services and each deserves explaining. You cover four towns and want to be found in all of them. You have a history worth telling, a process people ask about, a set of questions you answer on the phone twice a week. That is a site with rooms in it, and it is a different job.
The honest test: if you can write down the pages you want and there are more than about four, this is the right thing. If you can't, ring me and we'll work out whether you need one at all.
The two options
Pick by who writes it.
The pages themselves cost very little to build. What takes the time is the words, so that is where the price is, and it is the only real difference between these.
You supply the content
You send me the words and the pictures. I build the site around them.
- Up to six pages. More than that is £120 an hour, quoted before it starts
- On your own domain, registered in your name
- A contact form that reaches you by email
- Written for a phone first, because that is where people will read it
- Findable: proper titles, descriptions and structure on every page
- Changes to what the pages say included afterwards, as set out below
- You do the writing, and writing is the hard part
We write it together
You talk, I write, you correct me. Most people find this far easier than facing a blank page.
- Everything in the other one
- A conversation about what each page is for and who reads it
- I write the pages and you tell me where I've got it wrong
- Two rounds of that, then £120 an hour if you want more
- Your existing material used where it is good, rewritten where it isn't
The £199 a year covers hosting, the domain, the certificate and changes. It is more than the one page product's yearly figure for the obvious reason: there is more to keep current.
Three real ones
What one actually looks like
These are mine rather than clients'. I built all three for my own reasons, which is worth saying plainly rather than dressing them up as case studies. They are the same machinery, built the same way, and they are the honest answer to what you would get. The second and third are bigger than the six pages the build price covers, and a site that size is quoted.
chetnole.com
Seven pages. The village I live in: what is there, how to get to it, the river, the trains, its history, and what to know if you are moving. About the size most businesses actually need.
shogun.info
Fourteen pages. The history of a Japanese title, with paintings and a map. A subject explained properly, which is the shape of a site that sells something complicated.
latexallergy.info
Twenty eight pages. Health information, organised by who is reading it and what they need to do. The largest of the three, and it took the same day or two, because by then the work is the writing rather than the building.
What to look at
How fast they open, on your phone, on a bad signal. There is no cookie banner on any of them because none of them sets a cookie. The only thing any of them fetches from another server is a visit counter, and that stores nothing on your device either. That is not a trick, it is what you get when a site is pages rather than software.
The obvious question
Why it costs what it costs
Very little of it is building. The pages come together quickly, so most of the work is the words and getting them right, which is why the written option costs more. Neither price is a number arrived at by wondering what you might pay.
The reason it comes together quickly is that there is no software underneath. No database, no plugins, no themes, no admin area, no framework that needs updating every few months. Your site is pages, built once and served from Cloudflare's network, which is the same thing this page you are reading runs on. The things that make a website expensive to build and expensive to keep are simply not there.
That also means it does not rot. A WordPress site left alone for two years is a security problem. This left alone for two years is the same site, still fast, still up.
The catch, said plainly: you can't edit it yourself. There is no login and no page editor. You ask me and I change it, usually the same day. For most businesses that is a relief rather than a limitation, but if you want to write your own pages at midnight then this is the wrong thing and I will tell you what to buy instead.
Changes are included
Prices, opening hours, staff, services, photographs: anything that changes what a page says. Ask and it is done, usually the same day.
Where the line is: changing what a page says is included. A new page is £120 an hour, and rebuilding the site around a new business is a new job. Either way I would say so, with a number, before doing anything.
What it isn't for
- Selling things online
- Taking bookings or payments
- Logging in and editing it yourself
- A blog, which is a commitment to feed it rather than a set of pages
- Anything that has to change by the minute
Any of those is a different job. Ask, and if it is genuinely worth doing I will quote it, or tell you honestly that something off the shelf would serve you better.
One thing worth knowing
No cookie banner, and what would change that
These sites set no cookies and store nothing on your visitors' devices, so there is nothing to consent to and no banner to click past. The cookies page explains how to check that on this site, and the same check works on yours.
Some things would break that, and you should hear it from me rather than find out. An embedded map, a video player, a font loaded from somebody else's server, a chat widget, or analytics that follow people around: each of those would bring cookies with it, and then your site needs a banner like everybody else's.
None of that is forbidden and some of it is genuinely useful. What I will do is tell you the cost before it is added rather than after, because for a lot of businesses the map is worth it and for a lot of others it is not.
How this usually goes
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A call.
Half an hour, free, no pitch. What the business does, who you want to reach, and roughly what the pages are. By the end of it we both know whether this is the right thing.
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A list of pages, and a fixed price.
Written down before anything starts. Up to six pages is the price above, and anything beyond that is quoted at £120 an hour. If it turns out to be a bigger job than the call suggested, you get a new number before any work happens, not an invoice afterwards.
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I build it, and you see it before it goes live.
On a temporary address, so you can read every page, show it to somebody whose opinion you trust, and change your mind about the wording.
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It goes live on your domain.
Registered in your name and belonging to you, whatever happens between us afterwards.
Related
If one page would genuinely do, the £99 website is the cheaper and better answer. If you already have a WordPress site and want somebody to keep it safe and current, that is hosting and care. Every price on this site is listed together on how I work.