How much does a small business website cost in Brighton?

A simple brochure site for a Brighton or Hove business usually falls between roughly 750 and 2,500 pounds as a one-off build, depending on how many pages you need and whether the copy and photos are ready. Booking or shop sites cost more because there is more to build and test.

Why do website prices vary so much?

Price is driven by scope, not postcode. The main drivers are the number of pages, whether it is a template or bespoke design, whether it takes bookings or payments, how much content you need written, and the ongoing hosting and support. Two quotes can differ hugely because they are for different things.

Is it cheaper to use a template like Wix or Squarespace?

The monthly fee looks cheap, but you pay in time and in the ceiling you hit later. A DIY builder can work for a very simple site if you have the hours. For anything that needs to take bookings, rank locally, or grow, a properly built site usually costs less over three years.

Should I pay monthly or one price for a website?

Both exist. Watch out for monthly deals where you never own the site and stop having one the day you stop paying. We prefer a fixed price for the build plus a clear, small hosting and support fee, so you own what you paid for.

How Much Does a Website Cost in Brighton? (2026)

Ask five agencies in Brighton what a website costs and you will get five very different answers, sometimes ten times apart. That is not because someone is ripping you off and someone else is a bargain. It is because "a website" can mean a tidy five-page shopfront or a full booking system with payments, logins and stock, and those are not remotely the same job.

This guide breaks down what each kind of site actually costs in and around Brighton and Hove in 2026, what pushes the price up or down, and the things worth watching before you sign anything. No jargon, no scare tactics, just the honest numbers we would want if we were on your side of the table.

The three types of website (and rough 2026 prices)

Most Sussex small businesses need one of three things. Work out which you are before you compare quotes, otherwise you are comparing apples with tractors.

1. The brochure site: roughly 750 to 2,500 pounds

This is the classic small business website. A handful of pages: home, about, services, contact, maybe a gallery. Its job is to look professional, explain what you do, show up when someone searches your trade in Brighton, and get them to call or message you. A cafe in Kemptown, a plumber in Portslade, a therapist in Hove: this is usually the right fit.

The lower end assumes your text and photos are more or less ready and the design is clean but fairly standard. The higher end covers a properly bespoke design, copywriting help, and more careful local SEO so you actually rank for "your trade in Brighton" rather than just existing.

2. The booking or shop site: roughly 2,500 to 6,000 pounds

The moment your site needs to do something rather than just show something, the cost steps up. Taking online bookings, selling products, handling payments, managing stock, sending automatic confirmation emails: each of those is a working system that has to be built, connected and tested so it does not fall over on a busy Saturday.

A barber taking appointments, a Sussex food producer selling boxes, a class or studio taking payments upfront: expect to be in this band. The range is wide because "a shop" might be six products or six hundred, and bookings can be a simple calendar or a full rota with deposits and reminders.

3. The bigger build: from 6,000 pounds up

This is for custom features that are not off the shelf: a trade account portal, a quoting tool, a membership area, an internal system your team logs into, or a site wired into other software you already run. Prices here depend entirely on scope, so the honest answer is that it needs a proper conversation before anyone can quote it. Anyone who fires back a fixed number in ten seconds has not understood the job yet.

Postcode does not set the price. Scope does. A five-page site costs about the same in Brighton as it does in Bristol. What changes the number is how much has to be built, written and connected.

What actually drives the cost

If you understand these six levers, you can read any quote and know why it says what it says.

Number of pages and content. More pages is more design, build and copy. If your words and images are ready, you save money. If someone has to write and source them, that is real work and it goes on the bill.
Template or bespoke. A template theme is quicker and cheaper but you share a look with thousands of others and hit limits fast. A bespoke design costs more up front and is built around your business, not squeezed into someone else's layout.
Bookings and payments. Anything that takes money or reservations needs building, securing and testing properly. This is usually the single biggest price step.
SEO and getting found. A site nobody finds is an expensive business card. Proper page structure, local SEO and a Google Business Profile setup take time, and cheap builds often skip them entirely.
Integrations. Connecting your site to booking software, a CRM, an accounts package or a mailing list adds work in proportion to how fiddly those tools are.
Hosting and support afterwards. The build is one cost. Keeping the site online, updated and backed up is another. A small monthly fee is normal and healthy; be wary of either extreme, nothing at all or a fortune.

What to watch for in a quote

A few things quietly separate a fair deal from a bad one. None of them are about the headline price.

Do you own the site? Some cheap monthly deals mean you never own anything. Stop paying and your website vanishes overnight, along with your search ranking. Always ask: if we part ways, do I keep the site and the domain?
What is not included? A low quote often excludes copywriting, photos, SEO, revisions or a contact form that actually emails you. Get the exclusions in writing so the "extras" do not double the price later.
Who owns the domain and hosting logins? These should be in your name. If your builder holds them, you are locked in whether you like it or not.
How do changes work? Ask what a small text edit costs in a year's time. If every tweak is billable and slow, factor that in.
Is the price fixed? "From 500 pounds" is a headline, not a quote. A fixed price for a clearly defined scope protects you from surprises.

Is a DIY builder cheaper?

Wix, Squarespace and the rest look cheap on paper: a few pounds a month and you are away. For a very simple site, if you genuinely have the hours and the eye, they can do a job. The honest catch is twofold. First, your time is not free, and a weekend lost to wrestling a template is a real cost. Second, you tend to hit a ceiling exactly when your business grows, at which point you rebuild anyway and pay twice.

For a lot of Brighton businesses the maths over three years, once you count the monthly fees, the add-ons, your own time and the eventual rebuild, lands close to just having it built properly the first time. Not always. But run the full sum before you assume DIY is the saving it looks like.

How we price at Pixel and Shovel

We work in fixed prices. You tell us what you need, we scope it out honestly, and we come back with one clear number and what is inside it. No hourly meter running in the background, no vague "from" figures that balloon halfway through. You own the site, the domain and the code at the end. Hosting and support is a small, plainly stated monthly fee, not a trapdoor.

We would rather tell you a brochure site is all you need and save you a few thousand pounds than sell you a system you will not use. If a template genuinely fits, we will say so. Straight answers cost us nothing and save you plenty.