8 September 2026 / 5 min read
What it costs to run a website each year
Domain, hosting, platform fees, support. The real annual figure for a small UK business, without the scare tactics.
- pricing
- hosting
- maintenance
Nobody asks this before the build and everybody asks it three months after.
The short answer
For a small UK business: £10–£20 a year for the domain, £0–£30 a month for hosting, and £15–£40 a month if you are on a builder platform. Add support if you want someone accountable — ours starts around £1,500 for a block of work. A realistic all-in figure for a custom site with light support is £600 to £2,500 a year.
The line items
| Item | Typical cost | Optional? |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | £10–£20 a year | No |
| Hosting | £0–£30 a month | No |
| Builder platform | £15–£40 a month | Only if you use one |
| Professional email | £5–£10 per person a month | Practically no |
| SSL certificate | £0 | Free by default now |
| Plugins and apps | £0–£100 a month | Depends on the build |
| Support and improvements | From £1,500 a block | Yes |
What maintenance actually involves
On a builder platform, almost nothing — the platform patches itself, which is a large part of what you are renting. On WordPress, real work: core, plugin and theme updates, backups, and a security posture, because unmaintained WordPress is the most reliably hacked software on the internet. On a custom build, dependency updates a few times a year and otherwise nothing at all.
Where people waste money
Paying a monthly retainer for a site nobody touches. If your site is static and stable, pay for blocks of work when you need them instead. Retainers earn their keep when you are publishing, testing and improving — not as insurance against a file sitting still.