How Much Does a Squarespace Website Cost in the UK?
The question I get asked the most is probably, "How much is a website?". People usually ask a bit nervously, like the person is bracing themselves for the answer and it's a fair question, because if you Google it you'll find so many different answers, everything from free to tens of thousands of pounds, and none of that helps when you're trying to work out what's sensible for a small business like yours. So here's how the costs actually break down, and what I offer in all of it.
Squarespace costs
If you go with a Squarespace web designer, whoever builds your website, you'll pay Squarespace for your plan, which is a subscription that covers your hosting, security and the tools to run your site. You can pay monthly or yearly, and yearly works out cheaper. Your domain name (the www bit) is a small yearly cost on top after the first year and you can get this from any domain seller such as GoDaddy, Cloudflare, IONOS and you can also get one through Squarespace too, which makes things super easy to connect. Although any can be connected. Squarespace changes its prices now and again, so it's worth checking their own pricing page, but this is the one cost that never goes away, and it's always in your name, not mine.
DIY Website
If you're good with tech and you've got time on your hands then you can absolutely build your own site on Squarespace, and lots of people do. The cost is mostly your time, and that's the bit people underestimate. Choosing a template is the easy part, or using the Squarespace Ai and building it with that, and then you're writing every page, sorting out photos, working out why the mobile version looks odd and trying to figure out what SEO actually means. Then your website sits there for months, or even years, not getting seen and if it does get seen because you did some of it right, then it’s quickly clicked off because it has no strategy to it. The first ever website I built was on Wix, which is similar to Squarespace in many ways. It took me the whole first year of college to build because it was part of my course. We had to build a small website and start a blog to keep track of our work. It ended up taking me the whole year just adding stuff to it. This website NEVER got seen. The analytics were atrocious.
Using a template and tweaking it
The middle ground is buying a ready-made template from a designer and filling it in yourself, or paying someone a smaller amount to set one up for you. It's quicker than starting from nothing, and it can look lovely, but the catch is that your site is built around someone else's layout, so it can end up looking a lot like other businesses using the same template. Still then, you need to think about SEO and how Google is going to read it and bring it up on the first page, if you are lucky!
Hiring a web designer
This is where prices vary the most. Some designers charge a few hundred pounds and others charge many thousands, and it usually comes down to how much is designed from scratch using custom css, how many animations, how many pages you're getting, and what's included alongside the design, like copywriting, SEO, AEO, photography and support after launch.
What you get with me
My Squarespace websites start from £2,200 for five pages, which is usually a Homepage, About, Services, Contact and one more of your choice, like an FAQ, Journal or Booking page. Every site is designed from a blank page around your brand, and that price includes:
A custom layout that's checked on multiple sizes: Monitor, mobiles, tablets/Ipads and desktop laptop.
SEO foundations, so page titles, descriptions and image alt text are all set up properly
Google Business Profile, Search Console and Analytics: I’ll set up or tidy your Google Business Profile, connect your website to Google Search Console and set up Squarespace Analytics, so you can keep track of your traffic and your website’s health.
Copy editing: you send me a first draft of what you’d like to say, in your own voice, and I tidy it up so it reads well and still sounds like you. I build SEO and AEO naturally into your titles and text, so search engines and AI tools can find you and recommend you to potential clients.
Two rounds of revisions, a handover call and 30 days of aftercare
Extra pages are £150 each, and if you need a simple booking system I can set up Acuity Scheduling for £165. If you've got no photos you love yet, I'm a brand photographer too, and shoots start from £495.
So is it worth it?
The way I'd look at it is to think about what one new client is worth to your business. For lots of my clients, a website that looks professional and makes it easy to book pays for itself after a couple of new clients, and then it carries on working for you for years. A client of mine, Woof Terrain, was starting from scratch, she had no clients booking dog walks with her. After a month (as this is how long it can take for Google or a search engine to crawl your site and make it more visible) of her website being live, she was inundated with clients via her website. Now she has a huge client base and has been running her business consistently for over a year now.
If you'd like to see exactly what's included, have a look at my Web Design page. If you're not sure what you need yet, my free brand audit is a good place to start, and I'll give you an honest look at where you are now.
