How much does a WordPress website cost?

WordPress powers roughly 43% of the web because it's flexible, owns its category, and scales from a £200 hobby blog to a £200,000 enterprise platform. The flip side is that "how much does a WordPress site cost" has no single answer — the right number depends on whether you're DIY-ing a theme, hiring a freelancer for a custom build, or commissioning a studio to engineer a bespoke platform. Here's the full picture for 2026.

DIY WordPress (£150–£600 year one)

Buy a domain (£12), sign up for managed hosting like SiteGround or Cloudways (£8–£25/month), install WordPress in one click, pick a free or premium theme (£0–£100) and configure it yourself. Realistic time investment: 30–80 hours. Outcome: a functional site that looks like the theme demo and will need maintenance attention you probably won't give it. Right answer for hobbyists and very early-stage businesses.

Freelance WordPress build (£1,500–£6,000)

The sweet spot for UK small businesses. You hire a freelancer who designs something custom (or skilfully customises a premium theme), builds it properly, installs the right plugins, configures backups and security, and hands over a site you fully own. Add £500–£1,500 if you want professional copywriting, £400–£1,500 for photography, £200–£800/year for premium plugin licences.

Studio WordPress build (£6,000–£25,000)

A 2–6 person studio gives you a designer, developer, project manager and QA. You get a custom design system, bespoke ACF or Gutenberg blocks, accessibility compliance, performance budgets and a documented handover. Justified once your website is a serious revenue channel and a 10% conversion uplift translates to real money.

Bespoke WordPress / WooCommerce (£15,000–£80,000+)

Custom plugins, integrations with CRMs, ERPs and booking systems, multi-site networks, headless WordPress with a Next.js or TanStack front-end. Build times of 4–8 months and ongoing engineering retainers. Relevant for businesses doing £500k+ of online revenue or operating in regulated industries with serious compliance needs.

The unavoidable annual costs

Whatever you build, you'll pay: domain (£10–£15), managed hosting (£100–£500), SSL (free via Let's Encrypt on most managed hosts), premium plugins (£200–£800), backup storage (£0–£60), email if not bundled (£60–£140/user via Google Workspace). Realistic year-two running cost for a healthy small business WordPress site: £400–£1,200 before any maintenance retainer.

Maintenance — the cost most people forget

WordPress needs updates. Core releases drop several times a year, plugins update weekly, themes need patching, and a stale install is a hacked install waiting to happen. Care plans run £30–£400/month depending on traffic, WooCommerce complexity and how many edits you want included. Self-managing is free in cash terms but expensive in attention — and the moment you get hacked it's a £500–£2,000 cleanup bill.

What I charge

Custom WordPress brochure sites (6–10 pages): £1,800–£3,500. Content-heavy sites (15–30 pages): £3,500–£7,500. WooCommerce stores: from £4,500. Every build is fixed-price, custom-designed (no theme installs dressed up as bespoke work), SEO-ready and handed over with training. Care plans from £49/month from month two if you want me to look after it.