By Renie Ravin, co-founder of InkySites. Updated 9 November 2026. Every price on this page was read on the company's own page on 9 November 2026, as it shows to a visitor in the UK. Having a site built rather than running one? Read what a small-business website costs to build in the UK.
What goes on your yearly website bill
Your bill is made of hosting, your web address, the security certificate, business email, paid plugin licences and, if someone looks after your site, a care plan. If you sell online, add a fee on every sale. The table gives a low, a middle and a high published price for each line, with its source and VAT status. A builder plan replaces the hosting line. Budget for each renewal price.
| What you pay for | Published UK prices, low to high |
|---|---|
| Web address (.co.uk or .uk)every year | Low: Krystal £7.99 before VAT, the same at renewal. Others: Fasthosts renews at £12.83 before VAT (£15.40 including VAT); 123 Reg and GoDaddy renew at £12.99, and do not say whether VAT is included. |
| Web address (.com)every year | Low: Krystal £11.99 before VAT, the same at renewal. Others: Fasthosts renews at £16.92 before VAT (£20.30 including VAT); 123 Reg renews at £18.99, and does not say whether VAT is included. |
| Shared hostinga monthly figure, often prepaid for a term | Low: IONOS Standard renews at £6 a month. Middle: 123 Reg Economy renews at £251.64 for three years (£6.99 a month by our sum). High: SiteGround StartUp renews at £13.99 a month, prepaid for 12 months. All before VAT. |
| WordPress hostingmonthly or yearly | Low: IONOS WordPress Start renews at £5 a month before VAT. Middle: Names.co.uk Managed WordPress Starter, £10.99 a month after the first month. We read no managed WordPress price in pounds above it. |
| Or a website builder, in place of hostingpaid yearly | Low: GoDaddy Starter, £7.49 a month billed annually. Middle: Wix Light £9 a month, before tax; Squarespace Basic £12 a month (£16 paid monthly). High: Shopify Basic, £19 a month (£25 paid monthly), for a shop. GoDaddy, Squarespace and Shopify do not say whether VAT is included. |
| Security certificate (SSL)every year | Free from Let's Encrypt, free with a GoDaddy annual plan, and included with website builders. Paid: IONOS SSL Starter £30 a year; 123 Reg Managed DV renews at £359.97. Both before VAT. |
| Business email, per personevery month | Low: Zoho Mail Lite, £0.80, yearly only. Middle: Microsoft 365 Business Basic, £5.40 paid yearly; Google Workspace Business Starter, £5.90 after a half-price introductory offer. High: Google Workspace Business Standard, £11.80. All before tax. |
| Care plan with no changes includedevery month | WP Manager Standard £29 before VAT; ALT Agency MOT £75 plus VAT, with a three-month minimum; FSE Online Essential £95.00 plus VAT, backups and updates only. |
| Care plan with some changesevery month | Low: DexCloud DexCare £19.99 (15 minutes of edits, hosting not included, VAT not stated). Middle: SWSweb Essential £49 before VAT (30 minutes, hosting included). High: designbox Premium £499 before VAT (6 hours), or £4,990 a year. |
| Changes by the houreach time you ask | Low: SWSweb, £35. Middle: Neptune Media £55, with a £35 minimum for a change of up to 30 minutes; Infinity3 £75, billed in 15-minute steps. High: designbox £100 (£80 on a plan). All before VAT. |
| Hack clean-up, if your plan leaves it outeach time it happens | ThriveWP £99 if you are not on a plan (VAT not stated); Newt Labs one-off malware removal £149 before VAT. See below. |
| WordPress plugin licencesevery year | Elementor Pro Essential £48 for the first year (its page leaves the renewal price blank); Elementor One renews at £192; WooCommerce Subscriptions £211. The pages do not say whether VAT is included. |
| Payment fees, if you sell onlineon every sale | UK cards online: Square 1.4% + 25p; Stripe 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards; PayPal 2.9% plus a fixed fee of 0.30 GBP. Shopify Payments on Basic 2% + 25p. Squarespace Basic charges two fees: a card rate of 2.0% + £0.25 and a 2% online store transaction fee. |
| VATon top, at 20% | Most of these prices are before VAT. See below. |
All prices in pounds as each company published them, with VAT shown the way each page printed it. A builder plan includes its own hosting and security certificate, so it replaces those two lines. Prices are not converted, rounded or averaged.
Why your second year costs more
The low price on a hosting sign-up page is for year one. SiteGround StartUp is £1.99 a month, prepaid for 12 months, then renews at £13.99 a month before VAT: about 7 times as much. IONOS Plus is £1 a month for 12 months, then £9 a month before VAT, which is 9 times as much. Some low monthly figures are a long prepaid term divided by the months. Hostinger's lowest price means paying £71.52 today for 48 months. Your web address and email can jump too. Fasthosts' .co.uk is £1 for the first year and renews at £12.83 a year before VAT. A 123 Reg mailbox is £23.88 today and renews at £47.88 a year before VAT. Before you pay, read the renewal line under the headline price, and budget for that figure.
What does a website care plan include?
Every UK care plan we read is for WordPress sites. Some plans include no changes at all. WP Manager Standard, £29 a month before VAT, leaves out development and design hours. Where changes are included, they are counted: 15 minutes a month on DexCloud DexCare, 30 minutes on SWSweb Essential, up to 6 hours on designbox's top plan. Work outside a plan costs £35 to £100 an hour at the UK firms we read, before VAT. Check the terms too. ALT Agency has a three-month minimum term, and designbox charges a £250 plus VAT audit if it did not build your site. You can now ask your provider how much change time you get, and what an extra hour costs.
If your site is hacked, is the fix in your plan?
Some UK plans leave hack clean-up out, mostly on the cheapest tier, and sell it apart. Newt Labs' £79 Maintenance plan leaves out malware removal, which costs £149 before VAT as a one-off. ThriveWP's Maintenance Lite excludes it. Navitas leaves it out, and DexCloud sells major malware clean-up apart. Other plans include it: designbox says "No emergency invoice.", and Infinity3 includes malware removal on every plan. Ask now, while your site works, whether a clean-up is in your plan and what it costs if not.
Does your website price include VAT?
The standard VAT rate is 20%, and it covers most goods and services. Most of the web prices we read are printed before VAT, including those from IONOS, Microsoft and Google. If your business is not VAT-registered, you pay the 20% on top. A business must register once its taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000. A smaller one need not, so two quotes for the same work can differ by 20%. This is general guidance, not tax advice, and an accountant can say what applies to you. Before you compare quotes, ask whether each includes VAT.
What makes your bill higher or lower
- Builder or WordPress: a builder plan covers hosting and the certificate, while WordPress bills hosting, licences and care as separate lines
- Selling online: each sale carries a card fee, such as 1.5% + 20p at Stripe for standard UK cards, and Squarespace Basic adds a 2% store fee on top
- Paid plugins: licences such as Elementor One, £144 for the first year and £192 after, renew every year, so they stay on your bill while your site uses them
- Who makes your changes: a care plan counts minutes or hours, and work past them is billed by the hour
- How many mailboxes: business email is priced per person, so each new person adds to it every month
Traps to spot on your website bill
- The 1p first year: 123 Reg's .com is £0.01 for year one, then £18.99, and Fasthosts' .co.uk goes from £1 to £12.83 a year before VAT
- Your address in someone else's name: whoever is on the .uk register holds it, and moving it to you costs £10 plus VAT through Nominet
- A care plan with no changes in it: WP Manager Standard leaves out development and design hours, and ALT Agency quotes ad hoc work separately
- Prices before VAT: IONOS says "All prices exclude VAT charged at 20%.", so your bill is higher if you are not VAT-registered
- Free, paid another way: Wix's free plan carries a Wix banner ad, Squarespace's free first-year address renews at its standard rate, and Wix says your site must run on its servers
Questions to send before you renew
- What will I pay at renewal, and is that before or after VAT?
- Is my web address registered in my name, and when does it expire?
- How many minutes or hours of changes does my plan include each month?
- What do you charge per hour for changes outside the plan?
- If my site is hacked or an update breaks it, is the fix inside the plan?
- Is there a minimum term, and what notice do I need to give?
- What happens to my site and my files if I stop paying or leave?
- Which licences and add-ons am I paying for, and when does each renew?
When your current setup is worth keeping
If your renewal price is the one you expected, your changes get done when you ask, and your web address is in your name, you may have little to gain from moving. A setup that works and that you understand has value of its own. Check one line first: who is listed as the registrant of your web address. If it is you, every later choice stays yours.
Where InkySites fits on your bill
InkySites builds a fresh version of your site from its public pages, free, by email within 48 hours, with no card. If you like it, it is $29 a month for hosting and unlimited reasonable changes, which you ask for by email. Reasonable means new text, photos, prices or pages; a ground-up redesign or a new online store is a separate conversation. There is no setup fee or notice period: you pay monthly, and billing stops when you cancel. We do not sell web addresses or business email, or build full online stores. Your web address stays yours, at your own registrar, and your code comes back to you whenever you ask, free.
Questions people ask
How much does website maintenance cost per month in the UK?
On 9 November 2026, website builder plans paid yearly cost £7.49 to £19 a month, with hosting included. Self-hosted WordPress hosting renews at £5 to £13.99 a month before VAT, plus your web address and any licences. A UK care plan, where a firm looks after your site, runs from £19.99 a month (VAT not stated) to £499 a month before VAT. Budget for the renewal price, since the first-year price can be much lower.
Why did my hosting price go up after the first year?
Some hosts sell year one at a low introductory price and renew at a higher one. On 9 November 2026, SiteGround StartUp was £1.99 a month for a prepaid 12 months, renewing at £13.99 a month before VAT. IONOS Plus was £1 a month for 12 months, then £9 a month before VAT. The renewal price is printed on the host's price page, so read that line before your next payment.
Does a website care plan include changes?
Some do and some do not. Among the UK plans we read, WP Manager Standard (£29 a month before VAT) leaves out development and design hours, and FSE Online Essential covers backups and updates only. Where changes are included, they are counted: 15 minutes a month on DexCloud DexCare, 30 minutes on SWSweb Essential, up to 6 hours on designbox's top plan. Ask how much time your plan includes before your first request.
What should a .co.uk web address cost a year?
On 9 November 2026, a .co.uk renewed at £7.99 a year before VAT at Krystal, the same as its first year. 123 Reg and GoDaddy renewed it at £12.99 a year and did not say whether VAT was included. Fasthosts charged £1 for the first year, then £12.83 a year before VAT. On a .uk address the registry hides your name and postal address by default, so ask before paying for a privacy add-on.
Do UK website prices include VAT?
Most of the prices we read on 9 November 2026 do not. IONOS says "All prices exclude VAT charged at 20%.", Microsoft says its price does not include VAT, and Google says its price does not include tax. If your business is not VAT-registered, you pay the 20% on top. A seller under the £90,000 turnover threshold need not register, so two quotes for the same work can differ by 20%. An accountant can say what applies to your business.
How we got these prices
On 9 November 2026 we read more than 300 price, plan, terms and help pages, plus GOV.UK's VAT pages, from a UK location. Care-plan and hourly figures come only from firms whose own pages show they are UK-based. We wrote each price as published, with its VAT status as printed, and never converted or averaged one. Any multiple is our own arithmetic. We update this page when prices move, and change the date when we do.
Every page these prices came from
- Web addresses: Krystal, Fasthosts, 123 Reg, GoDaddy .co.uk, and Nominet, which runs .uk: its registration terms, its transfer service, its privacy default and its fee to registrars
- Hosting: IONOS, IONOS WordPress, 123 Reg, SiteGround, Hostinger, Names.co.uk
- Website builders: GoDaddy, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Wix on its free plan's banner, Wix on hosting elsewhere
- Security certificates: Let's Encrypt, GoDaddy, IONOS, 123 Reg
- Email: Zoho Mail, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, 123 Reg email
- Care plans and hourly rates: WP Manager, ALT Agency, FSE Online, DexCloud, SWSweb, designbox, Neptune Media, Infinity3, Newt Labs and its one-off malware removal, ThriveWP and its malware removal, Navitas
- Licences: Elementor, WooCommerce Subscriptions
- Payment fees: Square, Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, Squarespace
- VAT: GOV.UK VAT rates, GOV.UK on registering for VAT, GOV.UK on charging VAT
See who holds your web address, free
Run the free site check to see who your web address is registered with, when it expires and what your site runs on. You need no email, and nothing on your site changes. Or ask for a free preview of your site, rebuilt by email.