Cheap websites: what you get, what you don't, and the hidden catch

A cheap website can cost anywhere from nothing to a few hundred pounds, but the low price usually comes with trade-offs: templated design, limited flexibility, little or no support, and ongoing costs that aren't obvious upfront. For a simple personal project a cheap site is fine, but for a business that relies on its website, the cheapest option often works out most expensive once the hidden costs and lost customers are counted.

"Cheap" isn't automatically bad, and "expensive" isn't automatically good. The real question is what you're getting for the price, and what you're quietly giving up. Here's the honest breakdown.

What counts as a cheap website?

At the budget end of the UK market, you're typically looking at:

• DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy): roughly £9 to £50 a month, you build it yourself
• Budget freelancers or offshore providers: a few hundred pounds for a basic site
• Templated "website in a day" offers: a low one-off fee for a pre-made layout with your details dropped in

All of these can produce something that looks acceptable. The question is whether acceptable is enough for your business.

What you actually get for the money

A cheap website usually means some combination of:

• A template, not a custom design, so your site looks like many others
• Limited flexibility to change layout or add features as you grow
• Little or no ongoing support once it's live
• Basic or no SEO setup, so being found is harder
• You doing the work, or managing it yourself, which costs your time

None of that is necessarily a problem for a hobby, a side project, or testing an idea. It becomes a problem when the website is meant to win you customers.

Where the hidden costs hide

The sticker price is rarely the real price. The catches with cheap websites tend to be:

• Your time. DIY is only cheap if your time is worth nothing. Hours spent wrestling a builder are hours not spent running your business.
• Ongoing fees. Hosting, domain, premium templates, apps and add-ons stack up on "cheap" platforms, often quietly.
• Lost customers. A slow, templated, hard-to-navigate site costs you enquiries you never see. That's the most expensive cost of all, and the least visible.
• The redo. Many cheap sites get replaced within a year once the business outgrows them, so you pay twice.

A website that costs little but brings in nothing isn't cheap. It's just inexpensive.

When a cheap website is the right call

To be fair, there are times a budget site makes complete sense:

• A personal site, portfolio, or hobby project
• A brand-new business testing an idea before investing
• A simple holding page while something bigger is built
• Any situation where the website genuinely isn't central to how you make money

If that's you, a DIY builder or a simple low-cost site is a sensible, honest choice. Don't overspend on something that doesn't need to pull its weight.

When cheap costs you more

The budget route tends to backfire when:

• Your website is a main source of enquiries or sales
• First impressions matter to your customers
• You need it to look credible against competitors
• You don't have the time or skills to build and maintain it yourself

In those cases, a cheap site quietly loses you more in missed business than you saved on the build, and you often end up paying again to put it right.

The middle ground: quality without the big upfront bill

The reason many businesses reach for a cheap website is cash flow. A proper custom site has traditionally meant a large upfront fee, so budget builders feel like the only affordable option.

That's exactly the gap the pay monthly model closes. Instead of a big one-off cost or a cut-price template, you get a custom, professionally built and maintained website for a predictable monthly fee, with no upfront bill. At Studio 61, that starts at £189 a month plus VAT, with hosting, support and updates included. It means affordable and quality stop being a trade-off.

So before defaulting to the cheapest option, it's worth asking whether the real choice is cheap versus expensive, or whether there's now a third option that gives you a proper website without the upfront hit.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a cheap website cost in the UK? A cheap website typically costs from around £9 to £50 a month on a DIY builder, or a few hundred pounds from a budget freelancer. These produce templated sites with limited flexibility and little support, which suits simple projects more than businesses.

Are cheap websites worth it? For a hobby, portfolio or idea being tested, a cheap website is a sensible choice. For a business that relies on its website for enquiries or sales, a cheap site often costs more in lost customers and eventual rebuilds than it saves upfront.

How can I get a good website without a big upfront cost? A pay monthly website gives you a custom, professionally built and maintained site for a predictable monthly fee with no upfront build cost, closing the gap between cheap templates and expensive one-off builds.

Want a proper website without the big upfront bill or the cheap-template compromise? Book a free discovery call and we'll show you what's possible.