The cheapest trade website that doesn't look cheap
Every low-cost route to a trade website, ranked on what it really costs over two years, and where to spend the little money you do have.
You can put a trade website online for nothing this afternoon, and most that do look it. The honest figure to fix in your head is two years, not one month. Over 24 months the four routes come out at £0, £240 to £600, £420 to £1,620 and £1,300, and the cheapest number on that list is attached to the worst website. "Cheap" and "looks cheap" are two different problems, and they're not solved by spending more. They're solved by spending the small budget on the three or four things customers actually judge you on, and skipping everything else.
This runs through the low-cost routes in order, what each really costs once you count two years, and, the part most guides skip, exactly what to keep and what to cut so a budget site still reads as a proper business and not a weekend project.
The cheapest trade website that still looks professional is a paid builder plan at £10 to £25 a month, roughly £240 to £600 over two years, if you will build and run it yourself. If you will not, a done-for-you site is £50 every four weeks with no build fee, about £1,300 across two years. A free tier adds the platform's branding and a subdomain, which reads as amateur to a British customer. The cheapest upgrade of all is your own domain, £10 to £15 a year.
The cheapest ways for a UK trade to get a website, ranked
The low-cost routes in 2026 are, from cheapest first: a free builder tier (£0, but branded), a paid builder subscription (£120 to £300 a year), a budget freelancer (£300 to £1,500 once), and a done-for-you hand-coded site (no build fee, £50 every four weeks), and the order does not change once you count two years, but what you are buying does.
Free builder tiers (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)
Every big builder has a free tier, and on paper it's unbeatable: £0. The catch is what "free" puts on your site, the platform's own branding, adverts, and a subdomain like yourname.wixsite.com instead of a real address. To a customer comparing two trades, that's the tell that you didn't take it seriously. Free is only sensible as a throwaway test, never as the site people actually judge you on.
Paid builder subscriptions
Move to a paid plan and you drop the branding and get your own domain. Wix and Squarespace paid tiers run from roughly £10 to £25 a month, as published on their pricing pages. That buys a credible-enough DIY site, but it's a meter that never stops, and you're building and maintaining it on your own time.
Budget freelancer or hand-coded
A freelancer might do a simple page for £300 to £1,500, with quality as variable as the price. A done-for-you hand-coded site now carries no build fee at all: £50 every four weeks, built and looked after for you, with hosting, the domain and edits included. That is the dearest of the four over two years and the only one where none of the work is yours. Managed trade plans of this kind cluster tightly on price, which is why what Digital Tradies costs a tradesman is worth reading line by line before you sign anything. The full route-by-route sum is on the tradesman website cost page.
What "cheap" actually costs a British trade over two years
Over 24 months a paid builder costs £240 to £600 in subscription you pay while doing all the work yourself, against about £1,300 for a done-for-you hand-coded site at £50 every four weeks with nothing to pay on day one, so the builder is genuinely cheaper in cash and the £700 difference buys back every hour of the work.
DIY subscription vs done for you
A £15 a month builder plan is cheaper than £50 every four weeks, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Over two years it is roughly £360 against £1,300. What the difference buys is that none of it is your job: the build, the writing, the photos, the hosting, the SSL, the domain and every edit afterwards. If you have the evenings and you enjoy it, the builder wins on money and it is the right answer. If your evenings are quotes and invoices, you are choosing between £1,300 and a website that never quite gets finished.
| Route | Day one | Two-year total | Done for you? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free builder tier | £0 | £0 (branded, weak) | No |
| Paid builder | £0 | £240 to £600 | No |
| Budget freelancer | £300 to £1,500 | £420 to £1,620 | Build only |
| Done-for-you plan | £0 | £1,300 (26 payments of £50) | Yes |
The cost you can't see: your own time
DIY routes hide their biggest cost. If your day rate is £200 to £350, a weekend building the site plus evenings maintaining it is real money. Counting that, "free" and "cheap" builders are often the dearest option of all.
What to keep and what to safely skip
To stay cheap without looking cheap, keep your own domain, three to five real job photos, genuine reviews, your accreditation number and a clear phone number, and skip the blog, booking systems, live chat and any page that exists only to look busy.
The five things to always keep
- Your own domain, about £10 to £15 a year, the cheapest upgrade with the biggest effect.
- Real photos of real jobs, three to five beats fifty stock images.
- Genuine reviews, a handful of real ones, named, beat a wall of anonymous five stars.
- Your accreditation, Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT or your trade body, stated plainly.
- A clear phone number, visible without scrolling, tap-to-call on mobile.
What you can drop without losing a single enquiry
Skip the blog you'll never write, the booking calendar nobody uses, live chat you can't man, animated intros, and every page past what you actually offer. A single tight page with the five things above out-performs a bloated five-page site. For the full list of what earns its place, see the three-year sum on paying monthly against paying once.
The mistakes that make a cheap UK trade site look cheap
A budget site reads as amateur for predictable reasons, a free subdomain, stock photos of other people's work, no real reviews, and a template thousands of others use, and every one of them is avoidable on the same small budget.
The free-subdomain giveaway
Nothing says "didn't bother" like mybusiness.wixsite.com in the address bar. A real domain costs less than a tank of diesel a year and fixes it instantly. It's the first thing to spend money on, before anything else.
Stock photos and empty trust
Generic stock images of strangers in clean overalls fool no one and quietly say you've nothing of your own to show. Four photos off your own phone, of jobs you actually did, beat them every time. Same with reviews, a few real, named ones carry more weight than a row of anonymous stars.
The template tell
A stock builder template shared by thousands of businesses is recognisable to a lot of customers. You don't need an expensive site to avoid it, you need one built around your trade rather than dropped into a layout meant for a café. If you're weighing the platforms themselves, the what to do when your web designer stops replying breaks each down.
The cost that only shows up in year two
Every cheap route carries a second bill that arrives later: your own hours on a builder, a freelancer who has moved on, or a platform price rise you did not vote for.
The free tier costs you credibility on day one. The paid builder costs you the weekends nobody counts, and keeps costing them, because a site you built yourself is a site only you can update. The budget freelancer is the one that catches most UK trades out: the build is genuinely cheap, and then eighteen months later there is a change to make and the phone number does not answer.
None of those show up in a price comparison, because they are not prices. They are the reason the cheapest option at the point of sale is so rarely the cheapest option by the time you stop using it. Decide what you want the second year to look like, then pick the route that gets you there.
The cheapest route that still looks the part in Britain
For a working trade on a budget, the best-value option is a done-for-you hand-coded one-pager on your own domain, built to look like a real business rather than a free template, with the hosting, upkeep and edits all handled so it keeps working.
The bottom line on going cheap
Cheap is fine. Cheap-looking isn't. The trick isn't spending more, it's putting the small budget into a real domain, real photos, real reviews and your accreditation, and cutting everything that only exists to look busy. Do that and the cheapest site on this page reads as a proper business; skip it and a £2,000 one still won't.
See it free before you spend anything
I'll build you a free mockup of your actual business first, your trade, your area, your photos, so you can see the cheap-but-credible version before paying a penny. There is no build fee and nothing to pay on day one, then £50 every four weeks with hosting, SSL, the domain and unlimited small edits included. Three months minimum and then rolling, your first payment back if you do not like the finished site, and after twelve months the site and the domain are yours to keep. Apply at sitework.uk/#apply.