Start with the job the website must do
A five-page site that explains your business is a different purchase from a website that captures enquiries, answers recurring questions and connects to your job system. Comparing the headline price without the scope can hide the most important difference.
For a service business, begin with the customer decision: what work do you want, what does the customer need to know before making contact, and who will respond? Useful service content and a reliable enquiry route should come before an expensive feature list.
Three UDS starting points, with different scopes
These are UDS prices in GBP, not a UK market average. They help you choose a starting point; we confirm the content, features, responsibilities and final price before work starts. A paid review is not required before commissioning a new site.
- Starter Business Website — £1,295: up to five core pages, a responsive layout and a straightforward contact route.
- AI-Ready Lead Website — From £2,495: eight to twelve pages with technical SEO, search setup and a structured enquiry form.
- AI-Ready Lead Website + Assistant — From £5,500: the lead-website foundation plus a controlled assistant using approved business content.
Separate website content from operational software
A form that sends a useful enquiry to your team is not the same scope as a CRM, quotation engine, booking system or customer portal. Those features add decisions about accounts, permissions, pricing rules, existing records and what happens when something fails.
You do not necessarily need to replace the tools you already use. One agreed integration may connect a website enquiry to an existing lead record. Quote approval and invoice sending should remain explicit steps, not hidden side effects of filling in a form.
Content also needs an owner. Agree who writes and approves service descriptions, supplies usable photographs and obtains permission for project references. A page count alone does not explain that work.
Allow for running costs and future changes
A build price is not the whole cost of ownership. At UDS, Managed Hosting is £20/month or £200/year; Website Care is £65/month and includes managed hosting plus 30 minutes of changes monthly. These are different services, not charges to add together automatically.
Domains, paid assets, third-party subscriptions and AI model usage may be additional costs. Ask which are included, who pays the supplier, what usage limits apply and how you can move the site or data later.
Ongoing content and search improvement is separate from keeping a site online. Agree what gets reviewed, how much change time is included and what report you receive. Neither a one-off build nor a monthly service can guarantee a ranking or a particular number of customers.
Before accepting a quote, get these answers
A useful quote makes the delivery and handover understandable. A lower price can be suitable when the scope is smaller; an unclear scope is a problem at any price.
- Which pages, content preparation and revisions are included?
- What exactly happens when someone submits the enquiry form, and how will that be tested?
- If replacing a site, which existing URLs and content will be retained or redirected?
- Who controls the domain, hosting, source files, Search Console and other business accounts?
- What is included after launch, what costs extra, and what happens if a third-party service fails?
- For an assistant, what can it answer, when must it hand off, and who maintains its approved information?
Sometimes the right purchase is a repair, not a rebuild
If your current site already explains the business well, start by finding the actual problem. The £495 Website Search & Conversion Review is an optional written assessment of one existing site, its search foundations and enquiry journey.
Send the current URL, the services you most want to sell and a short description of what is not working. That is enough to start a sensible conversation; you do not need to arrive with a technical specification.