If you have asked three agencies for a website quote, you probably received three wildly different numbers. One says £500, one says £5,000, and one will not give you a price until you sit through a discovery call. This guide breaks down what websites actually cost in Manchester in 2026, what drives the price up, and where you genuinely should not overpay.
Typical price ranges in 2026
Based on the projects we quote and deliver at Migap, and on what local businesses tell us they were quoted elsewhere, these are realistic Manchester ranges:
- Landing page (single page, conversion-focused): £300 to £800
- Small business website (4 to 8 pages): £900 to £2,500
- Business website with CMS and blog: £1,500 to £4,000
- E-commerce store: £2,000 to £8,000
- Custom web app or SaaS MVP: £3,500 to £15,000+
What actually drives the price
Four things move a quote more than anything else: custom design versus a template, content management (whether you need to edit pages yourself), integrations (booking systems, payments, CRMs), and who is actually building it. A large agency carries account managers and office overhead into every invoice; an independent studio does not. That difference alone often explains a £3,000 gap between quotes for the same site.
Speed matters commercially too. Google's own research and its PageSpeed Insights tooling show that slow pages lose visitors before the page even renders, so a cheap site that loads in five seconds is usually the most expensive option you can buy.
The hidden costs to ask about
Hosting, domain renewals, SSL, plugin licences and "maintenance retainers" are where low headline prices recover their margin. Always ask what happens after launch and what year two costs. At Migap, every project includes the first year of premium hosting, a domain and SSL, and after that hosting renews at a flat £150 per year, so there are no surprises.
If you are starting a business, it is also worth checking the free guidance on GOV.UK business support before committing budget; some regions offer digital growth grants that can cover part of a website build.
So what should you pay?
Pay for outcomes, not page counts. A £900 site that turns visitors into enquiries is cheap; a £4,000 site that nobody finds is expensive. Look at real delivered work (our portfolio is here, every project is live and clickable), ask for a fixed quote in writing, and be suspicious of anyone who cannot explain their price in plain English.
Want a number for your specific project? Get a free fixed quote, or read more about web design in Manchester.