How much does it cost to run a website in the UK?

The cost of running a website in the UK

These are the costs a practice website can carry once it is live. Most sites need the first four. The rest depend on how your site is built and how much you want to do yourself.

Prices checked October 2026 on providers' own pages (Krystal, Google Workspace, Squarespace, Yoast) and in UK pricing guides from kwiboo, Webpop Design and several maintenance providers. Check whether VAT is included before you compare.

How much does it cost to host a website in the UK?

If your site is on Wix or Squarespace, hosting is part of the plan and you never pay for it separately. If it is on WordPress, you choose a host.

For a small practice site, shared hosting is normally enough. UK host Krystal lists plans from £7 a month, and pricing guides put typical shared hosting at £7 to £12 a month at renewal rates, with managed WordPress hosting at roughly £9 to £18. That puts website hosting charges per year at somewhere around £85 to £220 for most small sites.

Two things to watch. First, introductory prices: a lot of hosting is cheap for the first year and noticeably dearer after. Second, what the host does for you. Some include daily backups and automatic updates. Others leave both to you, which matters more than a few pounds a month.

Booking software sits outside all of this. Most practices take bookings through a practice management system and link to it from the site. That subscription can cost more than the website itself, so budget for it separately. Our guide to practice management software compares the main options.

What a practice realistically spends a year

Three illustrative setups, built from the prices above. Your own figures will differ, but the pattern usually holds.

A solo therapist on Squarespace

Squarespace Core on annual billing at £17 a month is £204 a year. Add a domain renewal of around £12 to £15 after the first year, and one Google Workspace mailbox at about £71 a year. Total: roughly £290 a year, plus your own time for any changes.

A three-practitioner physio clinic on WordPress, self-managed

Hosting at £11 a month is £132 a year. A domain is around £13. One paid SEO plugin is about £119. Three mailboxes are about £212. Total: roughly £475 a year, before anyone's time spent on updates and edits.

The same clinic with a care plan

Add a care plan at £50 a month and the total rises to around £1,075 a year. In return, someone else handles updates, backups and security, and often small edits too.

These line up with the broader UK estimate in kwiboo's January 2026 guide, which puts typical running costs for a small business site at £500 to £2,500 a year.

How much does it cost to maintain a website?

Maintenance covers two different jobs, and it helps to keep them apart.

Technical upkeep

Software updates, backups, security monitoring and checking the site is up. On Wix and Squarespace the platform does this for you, so there is little to pay for. On WordPress, someone has to apply updates to the core software, the theme and every plugin, and check nothing breaks. Left alone, an out-of-date WordPress site is a security risk.

Content upkeep

Changing fees, adding a new practitioner, updating opening hours, taking down a treatment you no longer offer. Every site needs this, whatever it is built on. For a practice it matters more than for most businesses, because out-of-date information about practitioners, qualifications or prices can mislead patients, and some regulators expect it to be kept current. Dental practice websites, for example, must show the date they were last updated.

If you pay someone by the hour, a small edit might take fifteen minutes to an hour. Freelance rates are often £40 to £80 an hour. If you make a lot of small changes, a plan with edits included usually works out cheaper. If you make two a year, it doesn't.

If the site has drifted so far out of date that editing it feels pointless, it may be time for something bigger. Our guide to website redesign costs helps you decide between a refresh and a rebuild.

Is a monthly website care plan worth it?

It depends on how your site is built and how often it changes. Here is the case for and against, without the sales pitch.

When a care plan makes sense

• Your site runs on WordPress and nobody in the practice is comfortable applying updates or restoring a backup
• You change the site most months: new practitioners, offers, fees, class timetables
• Booking and enquiry forms are how most patients reach you, so a broken form costs real money before anyone notices
• You would rather have a fixed monthly cost than an unpredictable bill when something goes wrong

When it probably doesn't

• Your site is on Wix or Squarespace, which already handle hosting, security and updates
• You change the site a couple of times a year and are happy to do it, or to pay for an hour of someone's time
• The plan on offer is vague about what it covers. Some cheap plans do little more than switch on automatic updates
• There is a long minimum term or the provider keeps ownership of your site

Pay monthly web design pricing is a related but different thing: the build and the upkeep rolled into one fee. That can be good value, but compare the total over two or three years with paying upfront, and check who owns the site if you stop. Our guide to how much a website costs works through that comparison.

How to cut running costs without cutting corners

• Pay annually for your builder plan, hosting and email if you are confident you will keep them. The savings are usually worthwhile.
• Diarise renewals. Domains and hosting often jump in price after year one. A reminder a month before lets you compare or move.
• Keep the domain in your name. It is the one thing you can't easily replace. If a provider registered it for you, ask for it to be transferred to an account you control.
• Remove plugins you don't use. Each one is a cost, a security risk or both.
• Review the site once a year. Check fees, team, services and that every form still arrives. An hour a year prevents most of the expensive surprises.

If you would rather hand all of this over, our done-for-you practice websites roll hosting, updates and edits into one monthly fee.

Not a website cost, but often forgotten: if your practice handles patient information, you will usually need to pay the ICO data protection fee, which is £52 a year for most small organisations, or £47 by direct debit.