What Does a Done-For-You Website Actually Cost?
Quotes for what sounds like the same website range from under a hundred to well over ten thousand. The spread is not mostly about design quality. It is about who writes the words, who does the setup, and which recurring costs the headline number quietly excludes.
"Done-for-you" means you are buying someone else's time rather than a tool. That is the whole reason the pricing behaves the way it does — and why comparing two quotes usually means working out how much human involvement each one contains.
The tiers, and what actually separates them
| Tier | Typical cost | Who writes the content |
|---|---|---|
| Do-it-yourself builder | £0–£25/month | You |
| AI-generated, self-serve | £0–£80/month | Generated, you edit |
| Done-for-you setup | Low hundreds, one-off | Generated and finished for you |
| Freelance web designer | £800–£4,000 | A person, to brief |
| Agency | £4,000–£25,000+ | A team, with strategy |
Two businesses on the same street with the same needs can legitimately sit in different rows. A five-page site for a mobile mechanic does not need agency strategy. A site that has to integrate booking, stock and payment processing is not a template job.
Where the recurring costs hide
The build price is the part everyone quotes. These are the parts that continue:
- Domain — typically £8–£20 a year. Often bundled for year one, then billed to you.
- Hosting — anywhere from included to £30 a month.
- SSL certificate — should be included and free. If it is a line item, ask why.
- Edits — the one that surprises people. On a built-for-you site, changing your opening hours may be a billable request. On a self-serve platform it is a login.
When a cheap site is the right answer
Plenty of businesses are trading, reachable by phone, and simply have nowhere to send anyone. For them the site's job is narrow: confirm the business is real, say what it does and where, and make the phone number obvious. That job does not require a bespoke build, and spending four figures on it delays the thing that was actually needed.
The honest test is whether anything on the site has to be designed rather than merely present. If the answer is no, the cheaper tier is not a compromise.
When paying more is justified
Paying for people makes sense when the site must do something specific: sell stock with real inventory, take bookings against a calendar, rank in a competitive local market, or carry a brand that customers already recognise. In those cases the writing and structure are the product, and that is what the higher tiers are selling.
Where our own pricing sits
AI Site Builder is a self-serve tool: describe the business and it writes the copy and builds a mobile-responsive site with SSL and hosting included. The free tier publishes a real, live site on a subdomain at no cost. Paid plans add a custom domain and PayPal e-commerce at $49/month, or five sites at $79/month.
For people who would rather not do it themselves at all, there is a done-for-you setup at $297 and $497 depending on scope. You can also browse 48 complete example sites, one per trade, before deciding — which is a more useful way to judge than any price table.
Two related questions worth reading before you commit either way: whether a Google Business Profile is enough on its own, and what you still own if you stop paying.
Common questions
What is a done-for-you website?
One where somebody else does the work: the writing, the layout, the images and the setup. You supply information about the business and receive a finished, live site rather than an editor to work in yourself.
Why do quotes vary so widely for the same thing?
Because the words are the expensive part. A template populated with copy you supply is cheap. A site where someone interviews you, writes the pages and handles the setup costs more because it consumes a person's time.
Is there an ongoing cost after the site is built?
Almost always. Hosting, the domain and SSL recur regardless of who built it. Ask specifically whether the build price includes the first year and what the renewal is, because that is where quotes stop being comparable.
Do I own the site if someone else builds it?
It depends on the arrangement, and it is worth settling in writing before you pay. Ask who holds the domain registration, whether you can export the site, and what remains yours if you stop paying.