Short answer: a website redesign for a UK small business costs anywhere from a few hundred pounds to well over ten thousand, and the number on the quote depends less on how the site will look than on three things: how much content has to be moved or rewritten, whether the platform changes, and who is doing it. Below I break down what drives the price, when a redesign is the wrong answer, and how to tell whether your current site is actually costing you customers or just looks dated to you.
What drives the price of a redesign
1. Content: moved, rewritten or created
A site with eight pages of decent text and usable photos is a small job. A site with forty pages, half of them outdated, and photos from 2016 is mostly a content project with a design attached. Before asking for quotes, count your pages and decide honestly which ones still earn their place. Deleting half of them is often the best redesign decision and it costs nothing.
2. Platform: same or new
Redesigning on the same platform (a new WordPress theme, a Wix template change) is cheaper up front. Moving to a new platform costs more once, but changes the running cost for years. A WordPress site with twenty plugins needs hosting, updates, security and someone to fix it when an update breaks it. A static site on Cloudflare needs none of that and hosting is free - which is why I rebuild rather than restyle whenever the old site is more than a few years old.
3. Who does it
Rough UK ranges for a small business site, from what I see in quotes clients bring me:
| Provider | Typical redesign cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY (Wix, Squarespace) | subscription only | Your time, template limits, slower site |
| Freelancer | a few hundred to ~Β£2,000 | One person, direct contact, faster |
| Small agency | ~Β£2,000-8,000 | Designer plus developer, project manager |
| Larger agency | Β£10,000+ | Discovery, branding, custom build, retainers |
With me a rebuilt business website starts at Β£497, which sits at the low end because I work alone, use AI to shorten the repetitive parts, and build on a stack with no hosting bill. That is not a stripped-down offer - the site is faster and more secure than most agency WordPress builds - but it is a small-business offer, not an enterprise one.
4. Extras that quietly double the price
Custom illustrations, animation, a booking system, multi-language, e-commerce, CRM integration. Each is legitimate if you need it; each is a common way for a βΒ£1,500 redesignβ to become Β£5,000. Ask for these as separate line items so you can drop them.
Signs your site is costing you customers (not just looking dated)
Looking dated is a weak reason to redesign. These are strong ones:
- It is slow on a phone. Test it on your own mobile on 4G, not on office Wi-Fi. If it takes more than three seconds to show anything, you are losing visitors before they see your offer. Googleβs Core Web Vitals measure exactly this and use it in ranking.
- The phone number is not tappable, or is buried. On a local service site this alone can halve your enquiries.
- Prices, services or team are out of date. Customers assume the rest is out of date too.
- It cannot be edited without calling someone. If a price change means a Β£50 invoice and a weekβs wait, the site is a liability.
- You do not own it. If the site lives on the previous developerβs hosting account and you have no logins, a redesign is also your chance to take ownership. Check this before anything else.
- Google Search Console shows falling impressions. If the site is gradually disappearing from search, the cause is usually technical (speed, mobile, errors) and a rebuild fixes it more reliably than a restyle.
When a redesign is the wrong answer
- The site is fine but nobody visits. That is a marketing problem - SEO, Google Business Profile, ads - not a design one. A beautiful site with no traffic converts nothing.
- The problem is the offer. If visitors arrive, read and leave without calling, look at prices, proof and clarity before looking at colours.
- You want a new logo and brand. Do the branding first, then the site. Redesigning around a logo you will replace next year means paying twice.
How to redesign without losing your Google rankings
This is where cheap redesigns go wrong. The rules:
- Keep every URL that gets traffic, or 301-redirect it to the closest new page. Check Google Search Console for which pages actually receive visits before deciding what to keep.
- Keep page titles and headings for pages that rank, or improve them deliberately - do not let a designer rewrite them for aesthetics.
- Keep the content that ranks. Trim, update and tidy, but do not cut a page from 800 words to a paragraph because it βlooks cleanerβ.
- Preserve your Google Business Profile link, phone number and address exactly.
- Resubmit the sitemap and watch Search Console for errors in the first two weeks.
Done this way, a redesign almost always improves rankings, because the site gets faster and cleaner while keeping what Google already trusts.
What to ask for in a quote
- Which pages are kept, merged or deleted, and who rewrites what
- Same platform or new, and what the monthly running cost will be afterwards
- Redirect plan for old URLs
- Who owns the domain, hosting and code when it is done
- Timeline, and what it depends on from your side (usually: text and photos)
- Fixed price, not an hourly estimate - see why on the pricing page
Summary
A UK website redesign costs from a few hundred pounds to five figures, and the price is driven by content, platform and provider rather than by how it looks. Redesign when the site is slow, hard to edit, out of date or not yours; do not redesign to fix a traffic or offer problem. Keep URLs, titles and content that rank, and the redesign will help your Google visibility rather than hurt it. If you want a straightforward version of that, my website redesign service rebuilds small business sites for a fixed price with free hosting afterwards.