The web design market is opaque on purpose. £200 Fiverr, £2k freelancer, £20k agency, all called "web design". Here's an honest breakdown of what each tier actually gets you.
Ask five web designers what a website costs and you'll get five answers between £200 and £20,000. All of them are technically correct. None of them are useful.
The market is opaque because vague pricing keeps the negotiation flexible. We don't love that. So this post is the version we'd want if we were the ones buying. What you actually get at each tier, what's missing, and which one is right for you.
£695: AI-Accelerated Landing Page
One page. Designed for one job. Usually a lead-gen offer, a launch, a specific service, or an event. Built fast (about a week, sometimes faster) using AI to accelerate the build, with a real designer making the decisions.
You get a proper brief, a strategic call about the offer, copy assistance, on-brand visuals, mobile-optimised layout, a working form, basic analytics. It looks bespoke because the design decisions are bespoke. The reason it's £695 not £3,000 is the production speed, not the standard.
Right for: testing a new offer, a Meta ad campaign that needs somewhere to land, a one-off promo, an event, anything where you need a sharp single page that converts and you don't want to spend two months building it.
Wrong for: your whole company website. Don't fudge it. A single landing page is not the same job as a full site.
£1,495: AI-Accelerated Full Site
Full multi-page site. Typically 5 to 8 pages, properly mapped, properly designed, properly built. Same AI-Accelerated process, scaled up. Two to three weeks. You get a brand-consistent site that does what most small businesses actually need it to do.
Right for: established small businesses, coaches, consultants, trades, gyms, anyone where the website's job is "look credible, explain the offer, generate enquiries". Most websites are this. Most websites should be this.
Wrong for: brands that need every pixel hand-crafted because the visual identity is the product. Hospitality, premium retail, design-led startups. You'll want the next tier.
£2,500+: Bespoke
Every pixel hand-built. The brief starts further back: positioning, messaging architecture, visual identity if needed. The design process is longer because the decisions are bigger. Custom animation, custom illustrations, custom interactions, custom code where it counts. Four to eight weeks.
The output looks the same as a flagship agency site because the same designers build it. The price isn't "the AI tier with a markup". The price reflects the depth of the work.
Right for: brand-defining sites, hero brands, premium positioning, products where the website is the moat, anything where a generic-looking page will actively cost you the sale.
What's the same at every tier
- Real strategic thinking before anything gets designed
- Mobile-first build and proper Lighthouse-grade performance
- On-brand visuals (no nine-fingered AI stock photos)
- Working forms, working analytics, working everything
- A designer you can actually talk to
What's different at each tier
- Production speed: days, weeks, or a full design sprint
- Component depth: smart reusable blocks vs fully custom
- Brand strategy: light-touch vs full identity work
- Animation and interaction: clean defaults vs hand-tuned motion
- Custom code: minimal vs whatever the brief demands
How to know which tier you're in
Easiest test: what happens if your website looks roughly like your competitor's? If the answer is "nothing, I win on service and reputation", AI-Accelerated is fine. If the answer is "I lose, because my whole positioning is premium", you need Bespoke.
There's no shame in either. There's a lot of shame in spending £4,000 on a site you didn't need, or £600 on one that was always going to flop.
