What a B2B website costs in 2026 – and what drives up the initial cost.

So you’ve been tasked with getting some ballpark costs for a new B2B website?

This article will help you get started by outlining all the variables that will impact that initial investment. We’ve also added a scorecard at the end of the article so you can be sure you’re getting what you need when reviewing proposals. Because there's nothing worse than hearing "we didn't know you needed that" mid-project. Assumptions now cost money later.

Who is this for?

We're assuming you work in B2B marketing or sales, and you’re looking for something custom for your organisation. If you want a comparison of website builders — Wix, Squarespace and the rest — this isn’t the article for you. We’re laying out the decisions that will drive the cost of your project. And if this is your first website, this probably isn’t the place for you... yet!

What are the factors that affect the cost of a website?

When you go looking for an agency, you’ll be handed a series of proposals, each emphasising something different. You’ll have your own views on which of those things matter most to you. But the ingredients of a successful B2B website are consistent, and they need a clear process and proper due diligence so nothing gets missed.

Here’s what will affect the total investment on your website project.

1. Scope and scale.

Start here. The below fundamentals will set the ballpark before anyone gets into the detail.

Define them clearly in your brief so you're sure that you're comparing like for like.

• Number of components (or templates) — We hope it’s components (it’s 2026), but your site is made up of components, or blocks in WordPress parlance. A larger site typically needs more of them, so you have flexibility in how you present your products, services and content. You might not know how many you need, but your agency should tell you, and justify that number against your brief.
• Multi-region, multi-language or multi-brand? — If you operate internationally, you may need a multi-language site to reach customers in different regions. This moves the cost, and it drags other variables with it: translating content, and populating the pages once translated.
• Number of customer segments — Some of our B2B clients sell different things to different buyers or sectors. That takes more research, more due diligence and more planning up front. Understanding your ideal customer profiles (ICPs) is a good place to start. Put them in the brief if you have them.
• Fully bespoke, design system or theme? — If you’ve read this far you’re probably already convinced a custom build is right for you. Even so, knowing exactly how the site will be built ensures you’re comparing proposals like for like. A custom site on a robust, flexible content management system (CMS) is priced very differently from a pre-built theme where you're swapping the colours, the logo and the copy.
• How is it built? — “Bespoke” is surprisingly subjective, and not all bespoke sites are created equal. Ask for demos of sites the agency has built for other clients. How flexible are they? Will you be going back to the agency every time you want to launch a campaign or add a new page?
• Browser and device support — Some of our clients serve customers running legacy systems, so browser and device support needs to be part of the conversation. Check Google Analytics to see what browsers people use to access your site.

2. Platform.

This is the foundation your website is built on, and it affects the upfront investment and what you'll pay over the long-term to support and maintain it.

We’re not going to list platforms here. The question that matters is whether the platform is licensed or open source. This determines whether you own your website or just rent it for as long as you keep paying the fees.

There are trade-offs either way. A licensed platform often bundles hosting and some of the maintenance into the fee. Open source gives you ownership of the code and the freedom to customise without restriction, but carries with it the responsibility of finding a partner to maintain and secure it over the long term.

3. Strategy and discovery.

In our experience, website projects fail for one reason; nobody answered the question “what is this website for?”. Sounds simple, but getting to that answer, or answers, is the work that makes everything else stand up.

Ask the prospective agency how they go about understanding your business, customers, positioning and your market. A website build should cover strategy, tactics and positioning, and it has to bring all your stakeholders to agreement. That work has a cost.

Here’s what typically sits inside a strategy and discovery phase, so you know what to look for.

• Workshops and regular meetings
• User research, personas and journey mapping
• Competitor and market analysis
• Information architecture and sitemap development
• Wireframes and usability design
• SEO migration planning

This is not exhaustive, but it's a useful list if it’s been a while since your last web project.

4. Integrations.

If your site needs to talk to other business systems, put it in the brief. It’s one of the areas that could move the cost significantly. If you’re scoping requirements, these are the systems to think about:

• CRM and marketing automation — e.g. HubSpot, Salesforce
• ERP — e.g. NetSuite, Brightpearl, Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Applicant tracking systems — e.g. Greenhouse, Recruitee
• Digital asset management
• Organisational single sign-on
• Booking systems
• Membership and customer portals

If you’re building functionality using platform extensions or plugins, check the licensing costs for them, and check they’re actively maintained. Cutting corners is cheaper initially but usually offset by larger maintenance overheads and technical debt down the line.

5. Design.

The design phase pulls in several different practices and creatives. The best websites are those where budgets were allocated for creative work beyond the site itself. Your agency will hand you a swish looking Figma file and some interaction styles, but you need more than that. Here’s what to consider when you set your budget.

• Brand — Do you have clear brand guidelines that reflect where the business is today? Are they future proof? You can tackle brand as part of the website project, but if your visual language isn’t clearly articulated, set aside budget for it.
• Illustration and animation — A lot of the “digital glitter” you see on websites starts life in After Effects, or as an illustration set and is built by an animator. That’s a separate skillset from web development and it means other creatives collaborating to deliver. Does your brief need it?
• Fonts — Google Fonts has a large open-source library you can use for free, but you might want more. Adobe Fonts (formerly Typekit) is cost-effective, and comes with Creative Cloud if your business already pays for that. If not, you’ll need to license the fonts you want. For a typical B2B client, we see average costs between £100 to £500, depending on the font and your monthly traffic.
• Revisions — This is the one that bites. Nothing spirals a budget like round after round of design. If you’re looking at a fixed price proposal, your agency should be clear about how many design rounds that includes. On your side, be clear about who signs off creative, and scrutinise the agency’s process to make sure they get the information they need to deliver within the set rounds of amends.

6. Website content.

We’ll split this in two: the content itself, then how it gets onto the website.

The content itself.

• Website copy — Who’s going to write it? An external copywriter with experience in your sector is usually the best choice. If you’re thinking of doing it internally, consider the cost of your team’s time and what a delay to the launch date costs the business. A copywriter is often the most cost-effective option, and they can support related work like tone of voice.
• Photography and video — Marketing a technical B2B business means explaining complex, often novel ideas quickly. Clear, compelling imagery does a lot of that work. The most technically perfect site in the world won’t sell anything if the pictures on it are flat and lifeless.

CMS population.

• Migrating existing content — How big is your existing site, and how much of it needs to come across? Do you want help with that from your agency? If so, how much of the process can they script or automate, and how much has to be done by hand? Depending on the size of your existing setup, this can move the cost a long way.
• Site setup — Who’s doing it? If you’re saving money by doing it yourself, adjust the timeline so your team gets training first. If you hand it to the agency, the size of your site drives the cost.

Whichever way you go, be precise about what the agency is and isn’t doing. Which brings us to the next area…

7. SEO

Too often a smart new site goes live, the content and images look lovely, but the basics are missing — no meta descriptions, no schema. When you compare proposals, check the following:

• Alt text — Who’s responsible? Will the agency handle it as part of launch?
• Meta titles and descriptions — Clear titles and descriptions across the site, aligned to your strategy and your SEO planning. Who’s writing them?
• Structured data — As a minimum, we recommend strong structured data templates across your home, service and product pages. Is that in your proposals, or does it carry an extra cost?
• Redirect mapping — On a large site this is a significant piece of work, and it’s what part of what protects the SEO visibility you’ve built up over years. Skip it and you’ll feel it within a fortnight.

8. Transactions and ecommerce.

We could be a whole article on the intricacies of B2B ecommerce, but we’ve highlighted the most important considerations relating to cost if your site is an ecommerce project.

• Number of SKUs — How many products, how many variants, and where does the master data live? If it sits in an ERP or a PIM, that’s an integration, not a content job.
• B2B pricing logic — Customer-specific pricing, tiered pricing, minimum order quantities and quote requests alongside your checkout. Every rule is a build item with cost implications and needs to be considered as part of your brief and the proposals you receive back.
• Tax and shipping — VAT handling, duties, carriers and rates. Straightforward in the UK, less so once you ship abroad. Woo handles much of this out of the box, but there are nuances in some sectors where custom work will be required to streamline your operations and finance.
• Payment gateways — We typically work with Stripe. It’s simple to integrate, with great developer documentation. But if you require a different payment gateway due to regulatory restrictions or to ensure congruence with the rest of your business, that needs to be flagged. Some payment gateways can be harder than others to manage, particularly with custom requirements.
• Transactional email — Order confirmations, quote follow-ups, account emails. They need designing and testing and they’re easy to forget. But they’re the emails your customers actually open and a core part of your customer journey.

9. Training and warranty.

With any website project, you’re buying a platform that your team should be able to run. That only works if the team know how to run it!

• Training and handover — Who gets trained, how many sessions, and in what format. Always request that any training is recorded so you don’t need to keep going back to the agency when you onboard new starters.
• Documentation — A written record of how the site is put together and how to use the components. Ask whether it’s included, because it’s often an afterthought in the haze of a deadline.
• Warranty and snagging — How long after launch will the agency fix defects at no cost, and what counts as a defect rather than a change request? Get that definition in writing before you sign.

10. Artificial intelligence.

How does the agency you’re talking to use AI? There should be a clear answer to where it’s used and where it isn’t. If you’re looking at a wide spread of prices, ask the question. It tells you where the efficiencies are, and whether they align with your expectations.

At Appeal, we’ve adopted AI across a number of areas so we can put more focus into our creative and development work. For example, we use it to:

• Audit site performance
• Monitor for security vulnerabilities
• Prototype page structures and wireframes quickly
• Automate repetitive tasks and some areas of testing

11. Reporting and compliance.

• Analytics and tag management — Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager configured properly, with consent handled. Is your team happy to handle this or do you need external support?
• Event tracking — The events that matter to you: form submissions, downloads, quote requests, phone clicks. If you’re already running PPC campaigns, making sure this is factored in will ensure continuity from launch day, but may incur additional costs depending on complexity and volume.
• Consent management — GDPR, a consent management platform, and analytics consent mode. Not optional, and quick to get wrong.
• Accessibility — Decide which standard you’re targeting. WCAG 2.2 AA is the working benchmark; AAA is a far bigger job and rarely the right call. In the UK, the Equality Act asks for reasonable adjustments rather than a specific technical standard, but AA is the yardstick reasonableness gets measured against. If you sell to consumers in the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025. Be sure that you’re budgeting for an agency that has experience delivering to these standards and consider a post-launch external audit 6-12 months after launch.
• Security — Penetration testing, Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001. If your customers send you security questionnaires, someone has to answer them, and your website is part of your digital estate to be managed.

Other costs to consider that won't be in the proposal.

We’ve covered the items that will appear on the invoice. But what about the hidden costs?

While these might not all apply to your organisation, we’ve included a few below so you can allocate resources internally and keep other initiatives on track.

• Legacy data and undocumented technical debt — Do you need to review or sanitise existing data or information before it is ready for the website? Think about logic or data that is old or lives inside someone’s head.
• Sector regulation — Is your website subject to review by a regulatory body or third party? Consider this when setting timescales and resource to make necessary amends.
• Project management on your side — Someone internally needs to own this, chase decisions and hold the scope. Without that person, scope creeps and the timeline slips.
• Your team’s time — The hours your people spend in workshops, reviews and content gathering never appear in a quote.

What does a B2B website actually cost?

If you've read this far, you won't be surprised to hear that the answer is: it depends. Prices vary enormously from one agency to the next, and they vary with build standards, the size of the agency, their fixed costs, and how they approach a build.

At Appeal, our B2B website projects start at £12,495 + VAT, and that's where the majority of our clients land. The rest have requirements from this article that need more work, and a larger investment.

Knowing every variable doesn't mean buying every one of them. We'd rather build the smallest version that does the job, put it live, and let real visitors tell you what to build next. That way the budget goes on the things your customers use, rather than the things that sounded cool in a workshop.

Download our pricing scorecard

Everything in this article, across four pages you can fill in. Complete one for each proposal you're comparing. Tick what the proposal covers, note who owns it, and write in the cost.