A professional WordPress website built by Mako Digital starts from £149.99 one-off. No vague "it depends" estimates, no surprise invoices at handover, no monthly retainers you can’t cancel.
This page breaks down exactly what you get at each price point, what genuinely drives the cost up or down, where the hidden extras hide, and how Manchester website prices stack up against London agencies, national platforms like Wix, and DIY builders.
Every price below is fixed and agreed in writing before any work begins. What you see is what you pay — no creeping estimates, no surprise add-ons.
Best for: Sole traders, tradesmen, new businesses
Best for: Established small businesses
Best for: Larger businesses, ecommerce, custom functionality
Best for: Businesses wanting to rank and stay ranked
A "free" Wix site isn’t free — you pay every year to keep it. Here’s the real five-year cost-of-ownership comparison most agencies won’t show you.
| Option | Upfront | Yearly | 5-Year Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mako one-page WordPress | £149.99 | £75/yr hosting | £524.99 | You own it outright. Upgradeable any time. |
| Wix Premium (Business) | £0 | £300/yr (~£25/mo) | £1,500 | Locked-in platform. Cannot fully export. |
| Squarespace Business | £0 | £276/yr (~£23/mo) | £1,380 | Limited SEO control. No code access. |
| Large agency template | £2,500 | £300/yr maintenance | £4,000 | Often a Divi/Elementor template at full price. |
| GoDaddy Website Builder | £0 | £180/yr (~£15/mo) | £900 | Cannot migrate. Locked to GoDaddy hosting. |
A Mako Digital one-page WordPress site costs £524.99 over five years — less than two years of Wix, less than two years of Squarespace, and a fraction of a national agency template build. You own it outright from day one and can take it anywhere you like.
Three things drive website cost: scope (how many pages, how much content), complexity (custom functionality, integrations, ecommerce), and who builds it. A large agency with account managers, project managers, and significant overheads will charge considerably more than a lean specialist agency doing the same quality work.
At Mako Digital we keep overheads low and pass that saving directly to Manchester businesses. You get a properly built bespoke WordPress site at a price point that would buy you a template build from most other agencies — the same architecture we use the same architecture to rank for “web design Manchester”, applied to your business.
A one-page site is the right choice for sole traders, new businesses, and anyone who needs a professional online presence quickly. It covers your services, your contact details, a click-to-call button, and your Google Maps location. Built on WordPress with full SEO foundations — not a landing page builder or a Linktree-style placeholder. See our full one-page Manchester service for what’s included end-to-end.
The most common build for established Manchester small businesses. Covers Home, About, Services (or individual service pages), a Testimonials section, and Contact. Enough structure to rank for multiple service and location terms, enough content to build trust with potential customers before they pick up the phone.
eCommerce stores, booking systems, member portals, custom CRMs, multi-location sites. Priced on scope after a detailed brief. Every custom build gets a full written specification and fixed price before work begins.
| Provider Type | Typical Cost | Bespoke? | SEO Ready? | You Own It? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mako Digital (Manchester) | £149.99 – £999+ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Large Wigan Agency | £2,000 – £10,000+ | ✓ | Varies | ✓ |
| Freelancer (Fiverr) | £50 – £500 | Rare | ✗ | ✓ |
| Wix / Squarespace | £150 – £400/yr | ✗ | Weak | ✗ |
| GoDaddy Builder | £100 – £300/yr | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
The work is the same. The overhead isn’t. A London agency pays roughly £80–£120 per square foot in Soho or Shoreditch rent, plus salaries roughly twice the regional average for equivalent technical staff. A Wigan-based agency builds the same WordPress site, with the same hand-coded templates, the same schema standards, and the same Google ranking outcome — but charges a fraction of the price because the cost base is fundamentally different.
That’s why a like-for-like one-page WordPress site nationally ranges from £400 (London/Manchester template) to £1,200 (London/Manchester bespoke), while we charge £149.99 fixed from our Wigan office serving Manchester businesses across M1-M99. Same code, same standards, different rent.
Manchester is the most competitive web design market in the North West. Most agencies charge London-adjacent prices for the same WordPress builds we do for £149.99. We work with Manchester SMEs across the Northern Quarter, Spinningfields, Ancoats, and MediaCityUK — same hand-coded WordPress, same schema standards, no city-centre overhead built into the quote.
The right question isn’t cheap vs expensive — it’s whether the site is built correctly. A £149.99 site built on solid WordPress foundations with proper SEO will outperform a £2,000 template site with neglected on-page optimisation every single time.
What you want to avoid is false economy — a site so cheap it’s built on a free template with no SEO, no mobile optimisation, and no thought given to how Manchester customers actually search. That kind of site costs you more in lost business than a proper build would have cost in the first place. Want proof of approach? Look at Whittles Bakery — £149.99 build, ranking, converting, indexed in Google’s first page within weeks.
Not theory — live builds at each price point. Click through to the case study or visit the live site. The work speaks for itself.
Third-generation Pemberton bakery. Single-page WordPress with full product showcase, opening times, Google Maps embed, LocalBusiness schema. Live in 72 hours from sign-off.
Bristol landscaping company. Premium 5-page custom build — slate/teal/copper palette, GD brick monogram logo, portfolio gallery, full LocalBusiness schema. Proves we deliver UK-wide.
Former rugby league pro and certified MHFA instructor. Bespoke multi-page WordPress build — Amelia booking system, custom testimonials database with admin panel, 25+ speaking & training pages, full schema graph, SMTP-routed enquiry alerts. Booking-led custom site.
Cheap upfront quotes often hide the real cost in add-ons. Here’s what we include as standard — and where other agencies tend to charge separately.
Often charged as an add-on by other agencies. At Mako Digital it is included as standard on every build — schema markup, GSC submission, GA4 install, all baked in.
Should never be an extra in 2026. Every Mako Digital site is mobile-first by default — built that way from the wireframe stage, not bolted on later.
We can write content or work with what you provide. Agreed upfront, never a surprise — and we tell you which approach actually saves you money depending on your situation.
Not included in the build cost — but we are transparent about what you need and what it costs. Typically £5–15/month on a managed shared plan. We host most clients on Hostinger.
Optional. We do not lock you into a monthly retainer to keep your site working. WordPress is yours after handover, and you can self-manage indefinitely if you prefer.
A bad quote tells you almost as much about an agency as a good one. Here’s what to walk away from.
"Around £40-60/hour, project depends on scope" tells you nothing. A proper agency gives you a fixed quote against a written brief.
Hosting is a real cost. If a quote skips it entirely, expect a surprise after launch. We tell you upfront — typically £5-15/month.
If they propose Wix, Squarespace, or "their own platform," you cannot migrate. Always insist on WordPress or a comparable open-source CMS.
Schema, GSC submission, page-speed optimisation should be included. "We charge separately for SEO" usually means they cut corners on the build.
"It will take as long as it takes" is code for "we have not really planned this." Fixed-price quotes should come with fixed delivery dates.
A site should work after handover without a £49/month "support" plan. Optional retainers are fine. Mandatory ones are a tax on bad code.
Honest answers to every question Manchester businesses ask before booking. No fluff, no marketing-speak.
A one-page WordPress website for a Manchester business starts from £149.99 from Mako Digital. This includes bespoke design, mobile-first responsive layout, contact form, click-to-call, on-page SEO foundations, Google Maps, and submission to Google Search Console on launch day. It is a complete, professional website — not a stripped-back starter with features charged as extras.
The gap comes down to what is actually being built. A £300 site is typically a pre-built template with your logo and text dropped in — it looks like dozens of other sites and usually has weak SEO. A £3,000 agency site is often the same work but with large overheads, account managers, and profit margins built in. We sit in between — genuinely bespoke builds at honest prices because we do not carry the overhead of a large agency.
Yes — three main ones. Hosting (typically £5–15/month on a shared plan, we host on Hostinger for most clients), your domain name (around £10–15/year), and optionally an SSL certificate (usually free via Let's Encrypt). We are transparent about all of these upfront. There are no surprise platform fees — WordPress is free and you own everything outright after handover.
A cheap website built properly is absolutely worth it. A cheap website built badly — slow, template-based, with poor SEO — can actively harm your business by appearing in search results but failing to convert visitors, or worse, not appearing at all. The question is not cheap vs expensive. It is whether the site is built correctly. Our £149.99 one-pager is built to the same technical standard as a £999 build — the price reflects scope, not quality.
WordPress is self-hosted and you own it outright. Wix and Squarespace are rented platforms — you pay monthly forever, cannot fully export your site, and are limited in what SEO customisation you can do. WordPress gives you complete control, zero platform fees after build, and far stronger SEO capabilities. For any Manchester business that wants to rank on Google long-term, WordPress is the right choice.
Our prices are displayed inclusive of any applicable tax. We confirm the final all-in price before any work begins — no surprises at invoice time.
A one-page site for a Manchester business is typically live within five to seven working days. A five-page build takes two to four weeks. Larger custom builds are scoped and timed individually. We agree a clear timeline before starting and keep to it.
For larger builds we are happy to discuss a 50% deposit / 50% on completion arrangement. Get in touch and we will work out something that suits you.
Bespoke WordPress design (not a template), mobile-first responsive layout, contact form with email alerts, click-to-call phone integration, on-page SEO foundations (LocalBusiness schema, semantic structure), Google Maps embed, Google Search Console submission on launch day, GA4 install, SSL certificate, plus 30 minutes of free training and a written walkthrough document. No add-ons, no upsells, no surprise extras at handover.
Lower overheads. A London agency is paying £80-120 per square foot in Soho or Shoreditch rent and roughly twice the salary for equivalent staff. Mako Digital operates with the same skill set at a fraction of the cost, and passes that saving directly to clients. The work itself is identical — same WordPress, same hand-coded PHP, same schema standards. The difference is whose office overheads you are subsidising.
A like-for-like one-page WordPress site nationally ranges from £400 (London/Manchester agency template) to £1,200 (London/Manchester bespoke). The same build costs £149.99 from a Wigan agency serving Manchester. Five-page builds nationally average £1,500-£3,500 in major cities versus £449-£999 from a Wigan agency serving Manchester. The cost difference reflects regional rent and salary economics, not build quality.
Yes, within its scope. A one-page site can rank for a focused set of local keywords (e.g. "electrician Salford" or "joiner Trafford") because Google ranks pages, not sites. Our £149.99 one-pager ships with full LocalBusiness schema, semantic HTML, fast page-speed scores, and same-day GSC submission — the same architecture we use to rank our own homepage front-page for "web design Wigan" — the same approach now applied for Manchester businesses. For broader commercial terms with multiple intents, you will want a five-page or custom build instead.
Same network, different angle. Pick whichever route matches what you’re actually looking for.
Tell us what you need and we’ll give you a clear, itemised quote before any work begins. No estimates that grow into invoices, no hidden extras, no obligation.