A small business should spend enough to solve the business problem properly — and no more.
For some businesses that may mean a focused €500–€1,000 website. For others, €2,000–€5,000 or more is entirely reasonable because the website has a bigger commercial job to do.
The mistake is choosing a website budget based only on what another company spent.
A dog walker, accountant, restaurant, online retailer and software company can all be "small businesses", but their websites do very different jobs.
A better question is:
What would make this website commercially useful to my business?
Once you know that, the budget becomes much easier to judge.
Start with what the website needs to achieve
Before thinking about design trends or page counts, decide what the website is for.
Common jobs include: making the business look credible, explaining services, helping local customers find you, generating phone calls or enquiries, taking bookings, collecting quote requests, showcasing previous work, answering common customer questions, selling products, attracting candidates, and supporting a longer sales process.
If your website only needs to do the first four or five things, the project can often stay relatively lean.
If it needs accounts, payments, customer-specific data or complex integrations, the technical scope changes.
If you are still deciding whether a website is necessary at all, start with whether a small business actually needs a website before deciding what to spend on one.
Scenario 1: a new local service business
What I'd do
For a new local service business, I would resist the temptation to buy the website you hope you might need in five years. I would build the strongest version of what the business needs now: clear services, the areas you cover, proof that you are credible, good contact routes and enough search-friendly content to explain what you do. If the business grows into bookings, e-commerce, a client portal or more sophisticated marketing later, those are good problems to add later.
Imagine a new electrician, dog walker, cleaner or landscaper.
The immediate need may simply be: a professional homepage, clear services, areas covered, a little about the person or business, contact details, a quote or enquiry route, mobile-friendly design, and basic Google/search foundations.
That business probably should not spend €8,000 just because someone can write an €8,000 proposal.
A focused launch site can do the job.
The money saved may be more useful elsewhere: signage, equipment, photography, Google Business Profile work, local advertising or simply cash flow.
For a lean first site, it is also worth seeing what a €500 website can realistically include rather than assuming a lower budget automatically means something amateur.
Scenario 2: an established local business
Now imagine a trades company with several staff, different services and a strong flow of enquiries.
It may need: separate service pages, project examples, customer testimonials, more developed copy, multiple enquiry routes, recruitment information, better local-search coverage, tracking and analytics, and more substantial design work.
Spending more makes sense because the website is supporting a larger business and there is more content to organise.
The commercial upside is also higher.
Scenario 3: professional services
An accountant, consultant, financial professional, expert witness or specialist adviser may not need complicated website technology at all.
But presentation and content matter enormously.
The site may need to communicate: expertise, qualifications, services, sectors, process, credibility, case studies where appropriate, and a clear reason to make contact.
In this case, extra budget may be better spent on positioning, copy and information architecture than flashy development.
A technically complicated website does not automatically make a professional service look more professional.
Scenario 4: the website directly makes money
If the website processes sales, bookings or high-value leads, the calculation changes again.
Suppose a business makes €500 profit from an average new client and a better website generates ten additional clients over a year.
That is €5,000 of incremental profit.
In that context, spending €2,000 or €3,000 on the website may be completely sensible.
Conversely, if the site is mainly a digital business card for customers who already know you, paying for a huge conversion project might achieve very little.
Think in terms of return, not just cost
A website is not valuable because it contains a certain number of pages.
Its value comes from what it helps the business do.
A useful way to frame the decision is:
Website budget ÷ realistic business value created
You do not need a complicated financial model. Just ask:
- What is an average new customer worth?
- How many new customers would make the website pay for itself?
- Is the site mainly about lead generation or credibility?
- How important is online discovery to the business?
- What happens if the current website continues to underperform?
- Are there other marketing activities that deserve the budget first?
This also protects against under-spending.
A €300 website that looks untrustworthy and loses high-value customers is not a bargain.
Why small businesses often spend too much
There is a common assumption that a more expensive website must be a more professional website.
It is not that simple.
Some agencies do excellent work and charge accordingly. But the industry also contains plenty of projects where a small business pays several thousand euro and still receives a fairly generic site, limited strategic thought and a recurring monthly bill it never properly understood.
That is exactly the part of the market Built by Gavin is designed to challenge.
My approach is: every site is custom-built for the business rather than pulled from an off-the-shelf template, keep the project focused on what will actually help the business, use existing specialist services instead of commissioning unnecessary bespoke software, keep infrastructure simple where the site allows it, and do not create monthly charges merely because recurring revenue is convenient for the provider.
A small business should absolutely pay for expertise and good work. It should not assume that complexity, agency overhead or a monthly invoice automatically equals value.
Where should a small business not spend money?
Bespoke functionality that already exists elsewhere
If Calendly, Stripe, Shopify, a specialist booking platform or another established service already solves the problem well, it is often better to integrate it than commission a custom version.
Pages nobody needs
More pages do not automatically create a better site or better SEO.
Each page should have a reason to exist.
Features included because they sound impressive
Animations, dashboards, AI chatbots, portals and complex forms can all be useful.
They can also be completely unnecessary.
Start with the customer journey and work backwards.
Recurring services you do not understand
Ask what every monthly charge covers.
There may be a perfectly good answer: hosting, active maintenance, ongoing changes, software licences, security management or marketing.
But "websites have a monthly fee" is not, by itself, an explanation.
If budget is the main constraint, building a business website yourself can be a perfectly reasonable alternative while the business is still proving itself.
Where is it worth spending more?
Good content
Customers need to understand what you do.
Clear copy frequently matters more than adding another piece of technology.
Real photography
For businesses where the people, premises, products or work matter, strong original photography can transform the site.
Clear design
Design should make the company easier to understand and trust.
Search visibility
Technical foundations, a good Google Business Profile, useful content and sensible local-search structure can create value long after launch.
Measurement
If lead generation matters, set up analytics and track what people actually do.
Should I base the budget on a percentage of turnover?
Not rigidly.
Turnover can provide context, but a percentage formula ignores what the website does.
A €200,000-turnover business that wins nearly all its work through referrals may need a modest site.
A €100,000-turnover business trying to build a national online channel may rationally invest more.
The website's role in acquiring and converting customers matters more than turnover alone.
Gavin's take
I do not think “what percentage of turnover should I spend on a website?” is a very useful rule for most small businesses. Two businesses with identical turnover can depend on their websites in completely different ways. I would rather ask what a good enquiry or customer is worth, how often the website can realistically influence that sale, and what the business needs the site to achieve. That gives you a budget tied to commercial value instead of an arbitrary percentage.
How I price small-business websites
My own starting prices at Built by Gavin are intentionally straightforward:
- Launch Site: €495–€595
- Business Site: €795–€995
- Larger projects: from €1,250
Those figures reflect the type of work I want to do: focused small-business sites, a lean build process and existing integrations where possible instead of unnecessary bespoke systems.
They are not a claim that every website should cost that amount.
If you need a large online shop, custom member portal or substantial software project, the correct budget is different — and I would rather say that than try to squeeze the wrong project into a cheap package.
A simple budgeting framework
Before asking for quotes, write down four things:
1. The outcome
What should a visitor do after using the website?
2. The essential content
What do they need to know before doing it?
3. The essential functionality
What must the site actually do?
4. The future requirements
What genuinely needs to be possible later, rather than what might conceivably be useful one day?
That short exercise makes website quotes dramatically easier to compare.
The bottom line
Spend for the business outcome, not the size of the proposal.
A simple local business may get everything it needs from a well-designed €500–€1,000 site.
Another business may sensibly spend several thousand because the content, functionality and commercial opportunity justify it.
Neither decision is inherently right or wrong.
The question is whether the website is proportionate to the business problem.
Want help working out what level of site you need?
See my current website options or tell me what you're trying to build.
If the smaller option will do the job, that is the option I would rather recommend.
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