Website Hosting and Monthly Costs for Tradespeople, Explained

The price of building a website is only half the story. Once it’s live, there are a few running costs to keep it online, and they’re often explained badly or hidden in the small print.

Here’s what each one is, roughly what it costs, and which ones you can skip.

The running costs, one by one

Domain name. Your web address, like yourname-roofing.co.uk. You rent it yearly from a registrar. A .co.uk domain is usually a modest yearly fee. Make sure it’s registered in your name, not your web designer’s.

Hosting. The server your website lives on. For a small trade website this can be cheap, but the price varies a lot depending on what’s included, such as backups, security and someone to call if it goes down.

SSL certificate. The padlock in the address bar. Without it, browsers warn visitors your site is “not secure”, which scares off customers. Most decent hosting includes it free now.

Email. An address like info@yourbusiness.co.uk looks more established than a Gmail address. Some setups forward it to your existing inbox for free. A full separate mailbox usually costs a few pounds a month.

Changes and maintenance. Updating prices, adding photos, fixing something that breaks. Either you do it yourself, pay per job, or pay a monthly fee that covers it.

Watch out for these

• Long contracts. Some providers lock you in for 12, 24 or even 36 months. If the site isn’t bringing in work, you’re stuck paying for it.
• Not owning your domain. If the designer registered it in their name, leaving them can mean losing your web address and every link to it.
• “Free” websites with high monthly fees. A site that costs nothing upfront but a large monthly fee forever can cost far more over a few years than paying for it once.
• Vague “maintenance”. Ask exactly what’s included. How many changes a month? How quickly do they reply?

Do you need a monthly plan at all?

Not always. If you’re comfortable updating things yourself and rarely change your site, basic hosting and a domain is all you need.

A monthly plan makes sense if you don’t want to think about it: someone else keeps it online, backs it up, and makes your changes when you send a text. For a busy trade, the time saved is usually worth more than the fee.

What we charge, for reference

Our monthly plans are cancel-anytime with no contract. Managed at £25 a month covers hosting, SSL, daily backups, uptime monitoring and up to 2 small changes a month. Managed + Growth at £50 a month adds up to 4 changes a month, Google Business Profile updates, local SEO work, review follow-ups and a quarterly performance email. Domain connection and email forwarding are included with every website. See our current packages.

For the one-off cost of the website itself, read our guide on how much a website costs for a tradesperson.