What a therapy website actually costs in the UK
A clear, unsalesy look at what a therapy website actually costs in the UK in 2026, by route, with the hidden costs most tier comparisons quietly leave out.
01 / The honest price landscape
Therapy websites are priced across a wide band, and the shape of the band is specific
A therapy website in the UK can cost anything from £15 a month on a DIY builder to £15,000 from a clinical-branding agency. The range is wide enough to be unhelpful on its own, so this page breaks it into the routes that actually exist, what each one buys, and where the tier boundaries sit for a solo or small-group therapy practice.
The lead value maths for therapy is unusual among professional services. One new client represents between £300 and £2,400 of work over the course of their engagement. A website that brings a single new client a year has already paid for any of the subscription tiers several times over. At a steady two to six enquiries a month from a properly ranked specialism-and-town site, the cost discussion stops being about price and becomes about which route fits the practice.
What follows is the honest breakdown, route by route, with the hidden costs, the ongoing time cost, and the point at which each option stops making sense. Not a sales pitch. A decision aid.
02 / Six routes and what they cost
Where the money actually goes
DIY, freelance, agency, subscription. Plus the two hidden cost categories most comparisons skip.
DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace): £15 to £30 a month
The subscription is the easy bit. The real cost is the weekend you spend wrestling templates, the fact that BACP-standard accreditation displays are awkward to build in, and the visible template sameness that reads, to careful prospective clients, as a practice that has not yet found its feet. Fine for a first year. Rarely right beyond that.
Freelancer, one-off build: £800 to £3,000
A properly built one-off site from a freelance designer who understands the therapy field is a real option. The risk is what happens in month thirteen, when a modality page needs adding or a fee changes. Freelancers move on, reply slowly, or price each change at £80. Over three years, many therapists find themselves with a site they cannot edit and a designer they cannot reach.
Agency, one-off build: £4,000 to £15,000
Worth it for group practices with multiple therapists, a significant specialism offering, or a training arm. Overkill for most solo practitioners. The real cost is often the ongoing maintenance contract, which commonly runs £150 to £400 a month and covers little in practice. Ask precisely what the retainer buys before signing.
Subscription, monthly: from £39/mo
Our Starter plan at £39/mo covers design, build, hosting, SSL, accessibility, ongoing changes and accreditation display done properly. Standard at £79/mo adds specialism pages, modality pages, schema and SEO foundations. Studio is quoted for group practices. No setup fee, no contract, British English, therapy-aware. The model that fits the profession.
The hidden costs most tiers miss
Accreditation register cross-checking, a proper privacy notice that respects client confidentiality, a secure first-contact form, crisis signposting, GDPR-compliant enquiry storage, accessibility for clients with disabilities, and the ongoing small edits that keep a site honest. Baked in at our tiers, usually extras at others.
Lead value: 1 new client covers the year
A single new client at £50 to £120 per session over 6 to 20 sessions represents £300 to £2,400 of work. A therapy website that brings one new client in a year has already paid for a Standard subscription twice over. In practice, a proper specialism-and-town ranking brings steady enquiries for years.
FAQ
Common questions
Is it cheaper to build it myself on Squarespace?
On the surface, yes. £15 a month against £39 a month. In practice, most therapists value their time at their session rate, which is £50 to £120 an hour. A weekend spent on a template builder costs more than a year of a proper subscription plan. And the resulting site, however careful, tends to look like every other therapy Squarespace template, which is not what a careful prospective client is looking for.
What about free builders like WordPress.com?
Free builders show ads, limit what you can link, and do not let you control the privacy behaviour of the contact page. None of that is acceptable for a therapy practice handling confidential enquiries. If budget is genuinely the constraint, a £39/mo plan is almost always the right route over a free-but-compromised one.
Should I pay for a one-off build and maintain it myself?
Only if you are comfortable with the technical side and willing to keep on top of security updates, SSL renewals, accessibility regressions and content refreshes. Most therapists we speak to tried this route, lost six months to a broken plugin, and switched to a subscription model. The ongoing time cost is usually higher than the price difference between plans.
How do group practices and clinics typically budget?
Group practices with four or more therapists usually benefit from a bespoke build or our Studio tier. The reason is not so much the headline site but the per-therapist profile pages, the shared fees and specialism pages, and the practice management integration. The per-therapist cost generally works out between £20 and £40 a month, well inside what a single new enquiry a quarter covers.
What are realistic expectations for enquiries from a new site?
For a properly built site in a town with moderate competition, expect the first organic enquiries within six to twelve weeks, and a steady pattern of two to six enquiries a month by month six. Specialism-and-town pages (such as 'EMDR therapist [town]' or 'bereavement counselling [town]') tend to outperform homepage rankings by a wide margin.
Do I need to commit to a long contract?
No. Our plans are monthly with no contract, and you can take the site away if you leave. The model works because, once a therapy practice has a site that quietly brings enquiries, the last thing they want to do is disrupt it. Lock-in through quality, not through paperwork.
Ready to talk about the tier that fits your practice?
Plans from £39/mo. No setup, no contract, therapy-aware. We can have a quiet call whenever suits.