Running Umbraco 13? Security support ends 14 December. Fixed-price upgrade to 17: £8,999 + VAT See how it works →
simonantony
Pricing and working with us

How much does an Umbraco website cost?

The short answer

Umbraco itself is open source, so there is no licence fee for the CMS. What you pay for is design, development and hosting. Our development is charged from £80 an hour, with a day rate of £500, and we scope every project before we start so you know the cost up front. As a guide, our fixed price for a full Umbraco 13 to 17 upgrade is £8,999 plus VAT, which shows where a substantial piece of Umbraco work sits. Managed hosting starts at £99 a month on Umbraco Cloud. The honest answer is that cost depends entirely on scope, which is why we always quote before we build rather than after.

The price of an Umbraco website is really three prices: the build, the hosting and the ongoing care. Understanding all three up front is the best protection against surprises later.

The build

Umbraco is open source, so unlike many enterprise systems there is no CMS licence to pay. The build cost is the design and development time. We charge from £80 an hour, with a day rate of £500, and we have been building on Umbraco since 2011, across every version since v4 and more than 200 sites, so our estimates come from experience rather than guesswork. A simple brochure site is days of work; a site with integrations, custom functionality or complex content models is weeks. We scope first, then quote, so the number you agree to is the number you pay.

The hosting

Our managed Umbraco Cloud hosting is £99 a month all-in on the Starter plan, which includes the Cloud fee and an hour of support each month. Hosting on our own servers is £149 per site per month. You can read more on our Umbraco hosting page.

The ongoing care

A website is not finished when it launches. Security patches, version upgrades and small improvements all need someone responsible for them. Our retainers start at £500 a month for one day of time, and we review every plan annually and move you down a tier if you are overpaying.

What to compare when you get quotes

When you compare agency quotes, check what is actually included: is hosting in the price, who applies security patches, and what happens when Umbraco releases a new major version. A cheap build that leaves you with expensive ownership is not cheap. If you want a firm number for your project, tell us what you need and we will scope it properly. Start with our Umbraco development services.

See our Umbraco development services →