If you've started researching dental website design, you've probably already discovered that the pricing varies enormously — from a few hundred pounds for a DIY template to £15,000+ from a large dental marketing agency. That range is confusing, and the confusion is often compounded by agencies that don't publish prices at all, requiring you to sit through a sales call before you find out what anything costs.
This guide gives you a straight answer. We'll cover every price tier, what you actually get at each level, what the real costs are when you factor in long-term fees, and how to decide what your practice actually needs.
- DIY (Wix, Squarespace): £0–£50/month — not recommended for private practices
- Freelancer / template build: £500–£2,000 one-off — varies enormously in quality
- Small agency or specialist: £2,500–£7,500 one-off — the right range for most practices
- Large dental agency (Digimax, Dental Focus): £500–£2,000/month — you never own it
DIY websites — Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy
DIY website builders offer dental practice templates for £15–£50/month. They're quick to set up and require no technical knowledge. For a newly established practice on a very tight budget, they can serve as a temporary placeholder. For any practice serious about attracting private patients, they have serious limitations.
The Lighthouse problem: DIY builders generate bloated, slow-loading code that consistently scores 40–65 on Google Lighthouse — significantly below the threshold that helps you rank on Google. When 70% of dental searches happen on mobile, a slow site directly reduces your organic visibility.
The template problem: Wix and Squarespace dental templates are recognisable. Patients who've visited multiple dental websites will often have seen the same layout before. For a private practice positioning itself on quality and trust, a recognisable budget template sends the wrong signal entirely.
Who it's right for: A practice that needs something live immediately as a placeholder while a proper site is being built. Not a long-term solution.
Freelancer or small studio — £500–£2,000
The freelancer market for dental websites is broad and variable. At the lower end, you're typically getting a theme applied to WordPress with your logo and copy added. At the higher end, you might get genuine design thinking and a better result.
The key questions to ask any freelancer: Do they build from scratch or use a theme? What Lighthouse scores do their sites achieve? Do they include copywriting, or do you need to provide your own content? What happens when you need updates after launch?
The main risk with freelancers is quality inconsistency. There's no way to know what you're getting until it's done — and at the lower price points, you often get what you pay for. A £700 dental website built on a £50 WordPress theme will look like a £700 dental website.
Who it's right for: Practices with a limited budget who are willing to research thoroughly and ask the right questions before committing.
Specialist dental web designer — £2,500–£7,500 one-off
This is where most private dental practices should be investing. A specialist dental web designer — one who works exclusively with dental practices, includes copywriting, and builds with performance and SEO in mind — typically charges in this range for a complete website.
At 78 Dental, our pricing sits in this band:
5-page bespoke site, full copywriting, mobile optimised, Lighthouse 90+, technical SEO foundations, booking form, 2 rounds of revisions. One-off payment — you own it outright.
10–12 page bespoke site, full copywriting, Lighthouse 97–100, full local SEO foundation, online booking integration, strategy session, 3 months support. One-off payment — yours outright.
Multi-location, custom animations, Lighthouse 100, advanced SEO and content strategy, brand refresh, 12 months priority support. One-off payment — yours outright.
The critical point: at this level, you pay once and own the site outright. There's no monthly retainer for the website itself. If you want ongoing SEO, that's a separate optional service.
Large dental marketing agency — £500–£2,000/month
This is the pricing model used by the major dental marketing agencies — Digimax, Dental Focus, Dental Media, and others. Monthly retainers typically bundle website design, hosting, support, SEO and sometimes Google Ads into one fee.
The fundamental problem with this model — which we cover in more detail in our comparison pages — is ownership. The website is built on the agency's platform, hosted on their servers, and belongs to them. When you leave (or when they increase their prices, which they will), you leave empty-handed and start from scratch.
A practice paying £1,000/month to Digimax for five years has spent £60,000 — and owns nothing at the end of it. A practice that paid £4,500 for a bespoke site five years ago still owns that asset today.
The other issue is transparency. When everything is bundled into one monthly fee, it's genuinely difficult to know what you're paying for or whether any specific part of the service is working. Most practices with large agency contracts cannot tell you what their monthly retainer is generating in terms of new patient appointments.
Who it's right for: Practices that prioritise having one account manager handling everything, and are comfortable with the ownership model. Not recommended for practices that want control, transparency, or flexibility.
The hidden costs most practices don't think about
Hosting
Your website needs to live somewhere. Good hosting costs £10–£40/month depending on the level of performance and support you need. Some agencies include hosting in their retainer — but when you leave, the site goes with the hosting.
Copywriting
If it's not included in your web design package, professional copywriting for a 10-page dental website costs £800–£2,000 separately. At 78 Dental, copywriting is included in every project.
SEO after launch
Building a website is the foundation. Ranking on Google requires ongoing work — content, local SEO, link building, technical monitoring. Budget for an ongoing SEO retainer if ranking is important to you. Our SEO retainer is £495/month with no contract.
Photography
Professional dental photography — practice interior, team headshots, treatment imagery — costs £400–£1,200 for a professional shoot. Stock photography is an alternative, though bespoke photography almost always produces better results for both patient trust and SEO.
How to decide what's right for your practice
The right investment depends on what you're trying to achieve. A newly established practice with limited budget should start with a well-built Starter site and grow from there. An established private practice competing in a crowded local market should invest in a Signature or Elite build with ongoing SEO from day one.
The question worth asking is: what is one additional private patient worth to your practice per year? For an implant practice, a single patient relationship might be worth £3,000–£8,000. If your website is the reason you're not visible to that patient, the cost of a proper website pays for itself very quickly.
Whatever you invest, make sure you own what you're paying for. A one-off fee for a site you own outright will always be better value long-term than a monthly retainer for a site that belongs to someone else.