Next.js has become the default choice for high-performance business websites and SaaS applications in the UK, and UK founders shopping for a Next.js build regularly encounter quotes ranging from £3,000 to £60,000 for what appears to be a similar brief. That range isn't arbitrary — it reflects genuine differences in scope, quality, team structure, and what's actually included. This guide explains where costs sit and why.
Why Next.js Costs More Than a WordPress Build — and Why That's Usually Worth It
A Next.js website built properly by a developer who knows the framework is significantly faster than a typical WordPress site, easier to maintain over time, and more SEO-capable by default. The cost premium reflects the specialisation required — Next.js developers command higher day rates than WordPress developers, and the development process is more engineering-intensive than installing a theme.
That said, the cost difference compounds in your favour over time. A well-built Next.js site hosted on Vercel typically costs £15–£50/month to run with no licensing fees, no premium plugin renewals, and no page builder costs. A comparable WordPress setup with managed hosting, security plugins, and necessary premium plugins often runs £80–£200/month once fully configured. The upfront cost differential is usually recovered within 18–24 months in running costs alone — before accounting for performance and SEO benefits.
Next.js Website Pricing Tiers in the UK (2026)
£3,000–£7,000 — Starter build
This range covers straightforward informational websites of five to eight pages built on a pre-designed Next.js template or simple custom design. Typically delivered by a solo UK developer or a small overseas team. Suitable for: service businesses that need a fast, modern web presence with basic SEO setup and no complex functionality.
What's usually included: custom design on a template base, pages configured to your content, basic meta tags and sitemap, deployment to Vercel, one round of revisions. What's not included: custom animations, CMS integration, complex layouts, performance optimisation, copywriting, or ongoing support.
£7,000–£18,000 — Mid-range custom build
The most common range for UK SMEs and growing startups. This covers a fully custom-designed site of eight to twenty pages with proper mobile optimisation, a headless CMS (Contentful, Sanity, or similar), Core Web Vitals optimisation, SEO technical setup, basic analytics configuration, and launch support.
At this level you should expect: a proper discovery and scoping process, named developers with visible portfolios, performance benchmarks agreed before development, and clear post-launch support terms. If an agency quotes in this range and skips the discovery process, be cautious.
£18,000–£40,000 — Full-service custom
This range covers complex business sites, SaaS marketing sites with interactive elements, e-commerce builds, or any project requiring custom functionality beyond standard pages. Includes everything in the mid-range tier plus: complex custom design with animation and interaction design, headless e-commerce integration (Shopify Storefront API, WooCommerce REST, or custom), multi-language support, custom CMS workflows, or third-party API integrations.
Appropriate for: businesses where the website is a primary revenue asset and performance, SEO, and conversion rate are explicitly prioritised in the brief.
£40,000–£100,000+ — Enterprise and platform builds
Full product-level development. Custom design system, multi-market internationalisation, complex authentication, custom database architecture, high-traffic infrastructure configuration. Delivered by senior engineering teams over three to six months. Appropriate for scale-ups, Series A+ companies, and businesses building platform features into the site itself.
What Drives Cost Up
Several factors push Next.js project costs significantly higher regardless of page count:
Custom animation and interaction design. Framer Motion implementations, custom scroll animations, and interactive product visualisations add 20–40% to front-end development time. They look impressive in agency portfolios and often have minimal conversion impact. Evaluate them critically against the brief.
CMS complexity. A simple Contentful setup with ten content types is relatively quick. A fully custom CMS with editorial workflows, scheduled publishing, multi-region content, and advanced preview functionality can take as long as the main site build.
Third-party integrations. Every API integration — CRM, marketing automation, payment processing, booking systems, live chat, analytics platforms — adds scoping, development, and testing time. A site with six integrations costs meaningfully more than a site with two, even if the page designs are similar.
Internationalisation. Multi-language and multi-currency support is architecturally complex in Next.js. If this is in scope, it should be scoped and priced explicitly at the start, not added mid-project.
Ownership structure. Some agencies include extended ownership of their code in the quoted price; others charge a maintenance retainer to access future edits. Clarify exactly what you own at the end of the project and what ongoing access to your own codebase costs.
What to Ask Before Accepting a Quote
When evaluating Next.js quotes from UK agencies or developers, these questions reveal whether the quote is reliable:
- What specifically is included in "SEO setup" — meta tags only, or Core Web Vitals optimisation, canonical configuration, structured data, and sitemap submission?
- What are the project milestones and payment schedule?
- Who specifically will write the code, and can I see their previous Next.js work?
- What PageSpeed score is guaranteed on delivery?
- What does a revision cost once the project is in development?
- What is the handover — will I receive the source code, and can I run the project independently?
For context on how a Next.js build compares to WordPress as an alternative — particularly for SEO — our article on Next.js vs WordPress for SEO covers the technical differences in detail. And if you want to understand what a Dricomm build at each price point actually includes, our pricing page is transparent about what's in each package.
At Dricomm, all builds are on Next.js, all include SEO technical setup, and all come with a performance benchmark agreement before development starts. If you'd like to understand what your specific brief would cost, request a free consultation and we'll scope it honestly.
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