Short answer: a plumber's website should cost a fraction of a single boiler install. If it costs more than that every month, or ties you in for three years, someone's having you.
Plumbing has a problem most trades don't: two completely different customers searching for the same person. One has water coming through the kitchen ceiling and will ring the first plumber who looks credible. The other is replacing a boiler next month and will compare three quotes, read every review and check your Gas Safe registration. A site that only works for one of them leaves half your work on the table. So here's what each option costs in 2026, judged against both.
The emergency customer decides in seconds. The boiler customer decides over a fortnight. Your site has to win both.Two customers, one website
The 11pm search
Emergency searches happen on a phone, usually in a panic. Whoever looks local, looks trustworthy and answers first gets the job, and price barely comes into it. What wins here is boring and specific: a tap-to-call number at the top of every screen, the areas you'll come out to, whether there's a call-out charge and your honest response time. If you can't pick up at 11pm, say so and give them a way to leave details. More on that in when you can't answer every call.
The boiler customer
A boiler install runs £1,800 to £3,500, around £2,400 on average, so it gets researched. These customers want the brands you fit, the warranty you can offer, photos of tidy installs, reviews that mention you by name and a way to ask for a quote with a photo of the old boiler. They're comparing you with two others. The site that makes the comparison easy usually wins it.
What each option really costsPriced against both jobs
Lead sites
MyBuilder, Rated People and similar. The work comes to you.
An emergency lead sent to several plumbers is a race, and a boiler lead is a price war. You pay for the lead either way. Handy for filling a quiet week, expensive as your main source of work. Why it pays to stop paying for every lead.
DIY website builder
A template, your own photos and your own words.
Templates are designed to look good on a desktop. The emergency customer is on a phone at night, and the boiler customer wants detail a template never asks you for. 30 to 60 hours of your time, and usually still invisible for "boiler installation" in your town.
"Free website" subscription
A free build in exchange for a long contract.
Do the sum before you sign: £99 a month over three years is £3,564. Most of these sites stay on the provider's platform, so leaving means starting again from nothing.
Traditional web agency
One-off fee, you own it. Nothing wrong with that.
Updating the boiler brands you fit or your emergency hours becomes a billable job, so it doesn't get done. Out-of-date call-out details are worse than none.
Make the check easy
Careful customers check the Gas Safe Register before they let anyone near a boiler, and every engineer carries an ID card showing which types of gas work they're qualified to do. Put your registration number on the site, say what you're registered for and link to the register so the check takes ten seconds. If some of your team do gas work and others don't, be clear about who does what. Vague is what makes people nervous.
If you don't do gas work at all, say that plainly too. A plumber who's upfront about it earns more trust than one whose site hints at boiler work they can't legally take on.
The one-job mathsCount the repeat work too
A Starter build is £1,250 and £79 a month, so one boiler install covers the build on its own. The bigger number is what comes after. A boiler needs servicing every year, and a site that lets customers book their annual service, or reminds them when it's due, turns one install into years of repeat visits.
Three tiers, all transparent
A one-off build fee plus a small monthly. No long tie-in. You own the site. Cancel any time after the 3-month minimum.
Three years at the Professional tier is £7,144 all in: about the cost of one agency build, but with 36 months of new content, updates, hosting and ongoing SEO bundled in. Stop any time and you keep the site.
Three questions for a plumber's website
Is the phone number at the top of every page on a phone? Check it on your own mobile before you pay anyone a penny.
Can customers send a quote request with a photo? It saves you a wasted visit and tells you whether the job's worth doing.
Do I own the site and the domain? If leaving means losing both, it's rented, not bought.
The right question isn't "what does it cost?" It's "will it win the panic call and the planned job, and is it mine?"
The version built specifically for plumbers is the plumber websites page, and if boilers are most of your work, see websites for heating engineers. Every route side by side, ours included, is in the honest cost of a tradesperson's website.
Keep reading: How much does a website cost in the UK? Every option, side by side · Every Zenlio price on one page · How we do local SEO
