Services · Fol. III · Custom Websites

A custom website.
Built for free.

£50 a month for 24 months. No deposit. The bureau designs, builds, hosts, and looks after a five-page custom website for your UK business. You own the design.

zero upfront · 24-month plan · you own the design
Plate III · Custom Websites · Fig. 3.01Nottingham · MMXXVI
Quick answer

Orchestrix builds a custom 5-page website for free, then hosts and looks after it for £50 a month over a 24-month minimum term. No deposit, no setup fee. The bureau covers the upfront build cost; the monthly hosting fee recovers it over the term. The domain is registered in your name from day one, the design is yours, and you can take the static files with you on exit at no cost.

Fol. II·What you get
Fol. II · the inventory

Everything in the
£50 a month.

Itemised, because hidden costs are how this kind of offer normally goes wrong. The £50 covers the lot. The only thing priced separately is work the bureau hasn’t quoted yet: new pages, big restructures, custom features beyond the brief.

Plate III · A · inventoryFig. 2.01
Custom design
Yours alone. Not a template. Built around your brand, your photos, your offer.
Five pages
Homepage, about, services or products, contact, and one flex page (case study, FAQ, or specific service detail).
Mobile-first build
Responsive across phone, tablet, desktop. Real-device tested, not just emulated.
Custom domain & DNS
Registered in your name. Renewed for the life of the contract. You own it throughout.
UK hosting
On the bureau’s managed infrastructure. Fast, isolated, monitored 24/7.
SSL certificate
Free, auto-renewed. Your visitors get the padlock.
Monthly backups
Off-site, automated. If anything ever goes wrong, the rollback takes minutes.
Small edits included
Phone numbers, opening hours, swapping a photo, fixing a typo. Reasonable requests, no charge.
Performance & SEO foundations
Core Web Vitals in the green, sitemap, structured data. The basics done properly.
Fol. III·The maths
Fol. III · comparative pricing

Cheaper than the
agency quote.

The £4,000 agency quote isn’t a rip-off. It’s the real cost of a custom build. The bureau moves that cost from upfront to monthly, with a 24-month plan underwriting the work.

RouteUpfrontMonthlyOver 24 monthsYou own it?
UK web design agency£3,000 to £5,000£30 to £100 hosting£3,720 to £7,400Usually
Orchestrix£0£50£1,200Yes
Wix / Squarespace DIY£0 (plus your weekends)£15 to £35£360 to £840No (platform lock-in)
Free website builders£0£0 (and the ads)£0 (and your reputation)No

Agency prices vary. The £3,000 to £5,000 band is the realistic middle of the UK custom website market for a five-page site. Cheaper exists; it’s usually a template with a logo dropped on top. The bureau’s build is custom, the only difference is the payment shape: monthly instead of upfront, underwritten by a 24-month plan.

Fol. IV·The procedure
Fol. IV · the procedure

Four steps,
three weeks.

First call to live site, two to three weeks for a standard brief. Most of that is content collection from you. The bureau’s part takes about a week.

  1. Step 01 · 01.AFig. 4.01

    The discovery call

    A 15-minute video call. You describe the business, the audience, and what the site has to do. The bureau confirms it’s a good fit and walks you through the contract.

  2. Step 02 · 01.BFig. 4.02

    The contract

    A 24-month hosting agreement, signed online. Direct debit set up via GoCardless. First month’s £50 collected on signature. Build slot booked.

  3. Step 03 · 01.CFig. 4.03

    The build

    The bureau drafts the design, runs it past you, then builds the site. You provide the content (copy, photos, logo). One round of revisions included.

  4. Step 04 · 01.DFig. 4.04

    Launch & handover

    Domain pointed at the new site, SSL turned on, you’re live. Handover document covers how to request edits, how billing works, what happens at month 24.

Fol. V·Who it’s for
Plate III · B · the right fitFig. 5.01

For you, if.

  • You’re a UK sole trader, owner-operator, or small business (1 to 10 staff) and you need a credible web presence.
  • You’ve been quoted £3,000 to £5,000 by an agency and can’t justify the upfront.
  • You’ve tried Wix or Squarespace and either hated it or ran out of weekends.
  • A five-page brochure site is what you actually need: homepage, about, services, contact, one flex page.
  • You’re willing to commit to 24 months of hosting at £50 in exchange for a free custom build.
Plate III · C · the wrong fitFig. 5.02

Not for you, if.

  • You’re running a real e-commerce operation. Shopify does that job well and is worth its monthly fee.
  • You need complex integrations, custom databases, or backend logic. See the Engineering pillar.
  • You want ongoing content marketing or serious SEO work. That’s a specialist’s job, not the bureau’s.
  • You want it to look exactly like a specific competitor. That’s a different brief, audit-first.
  • You won’t commit to a 24-month plan. The free build only works because the hosting underwrites it.
Fol. VI·The small print
The small print

Questions answered honestly.

Is the website really free?
Yes. The design, build, and launch are free. The 24-month hosting contract is what pays for it. You commit to £50 a month for 24 months (£1,200 total), and the bureau covers the cost of the build upfront. No deposit, no setup fee, no surprise invoices.
What's included for £50 a month?
Hosting on UK infrastructure, SSL certificate, a custom domain registration and renewal, monthly backups, uptime monitoring, security patches, and reasonable small content edits (changing a phone number, swapping a photo, updating opening hours). Larger changes (new pages, restructures, new sections) are quoted separately at cost.
How many pages do I get?
Five pages, custom-designed and custom-built. A typical structure: a homepage, an about page, a services or products page, a contact page, and one flex page (a case study, FAQ, or specific service detail). Need more? Additional pages are priced at the brief stage and added to the build.
Do I own the design?
Yes. The design is yours, the source files are yours, the domain is in your name. The bureau hosts and maintains the site for the 24-month contract, but the work itself belongs to you. The design is custom for your business and isn't reused for any other client.
What happens at the end of the 24 months?
The contract rolls onto a monthly basis at the same rate. You can stay, you can leave with 30 days' notice, or you can take the site somewhere else (the bureau can export your site files at any time). No price hikes, no renegotiation, no lock-in once the initial term ends.
Can I cancel early?
Yes, but the remaining months become payable on cancellation. The 24-month commitment is what makes the free build economically possible: the bureau covers the build cost upfront and recovers it through the hosting contract. Early termination settles the remaining hosting balance and ends the contract immediately. Full export delivered within 5 working days.
What if I don't pay?
Failed direct debit triggers an email reminder. If the account stays unpaid for 14 days, the site is suspended (taken offline) until the balance clears. Continued non-payment passes through formal demand letters and, if needed, debt recovery. The director (for limited companies) or signatory (for sole traders) is personally liable for the contract balance. Standard small-business contract terms; nothing surprising in the small print.
Who is this for?
UK sole traders, owner-operators, and small businesses (typically 1 to 10 staff) who need a credible web presence and can't justify £3,000 to £5,000 upfront for an agency build. Trades, consultants, small practices, local services, small e-commerce-adjacent businesses where the site is a shop window not a checkout. If you're running a real e-commerce operation, see the Engineering pillar instead.
What's not included?
E-commerce, payment processing, custom integrations, content writing, photography, ongoing SEO marketing, and paid advertising are out of scope. Each can be added by separate quote. The included build is a five-page brochure site, designed and built to convert, hosted and maintained. Anything beyond that is priced on its own.
Fol. VII·Terms & conditions
Fol. VII · the agreement

The short version,
in plain English.

The same points written out in full as a numbered contract live at /legal/website-plan-terms. The bullets below are the same agreement, summarised.

Plate III · D · the agreementFig. 7.01
  1. T.01The commitment
    A 24-month minimum term starting on the launch date. After the 24 months the agreement rolls onto a 30-day rolling plan at the same £50 a month rate.
  2. T.02What you get for £50 a month
    A custom 5-page static website (designed and built once, included), UK hosting, SSL certificate, monthly off-site backups, uptime monitoring, security patches, custom domain registration and renewal, and small content edits (text changes, phone numbers, opening hours, image swaps). New pages, new features, redesigns, e-commerce, payments, CMS, custom integrations, content writing, photography, SEO marketing, and advertising are out of scope and quoted separately.
  3. T.03What you own from day one
    The domain is registered in your name. The design copyright assigns to you on launch. A full static export of the site files is available on request at any time, at no cost.
  4. T.04Early cancellation
    You can end the agreement before the 24-month term. The remaining months at £50 each become payable on cancellation, in a single settlement. No other penalty. A full static export of the site is delivered within 5 working days of settlement.
  5. T.05End of term
    At month 24 the plan rolls onto a 30-day rolling basis at the same £50 a month rate. You can stay, you can leave with 30 days’ notice, or you can take the static export and move the site elsewhere at no exit cost.
  6. T.06Non-payment
    A failed direct debit triggers an automated email reminder. If the account stays unpaid for 14 days the site is suspended (taken offline) until the balance clears. The domain stays registered in your name throughout. Uncured non-payment passes through formal demand letters and, where needed, debt recovery; the signatory remains personally liable for the contract balance.
  7. T.07Changes after launch
    Small content edits (text, phone numbers, hours, photo swaps) are included for the term of the plan and turn around within 3 working days. New pages, new features, redesigns, and integrations are quoted separately at fixed fee.
  8. T.08Hosting service level
    Best-effort, no formal uptime guarantee. The bureau is one operator. In practice the platform has run uninterrupted; honest framing is that there is no enterprise SLA behind the £50.
  9. T.09Trading entity and law
    The agreement is with Alex Sais trading as Orchestrix (sole proprietor, Nottingham, United Kingdom). Governing law is England and Wales. The bureau is not VAT-registered, so the £50 is the actual amount taken by direct debit each month.

The full numbered contract that ties the direct debit mandate is at /legal/website-plan-terms. Nothing on this page is different in the long version, the numbered contract is just the form solicitors and accountants prefer to read.

The next step

Book the call.
See if it fits.

Fifteen minutes, no pitch, no obligation. If a free custom website isn’t the right answer for you, the bureau will say so on the call and point you at what is.