Websites that get local businesses booked.

Published UK price guides put an agency-built brochure site at £1,500 to £5,000 taking six to twelve weeks, and a basic online shop at £4,000 to £12,000 (checked 1 August 2026). Brickwork Studio charges £895 for a local business site and £1,450 for an online shop, one-time, with no monthly fee on the brochure build. The gap is not quality, it is overhead: no account managers, no sales team, no queue. The trade-off is honest, and it is that commissioned photography and licensed typefaces are what larger budgets buy, and your own photos close most of that gap.

Instagram gets you noticed; a website is where people check you are real and book. A profile cannot be found by someone searching your trade and town on Google, cannot be trusted at a glance by a customer who has never heard of you, and cannot take a booking or a payment without a conversation in your DMs. The practical test is simple: if enquiries are stuck in your inbox, if customers say they could not find you on Google, or if competitors look more established than you despite doing worse work, that is what a site fixes.

A free mockup is a real, custom-designed visual of your website, sent within 48 hours of our call, with nothing to pay and no commitment of any kind. The design is built around your actual business name, services, brand colours and style, not a template with your logo dropped into it. One free mockup is available per business. If you do not like what comes back, you owe nothing, there is no follow-up sequence, and we part as friends. Seeing the work before paying is the point: it moves the risk onto the studio rather than onto you.

You pay 50% upfront to secure your build slot, and the remaining 50% only once you have reviewed the finished site and you are happy with it. All payments run through Stripe, so card details never reach Brickwork Studio at any point. Paying by card also preserves the dispute rights your card issuer gives you, which is worth knowing when buying from a studio you have not met in person. There is no minimum term on the build and no cancellation fee, because the build is a one-time purchase rather than a subscription.

Yes, counted as 7 working days from the day your content arrives, not from first contact. The clock starts on content because waiting on photos and copy is the single most common reason a small build slips, and starting it at first contact would mean promising a date controlled by someone else. Brickwork Studio takes one project at a time, so there is no queue and no divided attention. If anything threatens the date it is flagged immediately rather than at the deadline. Two rounds of revisions and a 14-day snag list follow launch.

A short brief taking about ten minutes: your business name, what you offer, any brand colours or a logo if you have them, and a couple of websites you like the look of. No technical knowledge is needed at any stage, and there is nothing to install or configure. If you do not have photographs yet, professional placeholders are used until you do, and swapping them later is covered by monthly care or a quick paid update. Content is the one thing that determines the timeline, so the 7-day countdown starts the day it lands.

Shopify is the software an online shop runs on, and you only need it if you are selling products online. It takes card payments, keeps them secure, and handles delivery options and tax, which are the parts no small business should be building or be liable for itself. You pay Shopify directly in your own account from around £25 per month, which matters because it means you own the account and can move it elsewhere at any time. If your business takes enquiries or bookings rather than payments, Shopify is not needed at all and the £895 website carries no monthly fee.

Yes, and the first thing you get is an honest assessment of whether that is the right call. Some sites have a solid structure and need design, speed and conversion work. Others are built on something that will fight every change, and a rebuild costs less than patching. Either way the answer comes with reasons you can check rather than a recommendation to buy the more expensive option. Send the address and a note on what is frustrating you about it, and the assessment comes back before any quote does.

An AI receptionist is a phone line that answers your calls 24 hours a day, handles common questions, takes bookings and follows up leads by text or email, in a voice scripted for your business. It matters most for trades and appointment businesses, where a missed call outside opening hours is usually a customer who simply rings the next name on the list. Brickwork Studio builds, scripts and tests the line for your business rather than handing over software to configure yourself. Nothing is charged until there is a working line you have heard answer your own number.