A focused manufacturing website can fit Smartcon Works’ Essential package at £595 for up to four pages, or Business at £895 for up to six. A larger range, technical catalogue or integrated enquiry process needs its own scope; our Bespoke package starts from £1,295, with the price agreed around the work. These are our published package prices, not UK industry averages or a promise that every manufacturer’s site will fit them.
The main cost question is how much product and capability information the website must organise, who will prepare it and what buyers must be able to do with it. A company making bespoke assemblies has a different brief from a distributor publishing a changing range of standard parts. Counting the items in the navigation will not reveal that difference.
Three manufacturing website briefs with different workloads
A focused company website
This introduces the business, its main capabilities, evidence of relevant work and a contact route. It can suit a specialist manufacturer whose orders begin with a conversation and drawing review. Buyers need to understand what the company makes and whether to approach it; they do not need a searchable record for every component it has ever produced.
A compact build is most straightforward when the capabilities are agreed, suitable photographs exist and the enquiry route is simple. It still needs technical approval of the copy. A small page count does not remove the work of resolving conflicting descriptions or obtaining permission to show customer work.
A larger capabilities and products website
Here, separate product families or processes need their own explanation. Buyers may compare materials, applications, sizes and finishes, then download a datasheet or ask a specific question. The design needs repeatable page types, while the content needs consistent fields and documents.
The cost depends on both the templates and the records placed into them. One product layout may serve many pages, but someone still has to prepare, enter and check every record. Ask suppliers to distinguish the work of designing the layout from populating the catalogue. Neither should disappear inside the phrase “product pages included”.
A technical catalogue or integrated enquiry system
Filters, variants, account-specific information, document selection and connections to business systems change the assignment. A request that carries selected part numbers into a CRM is more involved than an email form. A live stock display depends on a dependable source and a plan for delayed or missing data. These requirements need feasibility work, testing and ongoing ownership.
A manufacturer does not automatically need ecommerce. If suitability, carriage and pricing must be confirmed for each order, a well-organised catalogue and enquiry process may be enough. Equally, where customers genuinely need repeat ordering against agreed terms, that requirement deserves a separate commercial and technical assessment before anyone quotes a standard website package.
The content work hidden behind a product count
Before asking for a manufacturing website quote, give the studio a small sample of the real material: a typical product, an awkward variant, a capability page and their supporting documents. This is more revealing than saying the site contains a certain number of products. It exposes differences in specification fields, document quality and approval requirements early.
Suppose one range has consistent descriptions and approved specification sheets, while another exists across spreadsheets, old brochures and sales emails. The second range needs decisions about the authoritative information before it can be published. A developer importing data cannot determine which engineering value is correct. Budget for the technical team’s review as well as the studio’s preparation and entry work.
Photography creates a similar distinction. Existing images may be suitable after selection and cropping; others may need replacing because the product has changed or the only file is a small catalogue thumbnail. Commissioned photography, retouching and technical illustrations should be explicit allowances. Do not assume content guidance includes a factory shoot or writing every product description from interviews.
Once the content is understood, our manufacturing website structure guide can help decide which information needs a page and which belongs within a shared product family. That decision affects the amount of work more usefully than choosing an arbitrary page target.
Documents, languages and editing change the estimate
Publishing a supplied PDF and building a managed technical library are different tasks. A library may require document types, product relationships, revision dates and a replacement process. Identify who checks that the linked document matches the product and market. Include the existing download URLs in the inventory: customers may have saved or shared them directly.
Additional languages require more than a language switch. Allow for translation, technical checking, navigation, document variants and future updates. Confirm whether every product is offered in every market. A translated range that quietly falls behind the English version creates an ongoing editorial task, so name the person responsible before selecting the publishing system.
A content management system is useful when staff need to update product information regularly. Its scope should describe what they can edit, how changes are approved and what training is included. A company changing a few pages occasionally may prefer an agreed supplier update service. Compare the practical arrangements and recurring cost; neither approach makes accurate technical information somebody else’s responsibility.
An existing catalogue brings migration work
Old product addresses can appear in customer bookmarks, distributor websites, technical correspondence and search results. Include them when planning the redesign, even if the new navigation looks simpler. Retained products should have a clear destination; discontinued lines need a considered explanation rather than an automatic redirect to an unrelated replacement.
Ask for the quotation to identify what will be transferred and checked: product records, downloads, page addresses and any existing language versions. Agree redirects where URLs change and verify important buyer routes after launch. Migration is work that protects continuity, not a guarantee that search visibility will remain unchanged.
Our general UK website redesign cost guide covers the broader issues of access, reuse and transition. For manufacturers, the additional budgeting task is counting and assessing the technical records behind those pages, rather than treating the entire catalogue as one menu item.
What Smartcon Works’ published packages cover
The current package comparison lists Essential at £595 for up to four pages, Business at £895 for up to six, and Bespoke from £1,295 for seven or more pages or tailored requirements. Each includes a responsive, mobile-friendly build, semantic HTML, an SEO-ready setup and a contact form with spam protection.
Business adds Blog / Insights setup, GA4 and Search Console setup, content guidance and 30 days of post-launch support. Essential includes seven days of post-launch support. Bespoke lists extended content guidance and 30 days or more of support, with its actual deliverables agreed for the project.
Those inclusions do not make a technical catalogue, CMS, translation programme, ERP connection or custom quotation tool part of a basic fixed-price package. Blog setup is also not a promise of unlimited content production. Describe these requirements separately so we can assess suitability and agree the scope and price before work starts. The Bespoke starting price is not a ceiling for complex development.
Keep the build budget separate from running the site
Request a clear account of hosting, domain renewal, software licences, maintenance and future content changes. If the site uses an integration, identify any charges from the connected system and who investigates a failed transfer. A post-launch support period is not the same as an indefinite maintenance agreement.
Include internal time in the decision. Someone will need to approve technical claims, review pages and keep the range current. Ask which amounts include VAT where applicable and when payments are due. These questions produce a usable budget without relying on an invented market average or an optimistic headline price that leaves substantial work unassigned.
Give the quotation something concrete to price
Bring your current website, an outline of the range, representative product material and the tasks buyers need to complete. Identify which content is ready, who can approve the rest and whether the first release needs the whole range. Ask for optional functions to be priced separately, with a plain explanation of the work they add. If the wish list is still growing, our guide to prioritising a B2B redesign scope helps separate the first release from functions that can wait.
Our Manufacturers & Suppliers website service starts with that discussion. A useful quote should let you see the cost of presenting the business clearly, the cost of preparing its information and any additional cost of making the website part of an operational system. You can then decide what is justified now and what can wait.