If you've looked into building a site recently, you'll have seen prices that don't seem to live on the same planet. One freelancer might quote you a few hundred pounds; another agency won't even jump on a discovery call for less than £5,000.
So, what's realistic?
Here is the honest breakdown of the four routes most recruitment companies end up taking, and what you actually get for your money.
1. DIY on a website builder
Think Wix or Squarespace. You can get a basic site live for around £15 to £25 a month.
The cash investment is tiny, but the time investment is massive. You're the one designing pages, troubleshooting layout issues, and trying to figure out how candidate applications should route. While these platforms can look incredibly polished, they are built for everyone, bakeries, accountants, portfolio sites, not specifically for recruiters.
It works if you genuinely enjoy tinkering with tech, but lots of recruiters quickly realise they'd rather spend those hours talking to clients and placing candidates.
2. Template builds from a web designer
This is where a freelancer or small agency takes an existing WordPress or Webflow template and customises it for your brand. Expect to pay between £2,000 and £5,000 upfront.
You get a polished, professional site without the heavy lifting. What you don't automatically get, however, are the invisible mechanics that make a recruitment site actually work. Generalist web designers don't build recruitment sites every day. They rarely include proper application handling, robust job filtering, or the specific structured schema data that helps Google for Jobs index your vacancies.
You can also find yourself with quite significant ongoing maintenance costs on these sites.
3. Recruitment website platforms
This is where platforms built specifically for the industry sit. Pricing across the market varies wildly. Some enterprise software costs hundreds a month, while focused tools start much lower.
The key difference here is that the infrastructure is native. Job parsing, application tracking, and recruitment-specific SEO are built into the foundation, not bolted on as an afterthought.
Exactly what you get depends entirely on the provider. When comparing options, always check whether essentials like custom domains, analytics, and ongoing support are included or treated as extras.
4. Bespoke agency builds
A dedicated development agency builds your digital presence from the ground up on a custom framework. Prices start around £5,000 and easily climb deep into five figures once you introduce custom workflows.
For large recruitment companies with complex, legacy tech stacks to integrate, this investment makes sense. For a solo recruiter or a growing independent recruitment company, it's usually paying for technical flexibility you will never actually use.
Don't forget the ongoing costs
The biggest trap is forgetting what happens after the launch button is pressed. A template or bespoke site isn't a set-and-forget asset. It requires secure hosting, regular plugin updates, security patches, and minor tweaks as your business shifts. If an agency charges you £3,000 for the build, make sure you know what they expect you to pay monthly to keep it online and secure.
With a dedicated platform, those invisible operational costs are almost always wrapped directly into your predictable monthly subscription.
What should you actually pay?
If you are running an independent recruitment company, a recruitment-specific platform is usually the sweet spot. You get the specialised functionality your business relies on, without the eye-watering upfront costs of a bespoke build or the headache of managing servers yourself.
That is exactly why we built Pillar & Post. Most of our customers are on our £20 a month plan, because independent recruiters don't need over-engineered enterprise software. They need a fast, professional website that converts candidates and stands up to scrutiny.
Whatever route you choose, it's worth checking if your current digital setup is getting the fundamentals right. Our free Website Health Check analyses your technical foundations and SEO to see if search engines and modern AI search tools can actually read your jobs. It takes two minutes, and we don't even ask for your email address.