Two kinds of customer, one website
A plumbing and heating site has to work for two very different people. The first has no heating, a leak under the sink or a boiler showing a fault code. They're on their phone, they want someone registered who can come soon and they will ring the first number that looks trustworthy. The second is planning a new boiler or a bathroom. They have time to read, they compare two or three firms and they want to know who they're letting into their house.
That's the job your site does. It doesn't need to be big or clever. It needs your number in easy reach on every page, your Gas Safe number where people can check it and a clear explanation of the bigger jobs. Everything else is extra.
What a plumber's website needs
- Your phone number at the top of every page and a Call button that stays on screen as people scroll. When the heating's off, nobody fills in a form.
- Your Gas Safe registration number, with a link to the Gas Safe Register so customers can check it for themselves. If you're OFTEC registered for oil, show that too.
- Gas and oil said plainly. Homes off the gas grid search for oil boiler engineers by name, so if you do oil, give it its own section.
- A servicing section. Yearly servicing is steady work and most boiler warranties need it, so it's worth a page that brings people back each year.
- What a new boiler involves, from the first visit to the old boiler going. It answers the questions people would otherwise ring to ask.
- The towns you cover and photos of your own work. Real reviews from Google or Facebook once you have them.
What adds to the cost
For a plumber, the features that push the price up are mostly things you don't need on day one. Online booking with a calendar costs more to set up and someone has to keep it in sync with your diary. A boiler quote calculator or finance calculator is a bigger build and has to be kept accurate. A gallery with dozens of jobs takes time to caption and keep tidy.
Town pages are the one extra that's often worth paying for. If you cover Wrexham, Mold and Chester, a page for each with real detail about the work you do there gives Google something to match to people searching in each town. On our Standard plan that's up to 3 town pages. Growth includes up to 6. Extra pages are £50 each. Keep it to the towns you genuinely want work in. A long list of near-identical town pages can do more harm than good.
How many pages does a plumber need?
Five is usually enough: a home page, boilers and heating, servicing and repairs, plumbing and bathrooms, then about and contact. Add a page for oil if you do it and town pages for the places that matter. That fits our Starter or Standard plan, which cover 3 to 5 pages plus town pages on Standard.
What it costs over three years
Here's what a five-page plumbing site with three town pages costs in total. Website builder prices are yearly plans at the time of writing (October 2026), with about £12 a year for the domain from year two. The freelancer range comes from a published UK cost guide.
| Option | 12 months | 24 months | 36 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix Light, you build it | £108 | about £228 | about £348 |
| Freelancer, one-off build plus upkeep | £900 to £3,300 | £1,000 to £3,600 | £1,100 to £3,900 |
| Onside Starter (no town pages) | £667 | £1,135 | £1,603 |
| Onside Standard (up to 3 town pages) | £1,027 | £1,855 | £2,683 |
| Onside one-off from £695, then £20 a month | £935 | £1,175 | £1,415 |
DIY figures leave out your own time and any email inboxes. Check whether VAT is added before you buy.
What a plumber can skip
- A blog. Unless you'll genuinely write it, an empty blog looks worse than none.
- Stock photos of shiny bathrooms you didn't fit. People can tell.
- Live chat. You're under a sink most of the day. A Call button and a WhatsApp link work better.
- Pages for every village in the county. Pick the towns you want work in.
- Paying for SEO that promises page one. Nobody can promise a ranking.
Busy already? Use it to pick your work
A lot of plumbers have more work than they can take. A website still earns its keep: it can say which jobs you want more of, like boiler installs rather than dripping taps, list only the areas you want to drive to and tell people your lead time for non-urgent work. That means fewer calls you have to turn down.
What to ask a web firm before you sign
Whoever builds your site, a few questions save trouble later. Plumbers in particular change details often: a new van number, a new area, an oil qualification. Make sure those changes are quick and cheap.
- Is the domain registered in my name?
- How quickly do you make changes, like a new phone number or area?
- Can I take the site with me if I leave? Is there an exit fee?
- Who writes the words about boilers, servicing and oil?
- Will you set up my Google Business Profile and link it to the site?
Your Google Business Profile does half the work
When someone searches for a plumber near them, the map results often show before the websites. Those come from Google Business Profiles. A good profile with your area, services, photos and reviews, linked to a website that says the same thing, gives you two chances to be found. We set up the profile on every plan. On Growth we also post to it once a month for you.