How much should a UK nonprofit budget for a custom WordPress site?

£4,500 — £14,000. Gift Aid + accessibility eat the budget in unexpected ways. Honest version below.

The £4,500 floor

• Single-locale marketing site, four to six template types.
• Stripe + GoCardless donation flow with Gift Aid declaration capture.
• WCAG 2.2 AA conformance documented (most public-sector funders now ask for the audit report).
• Editor training (60 min Loom) so volunteers can run it.

What pushes you toward £14,000

A volunteer portal (login-gated content with role-based access), a grant-application form with file uploads and conditional logic, and EAA compliance documentation if you serve EU beneficiaries.

Where nonprofits over-spend

On a CMS too complex for the volunteer team. The right answer is usually fewer custom blocks, not more. The donation flow gets 60% of the technical attention; the rest of the site should be templates the volunteer team can ship without dev support.

I take one nonprofit engagement per year at cost. Email me@pixypuala.com if your timeline overlaps.