article · WEB DESIGNER VS AGENCY VS DIY BUILDER
Pick The OneThat Fits.
Four ways to get a website built, what each actually costs you, and the specific way each one fails. I do one of the four and I will tell you when the other three are the better call.
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01 · should i hire a freelancer or an agency
Which build option fits your business.
If your budget is your own evenings and you sell one thing, build it yourself on a template platform. If you sell six services in three parts of The Valley and nobody in your business owns this, do not.
Between a freelancer and an agency, the only question is who touches the site. A freelancer gives you the senior person and no bench. An agency gives you a bench and usually a junior on your account.
The fourth option, which is what I do, is one senior person on a monthly line. The expensive failure here is not a bad build. It is a finished build nobody maintains.
02 · web design options compared
Four ways to get a website built.
| option | What it really costs you | How it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Build it yourself on a template platform | A monthly subscription, plus your own evenings | The build is doable. Writing six service pages and knowing which ones earn the business is what stalls, and most owners stop at eighty percent |
| Freelancer, one time build | One payment up front, sometimes staged | You get the senior person and no bench. By month four they have three new clients and you are in a queue |
| Agency | A project fee, then a retainer | A process built for a client fifty times your size, a junior on the account, and a longer chain between your decision and the change |
| mineOne senior person on a monthly line | $1,000 a month, no setup fee, three months, then month to month | It only works if that person does the work. Get the name before you sign and check the answer has not changed by month three |
03 · is a diy website builder good enough
When to build the site yourself.
Sometimes it genuinely is right, and I will say so.
Build it yourself when you sell one thing to one kind of buyer, have no plan to rank in search, and need a credible address on the internet so people can confirm you exist before they call.
Stop past about six pages, when the site has to earn search traffic for distinct services, or when the reason it is unfinished is that you have not had a free evening since April.
04 · web design agency vs freelancer
What agencies and freelancers leave out.
The agency pitch is capacity. Capacity means your account is somebody's third priority, and the person who impressed you in the meeting is not writing your pages.
The freelancer pitch is access. Access is real until they win a bigger client, and there is no bench when your site breaks in your busiest week.
Neither is dishonest. Both are structural, and knowing which you are buying is worth more than any portfolio.
05 · how i do it
How my monthly website line works.
One senior person, monthly, no project fee. $1,000 a month for the Websites line: design and build, accessibility, the conversion work after launch, hosting and maintenance. Two services together are $1,799 and three are $2,499. No setup fee.
AI is the engine underneath it. It crawls every page, checks every term and catches regressions a person would only find by accident, which is why one marketer covers ground an agency staffs with four. What to do next is my call, and my name is on it.
No setup fee, three months, then month to month, thirty days notice. You own the domain, the site, the hosting and the analytics, so leaving costs you nothing but the notice.
06 · choosing a web designer questions
Choosing a web designer questions.