Comparison
Agency, freelancer, DIY or pay-monthly?
Four routes, four very different cost structures, and a lot of marketing designed to stop you comparing them properly. Here is the version we would give a friend — including the two situations where you should not hire us.
Bars show the range from the low to the high end of each route. Indicative UK ranges for a small business site — not a survey.
Where these numbers come from. They are indicative UK ranges for a small business website of roughly 5–15 pages, based on published rate cards and the quotes clients show us when they come to compare. They are not a survey, and your own quotes may land outside them. Our own prices are exact, because they are ours.
The four routes, honestly
Each of these is the right answer for somebody. The trick is working out whether it is the right answer for you.
Design agency
Strategy, brand and a team of specialists. Priced for businesses with a marketing budget.
- Works when
- A team, deep strategy, big brand work
- Hurts when
- Costs the most, moves the slowest, minimum spends are common
- Year one
- £6,800–£32,200
Freelance designer
Good value and a direct line to the person building it — if they stay available.
- Works when
- Lower cost, direct contact, flexible
- Hurts when
- One person: holidays, illness and busy periods are your problem too
- Year one
- £1,740–£6,960
DIY site builder
Genuinely the cheapest in cash terms. You pay for it in hours instead — and in the ceiling you hit later.
- Works when
- Cheapest cash cost, total control, instant edits
- Hurts when
- Your time, a template look, and a hard ceiling on speed and SEO
- Year one
- £192–£540
Pay monthly with us
A custom build with nothing to pay upfront. Hosting, support and monthly changes are in the fee.
- Works when
- No upfront cost, nothing extra to buy, changes included
- Hurts when
- A 12-month minimum term, and you rent rather than own until you buy out
- Year one
- £540–£1,440
Side by side
| Route | Upfront | Ongoing | Changes | Time to live | Your time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design agency | £5,000–£25,000 | £150–£600retainer | £75–£150/hr | 8–16 weeks | 10–20 hrs |
| Freelance designer | £1,500–£6,000 | £20–£80hosting & support | £40–£85/hr | 3–8 weeks | 10–25 hrs |
| DIY site builder | £0plus 40–80 hours of your time | £16–£45subscription | Includedyour own time | 2–8 weeks | 40–80 hrs |
| Pay monthly with us Us | £0 | £45–£120everything included | Includedchanges included | 2–3 weeks | 2–4 hrs |
Choose a design agency if…
- You have a marketing budget in the tens of thousands and someone internally to manage the relationship.
- The brand itself is the project — positioning, identity, tone of voice, not just a website.
- You need several specialists at once: research, UX, design, development, content, paid media.
- You are operating at a scale where a 1% conversion improvement is worth more than the entire fee.
Do not choose an agency because the quote felt reassuringly expensive. For a five-page site for a local business, most of what you are paying for is coordination between people you will never meet.
Choose a freelancer if…
- You want a direct relationship with the person actually doing the work.
- Your requirements are clear and unlikely to change much mid-project.
- You are comfortable managing the project yourself — chasing, reviewing, deciding.
- You have somewhere to turn if they become unavailable, because at some point they will be.
The thing to check: what happens to your site in the week they are on holiday and your booking form breaks. Ask the question before you hire, not after. Our 15 questions to ask a web designer covers the rest.
Choose a DIY builder if…
- Your needs are simple and unlikely to grow much: a handful of pages, a contact form, some photos.
- You genuinely have 40 to 80 hours to spend, and would rather spend hours than pounds.
- You want to change things yourself at 11pm without asking anyone.
- You are not competing for search traffic against businesses with proper sites.
We mean this. Squarespace and Wix are good products and for a lot of new sole traders they are the correct choice. The reason to move on later is usually not that the site looks bad — it is that you have hit a ceiling on speed, structure or SEO, and no amount of fiddling gets you past it.
Choose pay-monthly if…
- You want a custom-built site but not a four-figure invoice in the first month.
- You know from experience that the site will go stale if changing it costs money each time.
- You would rather one predictable monthly figure than an unpredictable series of them.
- You want someone to be responsible for it working, not just for it launching.
Two cases, plainly. If you need brand strategy, research and a team of specialists, an agency will serve you better and we will say so. And if you have simple needs, plenty of time and a tight budget, build it yourself on a site builder — come back when the ceiling starts to hurt.
Over five years
Year-one cost is what gets compared. Five-year cost is what you actually pay.
| Route | Year 1 | 3 years | 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design agency | £6,800–£32,200 | £10,400–£46,600 | £14,000–£61,000 |
| Freelance designer | £1,740–£6,960 | £2,220–£8,880 | £2,700–£10,800 |
| DIY site builder | £192–£540 | £576–£1,620 | £960–£2,700 |
| Pay monthly with us | £540–£1,440 | £1,620–£4,320 | £2,700–£7,200 |
Questions people ask
Is a freelancer riskier than an agency?
In one specific way, yes: there is no cover. A good freelancer produces work every bit as good as a good agency, often faster and for less, but if they are ill, on holiday or overloaded, you wait. Agencies carry that redundancy, and part of what you pay covers it. The mitigation is simple and worth doing either way: make sure you own your domain, have a copy of your site files, and know where the hosting account is.
Can I start on Wix and move to a proper site later?
Yes, and plenty of businesses do exactly that. Be aware that you cannot export a Wix site in any usable form, so a move means a rebuild rather than a migration. Your content, images and domain come with you; the site itself does not. Keep your text somewhere outside the platform as you go and the rebuild is far less painful.
Why would I pay monthly when DIY is cheaper?
Only for reasons that are worth it to you. The two that come up most are time and outcome. Forty to eighty hours is a fortnight of evenings for most people, and the finished result is limited by what the builder can do and how much you enjoy doing it. If your site needs to compete for search traffic, or if those evenings are worth more spent on the business, paying somebody is rational. If not, it is not, and we would rather say so than sell you something.
What about offshore developers at £300 a site?
It can work, and sometimes works well. The risks are the ones you would expect: a timezone gap when something breaks, copy written by someone who does not speak to your customers, and no practical recourse if the work is not what you wanted. If you go this route, pay in stages against agreed milestones, own the hosting account yourself, and budget for someone local to review the result.
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