Why agencies quote $5,000 and we don't
Agency quotes are not a scam. The money goes somewhere real. It is worth knowing where, so you can tell whether you need it.
Short version. Agencies are worth it when you need original brand design or a genuinely complex build. For a five-page site for a local business, most of what you are buying is overhead.
Where the money actually goes
Roughly: a project manager, a designer, a developer, a salesperson's commission, an office, and the agency's margin. Your five-page site passes through four or five people, each of whom has to be paid for the time.
That structure exists to serve clients who need it — a company with a brand team, several stakeholders, and a complicated approval process genuinely does need a project manager.
What you are paying for that you may not need
Discovery workshops, brand strategy documents, multiple design concepts, and stakeholder review rounds. For a plumber or a bakery, most of these are ceremony.
You will also often pay for a sprawling content management system you barely use. Ours is deliberately small — an admin that edits your text, photos, and hours, and nothing else.
When an agency is genuinely the right call
You need original brand identity, not just a website. You have multiple decision-makers who must be brought along. You are building something genuinely complex — a booking system, a members area, an integration with your operational software.
In those cases, pay the agency. We would tell you the same thing on a call.
How we get to $99
One person, no office, no salesperson, no project manager. Modern tooling that removes most of the mechanical work. And a deliberately narrow product — five pages, done well, rather than anything you can imagine.
The trade is real: you get less flexibility and no dedicated team. For a lot of small businesses that trade is obviously worth it. For some it is not, and we will say so.