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Freelancer or agency for a small business site

Compared 6 min read

What a freelancer and an agency are really selling, when hiring nobody is the right call, and the questions to settle before any money changes hands.

You have two quotes and they are not close. One is from a person who answered their own phone. The other is a company with a slide deck and a project manager. Neither document tells you which will still be answering you in March.

Three routes, not two

This gets framed as freelancer against agency, which leaves out the option many owners should take: nobody yet.

So there are three. A freelancer, meaning one person doing the work, whatever they call themselves. An agency, meaning a company with several people and a process between you and them. And no one, meaning you keep what you have and come back when you have a specific problem rather than a feeling that your site looks old.

Be clear about where this is written from: Carverpoint is one person. That is the freelancer column, and you should weigh what follows knowing it.

What you are actually buying from a freelancer

You are buying direct access and a lower bill, and those two things come from the same fact, which is that there is nobody in the middle.

You call, they answer, or call back that evening. The person you describe the job to is the person who builds it, so nothing is lost in a handover. There is no office, no sales team and no account manager to pay for, which is most of why the number is smaller.

The risk is the same fact from the other side. One person gets ill, takes a full-time job, or simply stops replying, and nobody else knows your site. There is also range: someone excellent at design may be thin on writing, or good at both and uninterested in hosting. Ask what they are weak at, and listen to whether the answer is honest.

What the larger bill at an agency pays for

Some of an agency's overhead is for you and some of it is for them.

The part for you starts with cover: somebody else can pick your job up if the person on it is away. Several skills sit in the building, so the writing, the design and the technical work are not all on one head. There is a process, slower but less gets forgotten. And somebody's whole job is to reply to you, which matters when you are on a roof and cannot chase.

The part for them is an office, a sales function, and people who need work to be busy on. None of that is sinister; it is what a company costs, and it lands in your quote.

The other thing to know is where you sit in their book. A small local build at an agency that mostly serves larger clients is the job that moves when a bigger one wobbles. Ask plainly whether businesses your size are normal work for them.

The question that separates them, which is what happens when you call

Both routes can build a perfectly good site. The difference shows up eight months later, on the morning the form stops sending or a certificate expires and the browser puts a warning over your homepage.

Ask the same three questions of both, and write the answers down.

Who do I contact when something is broken, by name. How quickly should I expect a reply, in hours, not in adjectives. And what happens if that person is on vacation or ill. An honest freelancer might say things wait a day or two, which is fine if you know in advance. An agency should name a team rather than a person. Anyone who cannot answer the third question at all has told you something useful.

Nobody, and when that is the right call

Sometimes the right decision is to hire no one, and somebody in this trade should say so.

If you are booked out six weeks ahead, your work comes from repeat customers and neighbors, your listing is accurate and the phone rings, a new website is not what stands between you and more money. Answering the phone faster and getting a sign on the van will do more, and neither has a monthly fee.

The other version of nobody is not yet. If you cannot say in one sentence what the site is meant to fix, wait until you can. "More inquiries for the job I want more of" is a brief. "Ours looks old" is a feeling, and feelings go over budget and never get finished.

Things to settle before any money moves

Get these in writing from either route. Not a contract full of clauses, just plain answers in an email.

Who registers the domain, and in whose name; it should be yours, in an account with your card on it. Who holds the files and logins at the end. What is included, page by page, and what counts as extra. Whether the price is fixed or hourly. What the date is. What happens after launch, who does it, and what it costs. And what happens if you part company, because that is when ownership stops being theoretical.

Anyone who answers all of those without going quiet is showing you how they will behave later.

Warning signs on both sides

The one that applies to everybody is a promise about rankings or lead numbers. Nobody outside Google decides a position in a search result, so nobody can promise one.

After that: a quote that is one line and a total, with no page-by-page scope. Reluctance to put the domain in your name, or vagueness about who holds it. A monthly fee with no plain statement of what it covers and how to stop it. A build sold as cheap that turns out to be rent you can never stop paying.

From an agency, be wary if you never meet the person actually doing the work. From a freelancer, be wary if they will not say who covers them when they are away. From either, be wary of anyone who cannot explain the work in words you already know.

A short checklist for the first conversation

Questions people ask

Is a freelancer or an agency better for a small business website

A freelancer usually costs less and answers directly; an agency has cover and more skills in the building. For a small local business the deciding factor is normally who will still reply to you next year.

How much should a small business website cost

It varies with what is included, so compare scope rather than totals. A build here is $1,450, once, and the site is yours outright, which makes it easy to check what anyone else offers for their number.

Can one person really do a whole website

Yes, for a straightforward local business site. The honest limits are capacity and cover, so ask what happens when they are ill or busy.

What should be in a website contract

The scope page by page, the price and whether it is fixed, the finish date, who owns the domain and files, what happens after launch, and how either side can walk away.

Do I have to pay an agency monthly after the site is built

Only if you agree to. Something has to cover hosting and someone should notice when a form breaks, but that can be a small arrangement rather than a long contract, and you should be able to stop it.

How do I know if a web person is any good

Look at sites they have built, on your own phone, and call one of the numbers on them. Then judge how they handled your own awkward questions about ownership and cover.

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