a buyer's guide

Hire a web designer for your small business

This page is for owners about to spend money on a website. It covers what a web designer actually does for a business your size, where to find one, the seven questions worth asking before you pay, and the warning signs that should end a conversation. We are a web design agency, so we have a bias — it is stated further down, and you are welcome to read that part first.

The seven questions What we charge

What a web designer actually does for a small business

Six jobs, usually sold as one. Knowing them separately is what lets you tell a fair quote from a padded one — because a padded quote is almost always a seventh thing you never needed.

six jobs
Job 01
Decides what it says What goes on the front page, what order the pages come in, what a stranger has to know in the first eight seconds. This is the part that decides whether the site works.
Job 02
Designs how it looks Type, color, spacing, images. The visible part, and the part clients think they are buying. It matters — but it is one of six, not the whole job.
Job 03
Builds it for a phone Most of your visitors are standing up, holding a phone. A site designed at desktop width and shrunk afterwards is the most common failure in small business web design.
Job 04
Makes it load fast Compressed images, no plugin stack, no framework overhead. Every extra second costs a share of the people waiting — and a share of your position in search results.
Job 05
Sets up how people reach you A tap-to-call button, a form that actually sends, hours where a visitor looks for them. A site people find but can't act on is worse than no site.
Job 06
Publishes it and keeps it alive Domain, certificate, hosting, backups, updates. The part that quietly breaks eighteen months later, when whoever built it has moved on.

How we split those six into eight web design services →

Where small businesses find a web designer

Four routes. The right one depends less on your budget than on how much of your own time you are willing to spend.

four routes
A local web design agency
  • Commonly $5,000–$15,000, six to twelve weeks
  • You get strategy, a team, and someone whose office you can walk into
  • Worth it for a business that needs a custom system — expensive for one that needs five good pages
A freelance web designer
  • Commonly $1,500–$5,000, three to eight weeks
  • Often excellent work, and one person who knows your project
  • The variable is availability: one designer, several clients, and your project moves when they have time
A fixed-price service like this one
  • $999 once plus $25 a month, seven days
  • Fixed scope: a well-built standard site, not a system designed around your processes
  • Everything runs in writing — no meetings, which is where most of the price difference comes from
No designer at all — a builder
  • $180–$500 a year, plus twenty to forty of your own hours
  • The cheapest on paper and the most expensive in practice
  • Two things go wrong reliably: it never quite gets finished, and it never gets updated after launch

About these figures: the ranges for agencies, freelancers and builder subscriptions are what those providers commonly quote in the US market — orientation, not a survey we carried out. Get two real quotes before you decide anything. If ours doesn't come out ahead for your situation, take the other one.

The four routes compared side by side, in a table →

Seven questions to ask any web designer before you pay

Ask all seven, of everyone, including us. They take four minutes and they turn a confusing quote into a comparable one. What you are listening for is a specific answer — a vague one to any of these is itself the answer.

ask all seven
Question 01 Who owns the site when it's finished?

Why it matters

The most expensive thing to discover afterwards. Some providers keep the design, the domain or the hosting account, and leaving them costs you the site.

A good answer sounds like

"You do. If you leave, we hand over the files and transfer the domain." Anything softer than that is a no.

Question 02 What is the total price, including the first year?

Why it matters

The build price is never the whole price. Domain, hosting, certificate, updates and backups run every year, whoever builds it.

A good answer sounds like

One number for the build, one number per month or year afterwards, and a plain statement of what happens if you stop paying it.

Question 03 How many revision rounds are included, and what does another cost?

Why it matters

"Revisions included" without a number is where projects go over budget. It is also where they go over schedule.

A good answer sounds like

A count and a price. "One round included, further rounds $100 each, always agreed before we start" tells you exactly where you stand.

Question 04 What exactly do you need from me, and when?

Why it matters

Almost every late website is late because the client's content never arrived. If nobody tells you what is needed, that will be you.

A good answer sounds like

A written list, sent before you pay. Text, photos, logo, hours, service areas — with a note saying which ones are optional.

Question 05 Who changes the site after it's live, and what does that cost?

Why it matters

Your hours change, your prices change, a phone number changes. A site nobody can update is out of date within a year.

A good answer sounds like

Either "you can, here is the editor" or "we do, it's included, you email us". Both are fine. "We'll see" is not.

Question 06 Can I see it on a phone before I approve it?

Why it matters

Most of your visitors will only ever see the phone version. A designer who presents only desktop screenshots is showing you the version that matters least.

A good answer sounds like

A link you can open on your own phone, not a picture of a phone in a slide.

Question 07 What happens if I'm not happy?

Why it matters

Every provider has an answer. Some of them are "nothing". You want to know which one before you pay, not after.

A good answer sounds like

A plain description of the revision process and a plain statement about refunds — including "there are none", if that is the truth. A provider who dodges this has told you something.

Five warning signs

None of these is proof of anything on its own. Two of them together is a reason to get another quote.

the red flags
A price that only appears after a call
  • Some projects genuinely need scoping, and that is fair
  • But a five-page small business site is not one of them
  • If nobody will name a range before a meeting, the meeting is the sales pitch
Guaranteed rankings
  • Nobody controls Google's results, and anyone selling a guaranteed position is selling something they cannot deliver
  • What a designer can honestly promise is the groundwork: titles, structure, speed, structured data
  • Treat "guaranteed page 1" as disqualifying, not impressive
A portfolio you cannot open
  • Screenshots are not evidence. Live URLs are
  • Open two of them on your phone and time how long they take
  • If the examples are demos rather than client work, that is fine — but it has to be said out loud, not implied
No written contract or terms
  • You are buying something that will not exist for weeks
  • Ownership, timing, revisions and refunds belong in writing before money moves
  • A provider with nothing written down has nothing to hold to
You cannot tell who you are paying
  • A named business, a real address, a registration number, a person who answers
  • An anonymous storefront asking for four figures is a risk whatever the design looks like
  • This applies to us too — ours is on the about page and in the imprint

Our answers to our own seven questions

It would be strange to publish a checklist and not run it on ourselves. Here it is, in the same order, without softening the parts that count against us.

our bias, stated
The seven questions, answered for this service
Question Our answer
Who owns the site? You do — the site and its content. If you move it elsewhere, we hand over the files.
Total price, first year included? $999 once, then $25 a month for hosting, updates, backups, the domain renewal and small content changes. Cancel monthly. Nothing else.
Revision rounds? One included. Further rounds $100 each, always agreed before we touch anything.
What do you need from me? An intake form, sent within a minute of ordering. About ten minutes to fill in. The complete list is on the process page, readable before you pay.
Who changes it later? We do — you email, we make the change, it is inside the $25. There is no editor for you to log into, and for some owners that is a drawback rather than a feature.
Can I see it on a phone first? Yes. You get a live link to the finished site before it is published, and the phone view is the one it was designed at.
What if I am not happy? One revision round covers everything you list, in one pass. There is no refund — the $999 is not refundable once paid, and §9 of the terms says exactly what that means. We would rather you read that now than discover it later.

Where we are the wrong choice: if you want meetings, a designer in your own town, an editor you log into yourself, or a custom system built around how your business runs — hire an agency or a freelancer. We would rather say that here than take the order and disappoint you.

Questions about hiring a web designer

five answers
What does a web designer actually do for a small business?

Six jobs that are usually sold as one: they decide what the site needs to say and in what order, they design how it looks, they build it so it works on a phone, they make it load fast enough that people wait, they set up the ways a customer can reach you, and they publish it and keep it online. Very few small businesses need anything beyond those six. Most expensive quotes are expensive because they add a seventh thing that was never needed.

How much does it cost to hire a web designer?

In the US market a full-service agency commonly quotes $5,000–$15,000 over six to twelve weeks, and a freelance web designer $1,500–$5,000 over three to eight weeks. A fixed-price service like ours is $999 once plus $25 a month, delivered in seven days. Those ranges are orientation, not a survey we carried out — get two real quotes before deciding anything.

Do I need to meet a web designer in person?

No. Everything a designer needs for a small business site is factual: your name, your services, your hours, your service area, your contact details and any photos you have. That is a form, not a conversation. Meetings are where a large part of an agency price comes from, which is why removing them changes the number so much. Some owners genuinely think better out loud, and for them a local designer is worth the difference.

Who owns the website when a web designer builds it?

Ask this before you pay, every time. With us the site and its content are yours, and if you ever move it elsewhere we hand over the files. Some providers keep ownership of the design, the domain or the hosting account, which means leaving them costs you the site. That is rarely in the quote — it is in the contract, and it is the single most expensive thing to find out afterwards.

What is the difference between a web designer and a web developer?

A designer decides how the site looks and how a visitor moves through it. A developer builds functionality behind it — accounts, databases, payment systems, integrations. A five-page small business website needs a designer who can also build. It does not need a developer, and being sold one is a common way a $1,000 job becomes a $10,000 job.

All 19 questions about the $999 website →

If we came out ahead on the seven questions

$999 once, ten minutes of your time, a finished website seven days later. And if you would rather ask something first, that is what the contact form is for — nobody has to buy anything to get an answer.

See the full price breakdown Ask a question first