A design agency typically quotes £5,000 to £25,000 for a small-business website, with the cost split between strategy, design, and build across a team of three to ten people over six to twelve weeks. The quality at the top end is excellent. The overhead — project managers, multiple handoffs, retainer pressure afterwards — is real whether you need it or not. 1 Week Sites is a single solo UK studio: £1,000 once for a bespoke Next.js site, live in seven days, running on your own Vercel account from your own GitHub repo. One person, one brief, one fixed price, no retainer waiting at the end. Over five years an £8,000 agency build plus a typical £500-per-month retainer totals £38,000. A 1 Week Sites build costs £1,000 plus roughly £60 a year. Pick an agency when strategy work justifies the overhead. Pick 1 Week Sites when you just want the site.
Upfront vs five-year
Agency: £8,000 build + £500/mo × 60 months = £38,000. Retainer is optional but commonly offered.
When an agency is the right call
- You need strategy, brand work, and site design as one coordinated engagement — not just a site in a week.
- The project has multiple stakeholders and a project manager is genuinely earning their fee.
- You're running a complex digital estate — content hubs, member areas, multilingual, ecommerce integrations — that one person can't hold in their head.
- You want a long-term partner for marketing as well as the site, and the retainer is part of the plan rather than a surprise.
When a 1 Week Sites build is the better buy
- The site is a five-to-seven-page marketing site and strategy isn't where the money should go.
- You've been burned by an agency retainer that quietly became more expensive than the original build.
- You want one person with skin in the game and a named refund guarantee, not a team you meet through Slack.
- Your budget can't carry an £8,000 build, but the business deserves better than a template.
Agency vs studio vs solo
The honest split is headcount. An agency gives you six people — account manager, strategist, designer, developer, QA, PM — with the overhead that implies. A studio usually gives you three. A solo operator gives you one. More people means more process, more hand-offs, more meetings, and — genuinely — more perspective. For a straightforward marketing site, one person is faster and sharper. For a strategy-led brand reposition, three to six is usually the right number. Pick on the actual scope, not the brand.
Side-by-side
| Agency | 1 Week Sites | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | £5,000–25,000 | £1,000 once |
| Ongoing cost | £300–1,500/mo retainer commonly offered | £60 per year (domain + email) |
| Timeline | 6–12 weeks typical | 7 days |
| Team | 3–10 people, PM managed | One person, direct contact |
| Strategy depth | Dedicated strategist, workshops, positioning | 30-min brief, build-led |
| Design depth | Full art direction and brand system work | Site-level design, no full brand system |
| Performance | Varies — 60–95 depending on the shop | Mobile Lighthouse 95+ target |
| Ownership | Usually yours, sometimes licensed | Code on your GitHub, hosting on your Vercel |
| Accessibility | Often strong — varies by agency | WCAG 2.2 AA baseline built in |
| Refund | Milestone-based, variable | 48-hour full refund if missed day seven |
Five-year total cost
Small UK agencies routinely quote £8,000 for a site plus £500 a month for maintenance and small updates. Over five years that's £38,000. Not every agency pushes a retainer, but the maths matters when they do — it's the main reason flat-fee studios exist.
| Option | Five-year total | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Small UK agency (£8k build + £500/mo × 60) | ~£38,000 | varies widely — could be less without a retainer, more with a bigger shop |
| 1 Week Sites + 5 years of hosting | ~£1,300 | £1,000 build + £60/yr domain & email |
Common questions
Aren't you just a cheaper version of an agency?
No — it's a different product. An agency sells strategy plus design plus build, managed by a PM, over weeks. I sell one person's focused week on the build itself. If you need brand strategy, an agency is the right answer. If you need a beautifully-made five-to-seven-page site, one person is faster and sharper.
Why is £1,000 so much cheaper than agency quotes?
Because I'm one person with no office, no PM layer, no sales team, and no retainer expectations. The seven-day constraint also strips out weeks of back-and-forth. The quality per hour of build time is comparable; the hours and the overhead are not.
What do I lose compared to a £10,000 agency build?
Three things, honestly. Full brand strategy work (I'll use what you already have rather than develop it). Multi-round design iteration (you get one revision round, same week). And a dedicated PM (you deal with me directly). If any of those three are load-bearing for the project, go to an agency.
Do you handle marketing after launch?
No, by design. No retainer, no monthly fee, no ongoing commitment from either side. You own the code — any Next.js developer or marketing agency can edit and extend it. If you want me specifically for a later update, that's a small paid job, not a retainer.
What if I've already paid for agency discovery or branding?
Perfect — that's exactly the case where the solo studio model shines. You bring the strategy, wordmark, colour, type choices; I bring the week of build. The first step of the brief is just 'here's what's already decided' and we skip straight to design and code.
When is an agency genuinely the right answer?
When the project is strategy-led rather than build-led. Repositioning, brand overhaul, multi-site rollout, or a marketing operation that needs sustained attention for months or years. An agency earns its fee on that work. For a clean, one-off marketing site, the agency cost mostly pays for overhead you won't see.
Bespoke, live in seven days.
£1,000 flat. Paid upfront. Full refund if I miss day seven. Code, hosting, and domain all in your name.