A web design agency or a freelancer: which one to hire.

The short answer

Both can build you a good website. The label tells you less than three facts about the people behind it: who will do the work, who covers when that person is away, and who looks after the site after launch.

• A freelancer is one person, sometimes with a few trusted partners. You deal directly with whoever does the work, it usually costs less, and it suits a simple site with a clear brief. The risk is that everything depends on one person's health, workload and plans.
• An agency is a team with roles: someone who manages the project, designers, developers, often writers and search specialists. It costs more, suits a larger or more complex site, and has cover when someone is away. The risk is that the people who sold you the project are not the ones who build it.
• A small studio sits between the two: a few people who each do part of the work, with less process than an agency and more cover than a freelancer.

Quality varies more inside each group than between them. A good freelancer beats a poor agency, and the other way round, so most of this guide is about how to tell which one you are talking to.

Who actually does the work

Ask who will do each part of the job, by name, and whether you can speak to them before you sign:

• Who plans the pages and decides what each one is for?
• Who writes the words, or edits yours?
• Who designs it, and who builds it?
• Who sets up the forms, the search basics and any connection to your other tools?
• Who tests it on phones before launch?

A freelancer may do all of it, or pass parts to people they trust, such as a copywriter or a developer. That is normal, as long as you know and they stay responsible for the result. An agency may give you an account manager who never touches the site, with the work done by junior staff, contractors or a partner abroad. Also normal, as long as the people doing it are good and someone who knows your project answers your emails.

The answer that should worry you is a vague one. "Our team" is not a name.

Match the skills to the job

List what your site needs before you choose, then match the list to the people:

• A plan: which pages, what each is for and what visitors should do.
• The words: someone has to write them, or edit yours.
• A design that works on a phone.
• The build, on a platform you can live with.
• Photos: yours, a photographer's or, at a push, stock.
• The search setup, the forms and analytics.
• Connections to your other tools, such as booking software, a CRM or a store.
• Care after launch: hosting, updates and small edits.

A six-page site for a decorator, with the owner's own photos and a contact form, needs only a few of these, and one good freelancer covers them all. A dental clinic site with online booking, several dentists, forms that collect health information and two languages needs nearly all of them. That is a lot to ask of one person, however good.

If one person would have to be excellent at everything on your list, the risk is in the gaps, not in the person.

When the person is ill, on holiday or leaves

With a freelancer, a holiday, an illness, a full diary or a new job stops your project. With an agency, staff turnover hands your project to someone who was not in the meetings. Plan for both before you start:

• Ask who covers when they are away, and what happens to your project if they stop working altogether.
• Keep the domain, the hosting and every account in your business's name from the first day, with the designer added as a user.
• Ask for the site's files or a full export, and every login, at launch rather than when something goes wrong.
• Ask for a short written note of how the site is built: the platform, the theme, the plugins or code, and where each account lives. Another developer can pick the site up from that.
• With an agency, ask for a named contact and a second name.

None of this is about distrust. It is what lets the work carry on when life happens to the person doing it, and a good supplier of either kind will offer most of it before you ask.

What drives the price difference

Freelancers usually charge less, because one person carries fewer costs: no office, no project managers, no sales team. An agency's price pays for more people and more process, which buys cover, a wider set of skills and someone whose job is to keep the project on time.

Compare the work, not the rate. A freelancer's quote may leave out the words, the photos or the search setup that an agency's includes. An agency's quote may include meetings and reports a small business does not need. Send both the same brief and compare them line by line, as what decides the price of a website explains.

Day rates and fixed prices both work. A fixed price for a defined scope is easier to budget for. A day rate suits work that is hard to define in advance, such as untangling an old site, as long as you agree a ceiling before it starts.

Who looks after the site later

A website is not finished at launch. Someone has to keep it online, update the software, fix what breaks and make the small edits. Ask both kinds of supplier what happens in year two:

• Do they offer hosting and care, or will you need to find it elsewhere?
• How quickly do they respond when the site is down, and how do you reach them?
• What does a small edit cost, and how soon is it done?
• If they stop offering care, how is the site handed over?

Some freelancers build a site and move on to the next project, and offer no care at all. That is fine if you know it from the start and line up someone else. Agencies more often sell care plans, sometimes with a minimum term. Website maintenance, line by line shows what a care plan should cover and which lines are padding.

How working together differs

With a freelancer, you talk to the person doing the work, decisions are quick and nothing gets lost between people. The flip side is that they juggle other clients, and your email waits while they are deep in someone else's project.

With an agency, a project manager keeps the timeline, books the meetings and collects your comments. There is more process: a kick-off call, design rounds, sign-offs. That suits a business where several people want a say, and can feel slow to an owner who would rather decide on the phone in five minutes.

Your side matters as much, whoever builds it. Name one person who decides, collect everyone's comments into one reply per round, and send the words and photos when you said you would. Delays on small projects often start on the client's side, with missing words, late photos or comments from three people that disagree.

Hiring someone remote, or in another country

A web designer does not have to be in your town. The work happens on screens and calls, and a remote supplier can be the best fit for your trade, your budget or your language. What changes when you hire one:

• Time zones: agree the hours you overlap, and how quickly replies come outside them.
• Reviews: a video call with a shared screen works for going through designs. Ask for a private preview you can open on your own phone.
• Local knowledge: they will not know your town, your customers or your competitors, so put that in the brief and the first call.
• Photos: a remote designer cannot photograph your premises. Book a local photographer, or take careful phone photos in daylight.
• Contracts and payment: check which country's law the contract follows, the currency, and how the invoice handles tax. Ask your accountant how to record a supplier from abroad.
• Language: if the site is in your language, whoever writes the words must write it well, or you must edit every page.

Local still helps in some cases: when you want to meet in person, when the supplier also takes the photos, or when they know your local competitors well. It is a preference, not a requirement. GGSites runs every project remotely, with consultations over Google Meet, a voice call or text, for businesses in the US and Europe.

Where to find each, and how to check them

Good places to look:

• Businesses you trust: ask who built a site you like, or check the footer, where many designers leave a small credit.
• Your trade: an association, a supplier or your booking software company may know designers who build for businesses like yours.
• Marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr: good for small, well-defined jobs, such as fixing a form or building one page from a clear brief. Read the reviews from clients like you, and do not stop at the star rating.
• Agency and studio websites: look for live sites they built, not screenshots or mock-ups.

Whoever you find, open three sites they built on your phone. Do they load quickly? Is the phone number easy to tap? Does the form work? Then speak to one of those clients. The full list of questions for the first call, with what good answers sound like, is in questions to ask before you hire a web designer.

Start with a small paid job

If you are unsure, give them a small paid job before the whole site: one of your landing pages for ads, a fix to the current site's form, or a page for one service. You learn how they communicate, whether they meet dates, how they handle a change of mind and what their work looks like on your own phone, for a fraction of the risk.

A good supplier, freelancer or agency, is happy to start small. Pressure to sign the whole project before any work has been seen is a reason to keep looking.

Four businesses, four choices

• A solo bookkeeper who needs five pages, writes well and has a good photo of herself: a freelancer on a website builder, or the bookkeeper herself. The site is simple, and one person covers all of it.
• A two-van plumbing firm about to spend on Google Ads: a freelancer or a small studio that builds pages for ads, tests the form from a phone and answers messages within a day. Speed and a page that turns clicks into calls matter more here than a large team. More on this kind of business in home services and trades.
• A dental clinic with online booking, five clinicians, health information in its forms and two languages: an agency or a studio with a team, because the work needs several skills and the clinic cannot wait for one person's holiday to end.
• An online shop with a few hundred products, moving from one platform to another: someone who specialises in that platform, freelancer or agency, with a plan for the product import and for redirecting the old page addresses.

How to decide

Write down your answers to these, then choose:

• How many of the skills listed above does the site need?
• Who will write the words and supply the photos?
• How much does a week's delay matter, and who would cover a holiday?
• Who looks after the site in year two?
• How much of your own time can you give to managing the project?

Few skills, your own words, flexible dates and a plan for care point to a freelancer. Many skills, a firm date, no time to manage it and care needed point to an agency or a studio. Then check the contract, whoever it is with: the web design contract checklist goes through it from your side, and websites shows how a build of ours runs, if you want something to compare against.