Freelancer, agency or DIY: who should build your business website?

You've decided you need a website, good. Now comes the bit that actually trips people up: who builds it? Do you knock it together yourself on Wix, hand it to a freelancer, ring a flashy agency, or find a small outfit that does this all day? Every option has a sales pitch, and every option has people who got burned. So here's the honest version. No pretending one route is right for everyone, but a clear steer on who each option actually suits.

The right question isn't "who's cheapest?". It's "who'll still be around, still own nothing of mine, and still bring me work in two years?"

The four options, plain and simple

There are really four ways to get a business website built. None of them is wrong. They're just suited to different people, budgets and stages. Let's go through them fairly.

1. DIY (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)

You sign up, drag some blocks around, and you're "live" by the weekend. For a side hustle, a brand-new business testing the water, or a one-page placeholder, that's genuinely fine, and it's cheap. The catch is the bit nobody mentions in the advert: you become the web designer. Every tweak, every broken link, every "why won't my photo line up" is now your Tuesday evening. DIY sites also tend to load slowly and rarely rank well on Google without a serious chunk of learning. You own it, which is great. You also maintain it forever, which is less great.

2. A freelancer (or "my mate who does websites")

A good freelancer is often the sweet spot for a small business: cheaper than an agency, more personal, and you're talking to the actual person doing the work rather than an account manager. When you find a great one, hold onto them. The risk is consistency. Freelancers get busy, take full-time jobs, go travelling, or simply stop replying. If your site lives on their laptop and you don't have the logins, a vanished freelancer can leave you stranded, unable to change a phone number, let alone fix a bug. Brilliant when it works; painful when it doesn't.

3. A big general agency

Big agencies do impressive work, and for a national brand with a real marketing budget they earn their fee. For a local plumber or a one-van electrician, though, you're often the smallest client in the building, handed to a junior, billed at senior rates, and sold a beautiful "brochure" site that wins design awards but no actual jobs. They'll still be around in two years, which counts for a lot. But you may pay £5,000+ for something that doesn't understand tap-to-call, service-area pages or local SEO: the things that actually win nearby work.

4. A small specialist agency

This is the middle path: a small team (or a tight one-person operation that behaves like one) that builds for a specific kind of client, say tradespeople and local businesses, and does it over and over. You get the reliability and ownership of an agency without the bloated price tag, plus people who already know what makes a trade site convert. The honest downside? Specialists are pickier about who they take on, and they're not the rock-bottom-cheapest option. You're paying for focus.

The honest comparison

Here's how the four stack up on the things that actually matter, not the things that look good on a sales page.

	DIY builder	Freelancer	Big agency	Specialist agency
Upfront cost	£0 to £100	£300 to £1,200	£3,000 to £15,000+	£500 to £2,500
Ongoing	£10 to £30/mo	Varies / DIY	£100s/mo	£20 to £75/mo
Who maintains it	You	Them (if around)	Account team	Them, ongoing
SEO included	No	Sometimes	Extra cost	Usually yes
Ownership	You	Ask first	Often locked-in	You
Risk	Time & ranking	They vanish	Overpaying	Lower, but selective
Best for	Testing an idea	Tight budgets	National brands	Local businesses & trades

The questions that actually decide it

Forget the logos and the portfolios for a second. Run any option you're considering through these five questions and the right choice usually becomes obvious.

• Who owns it? You should own your domain, your content and your site files, full stop. If you can't walk away with them, walk away now.
• Who maintains it? A website isn't a one-and-done. Things break, Google changes, your number changes. Be crystal clear who's on the hook.
• Will they still be around? Cheapest today is no bargain if they ghost in March. A monthly relationship beats a one-off handover for most businesses.
• Do they understand SEO? A site that doesn't rank is a very expensive business card. Ask exactly how people will find it on Google.
• Do they get your world? Whoever builds it should understand how your customers actually find and choose a trade, not just how to make things look nice.

So who should build your website?

Here's the genuinely fair answer, not the self-serving one:

1. Just testing an idea with zero budget? DIY it. Get something live, prove there's demand, upgrade later.
2. On a tight budget and you've found a freelancer you trust? Go for it, just get the logins and own everything from day one.
3. A national brand with a marketing budget? A full agency will serve you well.
4. A local business or tradesperson who wants the phone to ring? A small specialist agency is almost always the best value over time.

If you're in that last group, and most people reading this are, the maths is simple. You want a site that's fast, ranks locally, gets maintained without you lifting a finger, and is built by someone who's done it for your trade a hundred times before.

Where Tez Earth fits (so you've got a benchmark)

For full transparency, here's where we sit, so you can measure anyone else against it. Tez Earth is a small specialist agency built for UK tradespeople and local businesses, from £500 one-off + £50/month, which covers hosting, updates and keeping you ranking, so you're never the one fixing it. You own your domain and your content outright. And we take one client per trade, per area, so we're never building the same site for you and your competitor down the road. Your rival can't simply hire us next week. If a quote you've got is wildly above or below the ranges in this article, ask them why. A good answer is fine; no answer is a red flag.

Frequently asked questions

Is it cheaper to use a freelancer or an agency for web design?

A freelancer is usually cheaper upfront, often £300 to £1,200 versus £500 to £2,500 for a specialist agency. But the headline price isn't the whole story. Agencies typically include hosting, ongoing updates and local SEO, and they're far less likely to vanish mid-project. Over two to three years, a small specialist agency often works out better value.

Should I build my own website with Wix or hire someone?

DIY builders like Wix or Squarespace are fine for a basic placeholder, but they're slow to rank, fiddly to maintain and eat your evenings. If your website needs to win you actual work, hiring a freelancer or specialist agency who understands local SEO almost always pays for itself.

Do web design agencies understand trades and local businesses?

Big general agencies often don't: they build pretty brochures that don't rank. A specialist agency that works with tradespeople and local businesses understands tap-to-call, service-area pages and local SEO, so the site is built to win nearby work rather than win design awards.