Comparison

One person or an agency: which one you actually need

A straight comparison, including when the agency is the right call.

A Vancouver web design agency typically quotes $6,000 to $15,000 for a small business site and takes eight to twelve weeks, because the price carries an office, a project manager and an account team. Droom charges $999 to $1,999 and takes about three weeks. The agency wins on large sites, standby teams and many stakeholders. Under about fifteen pages, most of that structure is overhead.

Side by side

Typical cost, small business siteAgency $6,000–$15,000. Droom $999–$1,999 one time.3–5× less

Time to launchAgency 8–12 weeks with approvals. Droom about 3 weeks.~3× faster

Who you talk toAgency: an account manager. Here: the person building it.direct

Edit turnaroundAgency: a ticket queue, often billed hourly. Here: 48 hours, included.48h

Ongoing costAgency retainers commonly $1,500–$4,000/mo. Here from $99.from $99

CapacityAgency: a team covers illness and holidays. Here: one person, so the book is capped.agency wins

Scope ceilingAgency: no practical limit. Here: no custom applications or 50-page builds.agency wins

When should you hire the agency instead?

Four situations where the agency is the better buy:

You need more than about fifteen pages, or a custom web application.
Several stakeholders need managing. If a board or committee signs off, a project manager is doing real work.
You need guaranteed continuity. One person gets ill and takes holidays. A team absorbs that.
You want the process itself. Workshops, a brand deck and a weekly call are a fair thing to pay for.

What are you actually paying for in an agency quote?

An office, a project manager, an account manager, a designer, a developer, and the cost of winning your business. The design is a minority of the invoice.

On a fifteen-person build with a compliance review, coordination is the job. On a single-location café, it is four people relaying messages about a site one person could finish.

Is the quality actually the same?

Judge the design yourself: do the concept builds look like a template?

Edits come back in 48 hours because there is no queue. The cost is capacity: when the book is full, new builds wait.

Questions people ask before they hire

How much does a web design agency charge in Vancouver?

Commonly $6,000 to $15,000 for a small business site, plus retainers of $1,500 to $4,000 a month. That reflects team size and overhead more than the site.

Is a freelancer riskier than an agency?

On continuity, yes. That is why you own your domain and files here, the site is on standard hosting, and handover is free.

Can one person really do design, build, copy and photography?

For a small business site, yes, and nothing is lost between specialists. For a large or technically complex build, hire an agency.

What if I outgrow a one-person studio?

Then you move. The domain is in your name, the site is on standard hosting, and handover files are free.

Get both numbers before you decide

The free audit gives you a fixed price here. Get an agency quote and compare like for like.

The free Field Test: your site tested the way a customer uses it, back within 24 hours with a fixed price. Five fields, no call.

Get my free audit See the prices

Last updated 2026-08-31