First, so you can place this article: PixelPlan is an owner-run studio. That makes us one of the three routes being compared here, and this piece is not neutral. What it can do is something else — describe the three routes so that you can check the differences yourself, without anyone here speculating about another provider’s prices or way of working.
The real question is not the price
Anyone commissioning a website compares quotes first. That is understandable, and it regularly misleads, because a number only means something once it is clear what hangs on it. Two quotes for the same sum can contain entirely different things — and, more to the point, leave out entirely different things.
The two questions that actually pay off later are different ones: who carries the project when something goes wrong? And can you reach the person doing the work?
An example most people know: on a Friday afternoon it turns out the contact form has not delivered a single message for days. At that moment what the build cost is completely irrelevant. What counts is who you call, whether that person has access to the hosting and the mailbox, and whether they call back. That is where the three routes differ — not in the design.
Doing it yourself — right more often than agencies admit
There are projects where building it yourself is the sensible decision. We say exactly that at the first call, even when it means there is no project in it for us:
- You are just starting out and do not yet know whether the business will carry
- It is a handful of pages showing, at heart, what you do, where you are and how to reach you
- You have more time than budget and are happy to learn the tool
- You want to be in the site constantly anyway
- There is no requirement that goes beyond the standard building blocks on offer
What you buy when you build it yourself is not the software, it is your own time. Work it out honestly for once: three evenings of two hours each before the home page stands, then an hour every month for upkeep and updates. That is the price. It simply never appears on an invoice, which is why it is almost always left out of the comparison.
The risk in building it yourself is rarely technical. It is that the site is left where the first burst of energy dropped it: opening hours from the year before last, a team that no longer exists in that form, a price you stopped charging long ago. An out-of-date website does more damage than a plain one. If you realistically do not have an hour a month for it, doing it yourself is not the cheaper route, it is the more expensive one.
A freelancer or an owner-run studio
What you buy here is direct contact and a short decision loop. You describe a problem and it is heard by the person who will solve it. No ticket, no hand-off, no second explanation to someone seeing the project for the first time. Small changes therefore tend to be a matter of hours rather than of scheduled meetings.
The risk sits in exactly the same place as the advantage: it is one person. Illness, holidays and a full calendar hit your project directly, and there is nobody internally to absorb them.
Ask about it. That is not distrust, it is the question this model comes with: who has emergency access to the hosting and the domain? Where do the backups sit, and could you get to them without the provider? What response time is agreed, and what happens outside it? Anyone without a clear answer has not yet asked themselves the question — and that is the real piece of information.
The second thing that matters with small providers: nobody is good at everything. Ask what gets bought in — copy, photography, more involved shop logic — and who remains your point of contact when it does. An honest answer there is a good sign, not a weakness.
The larger agency
What a larger agency offers structurally is capacity and continuity. Several people can carry the same project; if one drops out, it continues. When many pages have to be produced at once, several departments have a say, or a date is fixed and will not move, that is a genuine advantage and not merely a surcharge.
It is paid for through structure. Account management, review rounds and documentation take time and sit inside every quote — sometimes itemised, sometimes folded in. The second effect is the one rarely discussed: it is quite possible you will never speak to the person actually building your site.
Whether that is a drawback depends entirely on you. A company with its own marketing department often wants precisely one point of contact and no direct line to the build. An owner who decides things and wants something changed quickly experiences the same structure as a detour. So the more useful question is not whether agencies are good, but: who specifically will work on my project, and does that team stay together for its duration?
The three routes side by side
The table below names no prices and judges nobody. It only describes where each structure has its strength and its sore point.
| Do it yourself | Freelancer or studio | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct contact | Not applicable — you are the provider | Usually straight to the person building | Usually via account management |
| Cost shape | Ongoing subscription plus your working time | Project price, then running and upkeep | Project price, often with a retainer |
| Capacity | Your time, alongside daily business | Limited, usually a few projects at once | Several roles and projects in parallel |
| If the provider drops out | Everything stops with you | Rests on one person — ask about cover | Replaceable internally, if handed over |
| Who owns the result | You, within the system’s terms | Contract question — rights and logins in writing | Contract question — also settle whose name the domain and hosting are in |
| Small change after launch | Immediate, once you know the tool | Short route, subject to their workload | Through a process, but predictable |
Questions to ask any provider — us included
This list separates providers more reliably than any portfolio comparison, because it asks not about the past but about what happens after the project:
- Who owns the website after the project, and who holds the logins for the domain, the hosting and the content system? Get the answer in writing, not over the phone.
- Who actually builds the site — and will I speak to that person, or to someone who passes it on?
- What happens if you are unavailable: illness, holiday, closing the business? Who has access then, where do the backups sit, and can I get to them without you?
- What does a small change cost after launch — an extra page, a swapped image, one more form field? Ask about the procedure, not only the amount: how is it commissioned, and how quickly is it usually done?
- Is the price you quoted fixed or an estimate, and what exactly triggers a variation?
- What is not included in the price? Copy, photos, translations and the legal texts are the usual candidates for a surprise in month three.
- How do I get my content out if we stop working together, and do the existing addresses survive it?
No provider has to give the answer you would most like on every point. But every one of them should answer without evasion. Anyone who finds the questions uncomfortable has already answered the first one.
Where we stand in this comparison
So you can place us: PixelPlan is the middle case. An owner-run studio in Offenbach am Main, ten minutes from Frankfurt by S-Bahn, looking after clients across Germany remotely. You speak to the person who builds. The cover question from the section above applies to us exactly as it does to anyone else — put it to us.
Our prices are public, because otherwise nothing can be compared: Standard 1.250 € for up to five pages in two to four weeks, Pro 2.100 € for up to ten pages with a blog in four to six weeks, Enterprise individually quoted. The price is agreed before the project starts, not after.
What matters more to us is the part that comes afterwards: the website is yours, you receive every login, and access to Google Search Console is handed over. That holds even if you eventually continue with somebody else. Holding a website hostage is a business model, but not a good one.
We rebuilt our own website in August 2026 with the same questions hanging over us. The longest part was not the design, it was deciding which statements we could actually back up. If the free first consultation shows that a site you build yourself would serve you better, we will say so. Not out of modesty, but out of self-interest: projects that do not fit get expensive for both sides.
Common questions about agencies, freelancers and doing it yourself
Not inherently — the two models are built for different things. An agency structurally offers capacity and cover; a freelancer or small studio offers direct contact and short routes. Decide by which of the two would put your project at greater risk: a shortage of capacity, or no access to the person building it.
That cannot be answered in general, and any figure printed here would be a guess. What you can do: insist on fixed prices rather than ranges, and compare what each one includes — copy, images and legal texts are the usual gaps. Our own prices are public: Standard 1.250 €, Pro 2.100 €, Enterprise individually quoted.
That depends almost entirely on whose name the domain and hosting are in and who holds the logins. If both are in your name, you change supplier and the site keeps running. If they are in theirs, it can become a drawn-out problem — which is why this is the first question to ask before the project, not after it.
Yes, and it is a common and reasonable path. Make sure you can export your content and that every existing address is redirected during the move, otherwise you lose the visibility you built up. What you start with and what you continue with are two separate decisions.
No. Nobody controls Google’s results, and anyone guaranteeing a position should make you suspicious — whether that is an agency, a freelancer or a tool. What can be stated seriously is the work itself: load time, structure, content, sound craft. What that turns into in the results shows up in Search Console, which is why you should have access to it.
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