Should you hire a freelancer or design agency?

Your website is an extension of your business, acting as an essential sales and marketing tool to help people find you online and convert them into paying customers. A well-designed website can help you make a good first impression on customers while helping them through the sales funnel. Unfortunately, all websites are different, and your design must help customers find what they’re looking for while ensuring a good user experience. If your website has a poor experience, you can’t expect customers to stick around long enough to make a purchase or complete the desired action.

When designing and developing a website for your business, you have a few options. The most common options for website design are using a design agency or freelancer. Both are great options for all types of businesses, so you must decide what’s best for you and your website. Freelancers are free agents and can work long hours day and night to ensure your website gets completed on time. However, design agencies work in teams and have multiple people working on a single project to ensure a professional product. This article will help you determine whether you should hire a freelancer or design agency for your next web project.

Freelancers vs. Design Agency

Freelancers and design agencies have the same goal; they both design and develop websites for businesses. Freelancers are individuals who don’t work for any single company. Instead, they may work for multiple clients. Some web designers and developers have specific niches they excel at, while others are competent in all types of design, including UI, UX, and graphic design.

Freelancers are typically not involved in strategy unless you, as the company, involve them. However, that’s not always a bad thing because it allows them to focus on what they do best. Freelancers are hired on a per-project basis, so they’re not available for your business at all times. However, they’re typically willing to make themselves available whenever you need them, depending on their other projects.

On the other hand, agencies are usually involved in the entire website development process, including strategy, design, and development, handling everything for you from start to finish. Agencies can provide your website with everything it needs to be successful, but it comes at a cost. However, it’s typically well worth it if you’re trying to design an effective website that will convert visitors into paying customers or lead them down a specific path.

Agencies have teams, which means you’ll have more than one person working on your project. When working with an agency, you can build long-term relationships to enhance your entire marketing strategy, including methods for marketing your new website.

Factors to Consider

Before you choose a web design agency or freelancer to work with, there are a few things you must consider to ensure you’re making the right choice for your business.

Timeline

Whether you’re redesigning a website or starting at the beginning, you need to follow strict deadlines. When launching a new website, you likely have a timeline in which you want the project to be completed. Of course, as long as your timeline is realistic, a freelancer or web design agency can deliver projects on time. Freelancers work for themselves and want to finish projects before starting new projects, so they’re often willing to work throughout the night to ensure your project gets done on time.

Unfortunately, agencies may give you a longer timeline because they have more clients and may work on a first-come-first-serve basis, which means your project will get put on a list to be completed after their teams have completed projects they’re already working on. Additionally, agencies may ask you to pay more if your project is a high priority or if you have a deadline that might be difficult to meet based on the other projects they’re working on.

In either case, project deadlines can fluctuate, so it’s important to discuss deadlines before the project begins to ensure everyone knows what is required of them.

Budget

Before beginning a project, you must always consider how much you’re willing to spend on it. If you have a limited budget and a small project, freelancers might be your best option because they’re often cheaper than hiring an agency. Design agencies are more expensive than freelancers because they’re involved in the entire process, which may save you money in the long run. Instead of keeping your strategies separate, a design agency can help you leverage multiple marketing strategies to help you design, build, and market your new website.

Agencies also typically follow the same process for their projects, so they can streamline their efforts to help you accomplish more in a shorter time frame. Of course, all of this comes at a cost, but it might be well worth it to have them create content for your website, social media profiles, and advertisements to help save you time and money marketing your business.

Experience & Specializations

Many freelancers can work on multiple types of projects. However, they may have specializations that prevent them from being able to accomplish everything your project requires. For example, you may find UX designers, which focus on the user experience of the website, and UI designers, which focus on the aesthetics of a website, including fonts and colors. One person can be skilled in each of these subsets. According to Upwork, freelancers are increasingly high-skilled, with 50% of them providing skills in computer programming, marketing, and business consulting. However, you’ll need to vet them closely to determine if their skill sets align with your project goals. However, agencies have the added benefit of having lots of connections. An agency can help you partner with an influencer to help curate content and increase conversions.

Access to Resources

Freelancers work by themselves and have limited resources to help them complete large projects. While they still use the same professional tools as an agency, they may have a more limited skill set depending on their specialties. For example, you may need one freelancer to design brochures and another to design websites. Of course, this isn’t true of all freelancers. Many freelance designers have tons of experience in different areas, but you should always ensure they’ll be able to complete the projects by looking at their portfolios.

On the other hand, agencies have unlimited access to resources including their own software, business phones and internet, and other tools they may need to get the job done because they have designers for just about any project you can think of, and all of these individuals work under one roof. Agencies may also have better software than freelancers, allowing them to give you the best design and sync all of your marketing collateral for seamless branding.

The Final Word

Choosing between a freelancer and a design agency can be difficult, especially if you don’t have experience with either. While you may be worried a freelancer won’t be dependable or an agency will take too long on your project, every freelancer and every agency is different. Once you’ve decided which is best for your project, vet the people you work with to ensure you’ll get your project delivered based on your requirements. Looking for more information about design and development? Read the Creating A Stunning Website That Will Impress Your Visitors.