People treat "hiring a designer" like it's one decision. It's actually three very different products: hire a freelancer, hire a solo studio, or hire an agency. They look like the same thing but they're not.
What you're actually paying for at an agency
An agency quote of $15,000 for a landing page is not paying $15,000 of design talent. Here's roughly how that $15k breaks down at a small Miami agency:
- Office rent + overhead: $1,800
- Project management: $2,200 (the PM who emails you about meetings)
- Account executive: $1,500 (the salesperson who sold you the project)
- Software + tools: $400 (Figma teams, Adobe CC, project software)
- Profit margin: $3,500 (so the agency stays in business)
- Actual design + development: $5,600
So the part you're really hiring — the people who design and build the website — is about 37% of what you paid. The other 63% is the infrastructure of a small company.
That infrastructure is real value when: the project has 50 stakeholders, the budget is over $50k, the timeline matters legally, or you're a Fortune 500 that needs insurance and an SOC2-compliant vendor. It's mostly overhead when: you're a single-location business and your goal is to get more leads from Google.
What you're actually paying for with a solo designer
A good solo designer charges $1,500–$5,000 for the same landing page. Here's how my pricing roughly breaks down:
- Tools + software: $30 (Figma personal, hosting, domains, fonts)
- Self-employment tax + healthcare + retirement: $750
- Time off, sick days, vacation: $400 (because nobody pays me when I take a Friday)
- Profit / income: $1,800
- Actual design + development: $1,520
The actual design-and-build portion of a $4,500 solo quote is roughly the same as the design-and-build portion of a $15,000 agency quote — about $1,500–$5,500 of focused designer time. The difference in price is the difference in overhead, not the difference in quality.
You don't get more design hours at an agency. You get more meetings about the design hours.
When the agency markup is worth it
I'm not anti-agency. There are real scenarios where an agency is the right call:
- You need a contract with insurance, indemnity, and SLAs. Agencies have legal teams. Solo designers have a one-page MSA.
- The project will involve multiple stakeholders signing off. Agencies have account managers who handle politics. Solos burn out on this.
- Your timeline is 6+ months and the budget is six figures. Solo capacity becomes a real risk over that long.
- You need a multi-discipline team: brand identity + product design + dev + content + animation + photography — all under one roof.
- You're a regulated company (healthcare, finance) and your vendors need to clear procurement.
When the solo is obviously the better call
For most small Miami businesses I talk to:
- You want to talk to the person actually building your site. With a solo you DM the designer. With an agency you DM a PM who then DMs the designer.
- You want it shipped in under 3 weeks. Agency timelines for the same scope are 6–12 weeks.
- You don't want to pay for office space in Brickell.
- Budget is under $10k. Below that, agencies will either decline or assign your project to a junior designer and bury it.
- The project is straightforward: 1 landing page, or a 5-page small-business website, or a focused marketing site.
The hidden tax of agency work
One thing nobody warns you about: at most agencies, the senior person who pitched you the project is not the person doing the work. They sold you the relationship. The actual design gets handed to a mid-level designer or a junior. The senior reviews it for 30 minutes and approves.
This is fine when the agency has tight QA. It's not fine when you discover three weeks into the project that the person you're emailing is a 23-year-old who started two months ago. I've watched clients pay for senior talent and get junior work more times than I can count.
The solo equivalent of this problem doesn't exist. If you hired the solo, the solo did the work. Period.
The honest comparison table
| Solo | Agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (landing page) | $1,500–$5,000 | $8,000–$25,000 |
| Timeline | 7–14 days | 6–12 weeks |
| Direct designer access | Always | Rare |
| Stakeholder coordination | Limited | Strong |
| Capacity risk if sick | Higher | Lower |
| Right-fit budget | Under $10k | Over $25k |
I'm the solo option.
One landing page, one designer, 7–14 days, flat pricing from $499. Quote in your inbox within 24 hours.