Small studio, plain English, no retainer creep

Why we work this way

We kept meeting the same business. A good one — busy, well regarded locally, ten or fifteen years of happy customers — with a website that was eight years old, took six seconds to load on a phone, and had a phone number on it that had changed in 2019.

They knew it was a problem. They had been quoted four thousand pounds to fix it, plus hosting, plus an hourly rate for changes. So they did nothing, and every year the site got a little further behind, and they carried on getting work by word of mouth and wondering why the newer competitor with the better website was growing faster.

The upfront cost was the whole obstacle. Remove it and the decision becomes easy, so that is what we did.

What we are good at

Small business websites that load quickly, read clearly and bring in enquiries. Local search. Rebuilding sites that have aged badly without throwing away the rankings they have earned. Explaining technical things without being condescending about it.

We are a small team and we like it that way. You will deal with the person building your site, not an account manager relaying messages.

What we are not

We are not a brand agency, and we will not sell you a discovery phase, a workshop and a strategy document before anyone touches a website. We do not run social media accounts. We do not do six-figure eCommerce platforms.

If what you need sits outside what we do well, we will say so on the first call rather than three months in. There are good people in Oxford for most of it and we would rather point you at them than do a mediocre job.

How we price

Publicly, on the pricing page, with the minimum term and the things that cost extra stated plainly. We think being asked to enquire before you can find out whether something is affordable is a waste of your time and ours.

Being local, and what that is actually worth

We will come and see you anywhere in Oxfordshire, at no charge. That is partly courtesy and mostly self-interest: an hour standing in somebody’s workshop or shop teaches us more about what the website needs to do than a week of email.

It also means we know the market you are selling into. Oxford is several distinct places wearing one name — the colleges, the science parks and hospitals, the estates east of the Cherwell, the villages that consider themselves separate and are right to. What works for a business in Summertown is not what works for one in Blackbird Leys, and a keyword tool will not tell you that.