Same work. A fifth of the invoice.
A full-service agency quotes $2,000 to $5,000 a month for this scope. A web designer builds it once and walks. A hire costs you a salary. Here are all four side by side, including the parts where they genuinely beat us.
Ranges below are typical market rates for the trades, not any one company. Get whoever is pitching you to put their number in writing, then hold it next to this.
Book A CallThe monthly, to scale
Bar widths are against $5,000, the top of the range. The designer and the hire are not on here because neither one is a monthly.
Line by line.
Every row is something a trades business actually needs handled. Scroll it sideways on a phone, the labels stay put.
| What you are comparing | Our planCloserTek | A full-service marketing agency | A web designer, one and done | Putting somebody on payroll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay before anything exists | Included:Nothing. The site is built and you look at it first. | Costs extra or depends:Commonly a setup or onboarding fee of a few thousand, billed before month one. | Costs extra or depends:Commonly $3,000 to $6,000 for the build, half of it up front. | Costs extra or depends:Recruiting, then a salary starting the day they do. |
| Monthly cost | $497, flat. Everything in this column is in that number. | Commonly $2,000 to $5,000 a month for this scope. | Nothing after launch, and nothing happens after launch. | A marketing salary, plus payroll tax and the software they will ask for. |
| Contract | Included:None. Cancel with a text. | Not included:Commonly 6 to 12 months. Read it before you sign it. | A project agreement. It ends when the site ships. | They are an employee. |
| You see the website before you pay | Included:Yes. A demo of your own site on the first call. | Not included:No. It gets built after you have signed and paid. | Not included:No. It gets built after the deposit. | Not included:No. |
| Who you actually deal with | Ismael. The person doing the work, every time. | An account manager, who is not the person doing the work. | Them, until the project closes. | Your new hire, and their learning curve. |
| Missed call gets a text back in seconds | Included:Included. | Costs extra or depends:Usually a separate tool, billed on top. | Not included:Not included. | Costs extra or depends:Only if they build it and keep it running. |
| Google Business Profile managed | Included:Included, and the profile stays in your name. | Costs extra or depends:Often a separate line item. | Not included:Not included. | Costs extra or depends:Their job now. |
| Review requests sent and followed up | Included:Included. | Costs extra or depends:Often a separate line item. | Not included:Not included. | Costs extra or depends:Their job now. |
| Who they build for | The trades. Nothing else. | Whoever signs. Dentists one month, roofers the next. | Whoever signs. | Whatever they happen to have done before. |
| Who fixes it in February | Included:Us. Same monthly, no change order. | Costs extra or depends:A ticket, and the retainer keeps running either way. | Not included:Nobody. The site sits there getting older. | Them, if they are still with you. |
| If you walk away | Included:Your profile, reviews, photos and customer list go with you. In writing. | Check the contract before you sign it. | You keep the site. It stops being updated. | You are hiring again. |
The agency, designer and payroll columns are typical ranges for work of this scope in the trades, not the terms of any one company, and they vary by market and by how much of it you actually buy. Ask whoever is pitching you for their number in writing and put it next to $497. Our column is the plan on the pricing page, and nothing in it is an add-on.
What the difference is worth.
Nothing here is an add-on, a tier, or a number that moves after you sign.
A month, flat. Every row in our column is inside that number.
The gap over one year against the LOW end of a typical agency retainer. Against the top of the range it is triple that.
What you have paid by the time the site is finished and sitting in front of you.
One decent job in your trade covers the year.
Where each one actually wins
If one of the others is the better fit for you, that is a real answer and you should take it.
When a full agency beats us
If you are putting real money into ads every month and you need somebody managing that spend full time, a specialist agency will do it better than I will. I do not run your ads, and I will tell you that on the call rather than after. What I do is make sure that when somebody finds you, they call you instead of the next guy.
When a web designer beats us
If all you want is a good-looking website, once, and you are genuinely going to handle the Google profile, the reviews, the follow-ups and the missed calls yourself, then pay somebody for the build and keep your monthly. That is a fair trade. It stops being a fair trade the month you stop doing those things, which for most owners is month two.
When hiring beats us
If you are big enough to keep a marketing person busy five days a week, hire one. At that size an in-house person compounds in a way an outside vendor cannot. Most trades businesses are not there yet, and a part-time hire ends up doing this badly for more than we charge to do it properly.
Where we win
Same scope as the agency column for roughly a fifth of the money, because there is no office, no account manager and no sales team in the invoice. Nothing to sign. You see the finished site before you pay anything. And you talk to the person who built it, every time. The honest trade off: we are one person, so we do not run your ads and we are not the cheapest thing on the internet.
Still not sure? Ask me on the call.
If one of the others is the better fit for you, I will say so. Thirty minutes, and you see a demo of your own site before you decide anything.
Book A CallThe part no comparison table covers
What every option on this page is competing to fix, laid out with the numbers behind it.
See where the job goes