Startups & Entrepreneurs web design agency
Your first website is a guess. Build it so you can change it.
We'd bet your headline, your customer and your price all move before the money runs out. So we build a small, fast site you can rewrite yourself, and the product behind it when you're ready, with one developer on both.
Free 15-minute call · written quote · build starts within 24 hours
Fixed prices, published
- Up to 10 pages$1,500
- 11 to 20 pages$2,250
- 21 to 50 pages$3,750
- 51 to 70 pages$5,750
Each one includes SEO, design, content writing, content management, lead forms, online booking and a year of support. See the full price list.
What we measured
104 independent Phoenix-area professional offices, tested on a simulated phone. Homepages only, totals only, and no business is named.
64.5median mobile speed score, of 100
5.2suntil the main content shows
7%offer online booking on the homepage
45%show a phone link and no form or booking
From our Phoenix-area website tests. A small group can swing on a few sites.
A guess with a domain name.
A startup's first website is a hypothesis you can visit. The headline is a guess. The customer is a guess. The price, if you dare to post one, is a guess. You'll likely be wrong about at least one of them by spring, which is no disgrace. The disgrace is paying a fortune to be wrong in high resolution. The site should cost little to build and less to correct.
So we build small on purpose. A hand-built site of up to 10 pages is $1,500, fixed, and it comes with content management, so a new headline takes a login and not a ticket. Build starts within 24 hours of your go-ahead, and most sites go live in 7 to 10 days. That leaves the money for the product, where application work starts at $575 and pricing depends on complexity.
We did not test startups as their own group, and the band above isn't about you. It covers 104 professional offices, the nearest bucket we have. Their median homepage took 5.2 seconds to show its main content on a simulated phone, and 46% had any kind of lead form on the homepage, newsletter sign-ups included. Read that as a rough picture of the neighborhood a new company moves into. In our opinion a light page and one working form are enough to start with, and neither one requires a brand workshop.
What we build against
- The agency proposal opens with a brand workshop. The demo is in three weeks.
- Every headline change is a ticket, and the one person who can close it is busy with the product.
- The waitlist is a column of email addresses, and nobody knows who any of them are.
- The site went up on whatever was free that weekend, and now it has to hold a signup flow.
- No technical co-founder, so nobody in the room can tell a fair quote from a fairy tale.
Inside a startups & entrepreneurs website
Small enough to change by Thursday.
A first site needs fewer pages than the proposal says. Put one plain sentence on the first screen: who it's for and what it does. Show a real screen from the product, or admit there isn't one yet and ask people to get in line. Name the founders. Then stop. That fits inside the smallest package with room left for the page you'll wish you had by month three.
Order matters more than polish. We'd spend first on a waitlist form that asks one question worth asking, then on copy you can edit yourself. Content writing comes with the package, so the first draft doesn't wait on you. Conversion tracking isn't in the package. It's its own job, and it belongs on the calendar before you pay for your first click.
When the product is ready to be built, that's separate work with its own quote, so the marketing site never sits waiting on it. We've done it end to end: MacroExits, a marketplace with listings, accounts and AI analysis, and AICiteBeam, a monitoring engine with a dashboard and billing. If you already have paying customers, our SaaS page is the better read.
The pages a company with no customers yet actually needs
The one-sentence homepage
Who it's for, what it does and one button. If the sentence needs a semicolon and a prayer, the product isn't ready to describe yet.
Waitlist with a question
An email address and one question about the problem they have. Now you have someone specific to call when you want to test the pitch.
The real screen
A screenshot or a short recording of what exists today. Rough and true beats polished and imaginary.
The founders
Names, faces and what each person shipped before. We'd expect a stranger weighing a product with no track record to go on the people.
A price, even a provisional one
Post a number or a range and say it may change. One objection to a price teaches more than fifty compliments on the logo.
Press and investor kit
Logo files, a two-line description, headshots and one contact. It takes an afternoon and spares you from hunting for attachments in an airport.
What keeps a young site useful
Copy you can edit yourself
Content management comes with every package, so the team can change a headline the day the call goes badly. If the team outgrows it, CMS work takes it further.
A waitlist that sorts itself
Lead form capture keeps the answer along with the address, so you can invite people in batches by what they need. The form is also where your first emails get their list.
One page per audience
If you're testing two customer types, give each its own page, then point a small budget at each through ad landing pages and see which sentence earns a reply. Ad spend is paid to the ad platform directly.
One API integration, included
Each package covers one custom third-party API integration. For an early company we'd point it at whatever holds the waitlist, usually an email tool or a CRM. More than that falls under API integration.
Sign-in when there's something to sign in to
When the waitlist turns into accounts, Google sign-in takes a password out of the first minute. Until then, we'd leave it off and keep the money.
How founders overpay for a first website
- Commissioning the brand before there's a customer to test it on. The logo will survive. The positioning may not.
- Paying for twenty pages when you only know enough to write five.
- Writing 'AI-powered platform' where a plain sentence about the customer's problem belongs.
- Hiring one shop for the site and another for the product, then paying a third party to explain them to each other.
Why a founder would call a one-developer shop
One person on site and product
The developer who quotes the marketing site also builds the application. There's no handoff between them, and nobody to re-brief on your product in month four.
Someone who'll say no
With no technical co-founder, you need a person who'll say which feature can wait. We'd rather talk you out of a feature than bill you for it. That's easy to say, so test it on the first call.
Prices that fit a runway
The website prices are published and fixed, starting at $1,500. You can put the number in the budget before we talk, and application work gets a written quote before anything starts.
Startups & Entrepreneurs work, live right now.
The full portfolio
They helped us turn a loose idea into a working digital product — asked sharp questions, found the hidden workflow problems, and built a system our staff could use without a long training curve.
They get it done.
We had no idea where to start; they explained the build process and were patient with our many questions. All expectations and timelines were met. Double thumbs up!
Questions we hear a lot.
What does a startup website cost?
A website is a fixed price by page count: $1,500 for up to 10 pages, $2,250 for 11 to 20, $3,750 for 21 to 50 and $5,750 for 51 to 70. We'd expect a pre-launch company to fit the smallest. Product work is separate. Web apps, portals and integrations start at $575, and that pricing depends on complexity. Mobile apps start at $3,750.
Can you build the MVP, or only the marketing site?
Both, with the same developer. That covers login, payments, dashboards and whatever the product actually does, scoped as a custom web application. We'd build the least that can prove the idea, then let real users argue for the rest.
We have no technical co-founder. How much of a problem is that?
Less of one if somebody will tell you what not to build. That part of the job comes with the work, and we don't ask for equity. We write the code to be handed over, so the engineer you hire later can pick it up without a séance.
Do we need a native app?
Maybe not yet. A web app reaches a phone without an app store in the way, and it lets you change your mind on a Tuesday. If the product needs the hardware, mobile app work starts at $3,750. We'll give you our honest read on the first call.
Why not use a no-code builder for now?
For a one-page test this weekend, go ahead. If the only question is whether anyone wants it, a builder page is a fine experiment. We'd move when you need a signup flow, real tracking or a page that has to load fast on a phone. The real cost of a cheap website covers what to watch for.
Do we need a privacy policy before we collect emails?
That's a question for your attorney or a reputable policy service, and we don't write legal documents. Tell us what they hand you. We'll publish it and put a link beside the form.
How fast can we launch?
Build starts within 24 hours of your go-ahead, and most sites go live in 7 to 10 days. If a demo day or a launch is coming, name it on the first call and we'll tell you what fits ahead of it. The SEO in the package gives search engines a clean site to read. Nobody can promise rankings for a company no one has heard of yet, and we won't.
Where to look next
- Startups & Entrepreneurs MarketingThe full marketing playbook for your trade: SEO, ads, and season strategy.
- How We BuildThe hand-coded stack behind the PageSpeed scores.
- Pricing & EstimatorSlide to your project size — real numbers, in the open.
- SEO ServicesBuilt to be found, then tuned to stay found.
- Already Have a Site?Repair, upgrade, or rebuild, with the honest verdict first.
- ROI CalculatorRun your numbers before you spend a dime.
- SaaS & Software Web DesignMarketing sites, app UIs, and the engineering in between — from someone who ships SaaS too.
- eCommerce & Retail Web DesignCatalogs that convert and checkouts that close — for stores with thousands of SKUs or six.
- Construction & Builders Web DesignPortfolio-first sites for builders whose work deserves better than a template.
Bring the sentence. We'll quote the site.
Fifteen minutes with the developer. Bring the one-sentence pitch, or the three you're still fighting about, and you'll get a written quote.