Agency outcomes, one name
One name on the invoice. Price your scope below.
A creative website design agency of one senior builder.
You searched for a creative website design agency, which is fair. But look at what the word "agency" actually buys: an account manager to forward your emails, a sales team that already closed you, an office lease, and margin. Then a junior does the real design. The senior whose portfolio won the pitch moves on to the next sale.
I'm David Weaver. On my commissions one person designs, writes, builds, deploys, and answers your email — the same person, start to finish. The loom on this site's homepage is a WebGL fabric you can grab and pull apart, running live in your browser. Not a video. That is the craft bar you'd actually be hiring.
The estimator below turns your scope into a cost neighborhood and a timeline in a few clicks. It runs in your browser, needs no email, and gives you a number you can forward to a cofounder. Send me the output with your brief and I reply myself.
01
Where the agency fee actually goes
Pay an agency and a large share of your money never touches the site. It funds the account manager who relays your messages, the sales that closed you, the office, and the margin on top. This is not a scandal — an agency has payroll to feed. But it means the A-team you met in the pitch and the B-team on the keyboard are often different people.
My fee covers the build and the person doing it. There is no account layer to pay for because there is nothing to relay: you email the builder directly. The tradeoff is honest — my calendar is finite, so I take fewer jobs at once. If your program needs ten people across three time zones, an agency is the right tool. If it needs one senior who owns the result, this is.
02
Price your build: scope → cost + timeline
Scope → cost + timeline
Optional extras
Estimated build
$3,800 – $12,500
Timeline neighborhood: 4–7 weeks. Ranges assume one senior builder, clear decisions, and assets that show up. Exact quote is free and itemized.
03
Solo senior vs. full agency
Same brief, same budget — here is what each actually buys.
| Question | Full agency | Me |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the code? | Whoever is free — often a junior | The senior you hired, every line |
| What the fee covers | Build plus account managers, sales, office, margin | Build time and the builder |
| Who answers when staging breaks | A ticket queue and a status call | David — same person, same day |
| Where the price lands | 3–5× independent rates | $1,500–$30,000+ by scope |
| Best when | A large multi-team, multi-market program | You want craft plus one accountable owner |
Neighborhoods are planning tools, not quotes. Exact numbers are itemized and free.
04
Ask any agency these before you sign
Five questions that separate a craft shop from a sales funnel. Ask me the same ones.
Who, by name, writes the code?
Get the person who will be on the keyboard, not the team in the pitch deck. Ask to meet them before you deposit.
What share of the fee is overhead?
Account managers and offices are real costs — but they are yours to fund. Know the split before you compare quotes.
Can I see it running, not a reel?
A live URL on a throttled phone tells the truth. A highlight video hides whatever fell over in production.
Who owns the source and the accounts?
You should leave with the repo, the domain, and the analytics. Anything less is a hostage arrangement dressed as a retainer.
What happens on week four when a stakeholder wants a new hero?
The answer reveals whether the timeline is a contract with reality or a hope. I write those failure modes into the proposal.
05
What one accountable name changes
On an agency job, "who is responsible" spreads across an org chart. Copy is one vendor, design another, dev a third, and when a launch slips each points at the last hop. On my commissions the answer to every "who owns this" is the same name. I write the commercial sentence, design around it, build it, wire the measurement, and pick up when staging breaks at 9 PM.
That single line of accountability is the whole model. It is also why every commission ships with source access, environment notes, and a short "how to change this" doc — so you are never hostage to me. One accountable builder should reduce your risk, not concentrate it.
06
When to hire the agency instead
I lose some of these on purpose, and I would rather say so. If you have a large multi-stakeholder rollout — a rebrand across a dozen markets, parallel campaigns, procurement that requires vendors with insurance and an org chart — then agency overhead is exactly the thing you are paying for, and it earns its keep.
My model wins on the other side of that line: one senior, one accountable build, no relay and no junior surprise on week four. Figure out which problem you actually have before you pick, and the estimator above becomes a lot more useful.
Proof over promises
Open the work. Judge it live.
2026 · Software · Prototype
BABA Smoke Shop
A local-business marketing site for a Columbus, GA smoke shop. No backend, complete local-SEO metadata, and deliberate restraint.
2026 · Software · Shipped
Black Nile
A conversational website builder where small businesses talk, a site appears, and their own AI answers customers — metered to the credit.
2026 · Sound · Shipped
DWeaveAi Fan Funnel
A static fan funnel, live at dweaveai.space — one owned landing page per song, routing listeners to every streaming platform.
Straight answers
Asked often. Answered honestly.
- Are you actually an agency, or one person?
- One person, and that is the point. No junior bench, no account manager, no sales layer. You hire and email the same senior who designs and builds the site. If a job genuinely needs a team of ten, I will tell you and point you to a real agency.
- Who will really be doing the work — you or a junior?
- Me, every line, start to finish. At an agency the senior in the pitch usually hands the build to whoever is free; here there is no one to hand it to. The person who answers your first email is the person who ships.
- Won't a solo builder be slower than an agency team?
- Often the opposite. Headcount adds coordination, handoffs, and status meetings; for most creative site work, one senior with no relay ships faster than three people passing files. The exception is large parallel programs — hire the agency for those.
- Isn't an agency safer if you go on vacation or get hit by a bus?
- A fair concern, and why every commission ships with source access, environment notes, and a "how to ship a change" doc. Any competent developer can pick it up. You are buying a system you own, not a dependency on me.
- How does your price compare to an agency's?
- Usually well under agency rates for comparable craft, because you are not funding overhead. Use the estimator for a planning neighborhood; exact quotes are itemized and free. Scope drives the number — there is no rate card to pad.
- What happens after I send the estimator output?
- You get a written reply from me — not a rep — with questions, a scope, and a fixed price neighborhood. Send the form with the thread "An app" so it lands labeled, and I answer myself.
Agency outcomes without agency overhead. The estimator gave the neighborhood — I will give the street address.