Website Development: Freelancer vs Agency

Commissioning a new website is an exciting process, but isn’t without its stresses, so choosing the right web development provider is absolutely crucial. Foremost, we believe the most important thing is to work with someone you can trust – whether you decide to use a freelancer or a web development agency.

Up until recently, using a freelancer wasn’t really a consideration by many companies; however nowadays, the vast majority are actually more likely to use a freelancer instead.

Typically, if you’re looking for a specific job to be done to a high standard, a freelancer with a wealth of experience in that specific area is usually a good option; however if the project is particularly complex and requires a much wider talent pool, it may be worth considering an agency instead.

The debate around freelancers vs agencies has been around for many years now and inherently, each option has their good and bad points. Your individual business needs will ultimately help determine who you decide to use, but it’s worth understanding the pros and cons of each to help you make the right choice. 

Freelancers

When you work with a freelancer, you get an independent individual on a self-employed basis.

It’s worth noting that the majority of freelancers usually come from an agency background where they’ve acquired their knowledge, built up their experience and found their niche expertise, before taking that confident & bold step to fly solo.

Advantages:

• Generally, freelancers are far more cost effective than an agency as they don’t have the (sometimes huge) overheads that an agency does.
• Many freelancers have acquired a large amount of agency experience anyway, so you often don’t lose out much in terms of skillset.
• Freelancers are usually far more flexible than an agency which could benefit you when it comes to things like working out of hours etc.

Disadvantages:

• They are just one person & because of this, availability can sometimes be a problem. This could be down to commitments with other clients, sickness or holiday.
• Their broader skillset may not be the same as an agency where they have a bigger team who specialise in different areas.

Agencies

When you work with an agency, you’ll have a managed team of individuals with a variety of skills at your disposal.

Agencies are usually best suited for larger businesses where the amount and variety of work required is too much for a single individual.

Advantages:

• You aren’t just dealing with a single person, so there’s a whole team to accommodate you.
• They often have better availability & a wider range of skillset due to their larger team.
• Agencies tend to have dedicated account managers to look after you on an ongoing basis, which freelancers often can’t provide.

Disadvantages:

• Costs are usually considerably more for an agency, due to staff costs and much larger overheads.
• The full ‘agency experience’ is seen by many as a bit outmoded and overblown. It’s all very nice being taken out for lunch, but sometimes you just want the job done with all the extra costs kept to a minimum.

And then there’s us…

At Yellow Peach however, we do things a little differently. We strive to bring the best of both worlds by bringing together the perfect blend of flexible freelance expertise that caters to your individual requirements. By doing this, we keep the costs down whilst providing the same level of polish and high standards that you’d expect from an agency, without the sky-high costs of an agency.