By Jeroen · Creative Technologist at Digital Powder
When you’re choosing someone to build your website, a larger agency can feel like the safer option. More people, more departments, more resources.
Those things can be valuable. But they don’t tell you everything about what it will be like to work together.
Who will understand your business? Who will make the decisions? And when you need something changed a year later, will you be speaking to someone who knows why it was built that way?
For many businesses, those questions matter more than the size of the team.
Working directly with the person doing the work
In a small agency, you may speak directly with the person who designs and builds your website.
That changes the conversation. When you explain a problem, the person listening can consider both how it should look and how it needs to work. They can ask the next question, explain a trade-off, or spot something that might otherwise get lost between a brief and a development ticket.
Imagine you need to change a booking form. On the surface, it sounds like adding a field. But that change might also affect the confirmation email, the information your team receives and what the customer expects to happen next.
Speaking directly with the maker allows those details to be worked through together.
Larger agencies can provide excellent communication too. The useful question is not simply whether there is an account manager, but how close you will be to the people making decisions about your website.
Keeping the knowledge behind the website
A website contains more than the things you can see.
There are reasons behind the structure, the wording, the forms and the way information moves through the business. Some decisions come from customer feedback. Others come from practical lessons learned over time.
When the same people stay involved, that understanding can carry into the next improvement. You don’t have to explain the whole business again every time you need something changed.
Our work with Corkage in Bath began in 2019. Since then, the business has evolved through a wine shop, a second restaurant and the relocation of the shop. In September 2026, we rebuilt the website around its current needs.
That ongoing relationship gave us context for the rebuild: how the business had changed, what still mattered and what the website now needed to do.
Continuity is not exclusive to small agencies. But it is worth asking who will remain involved after your website launches.
A small team doesn’t have to mean a basic website
The number of people in an agency is not a reliable measure of what it can build.
A small team with the right experience can deliver a carefully designed website with booking processes, online sales or other tailored functionality. Equally, a large team does not automatically make a complicated project simple.
What matters is whether the people involved have the skills your project needs—and whether they recognise where additional expertise is required.
Look beyond the presentation. Explore their completed websites. Ask what they were responsible for, how they approached the difficult parts and how the work has been maintained.
A relevant example usually tells you more than a long list of services.
Be honest about capacity and continuity
There are good reasons to choose a larger agency.
You may need several projects delivered at once, a broad range of specialist disciplines or support arrangements that depend on multiple people being available. A larger organisation may be better equipped for those requirements.
A smaller agency should be equally clear about its capacity, response times and arrangements for holidays or unexpected absence.
It should also be able to explain how your website is documented, backed up and maintained, and what a future handover would involve.
A close working relationship is valuable. Having essential knowledge exist only in one person’s head is not.
These are sensible questions to ask any supplier, whatever their size.
Think beyond the launch
It’s easy to compare proposals by looking at the launch date and the initial price. But much of the value of a website comes afterwards.
Your services change. Customers ask new questions. A process that worked for ten enquiries a month becomes awkward at fifty.
The right partner will help you decide what needs changing, what can stay and whether an additional feature is worth the complexity it introduces.
Sometimes the best advice is a new piece of functionality. Sometimes it is a simpler form, clearer wording or using something you already have.
That judgement matters more than how many people appear on the agency’s team page.
Choose the relationship that fits your business
A small agency is not automatically better than a large one. Nor is a larger agency automatically the safer choice.
Before you decide, ask:
- Who will actually design and build our website?
- Will we be able to speak with them directly?
- What happens when we need help after launch?
- How do you handle availability, maintenance and handover?
- Can you show us work that demonstrates the experience we need?
At Digital Powder, we work directly with our clients across design and development, often over several years as their businesses evolve.
If you value that kind of working relationship, a small agency may be a very good fit.
The important thing is to choose people who understand your business, can deliver what it needs and are clear about how they will look after the work.
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Tell us what you have in mind, or what needs to change. We can work through the next step together.