A freelancer is usually cheapest but depends on one person's skills and availability. A traditional agency brings a full team but charges for account management and overhead. A lean team like Heights sits between: team coverage and systems, flat published pricing, and no layers between you and the people doing the work.
A good freelancer can be a great deal. You talk directly to the person doing the work, and prices are often lower. The risks are coverage and range. One person may be strong at design but weak at SEO, or great at writing but not technical work. If they get sick, take a full time job or simply disappear, your site can be stuck. Make sure you own every login and the domain from day one if you go this route.
A traditional agency covers more skills and has backup when someone leaves. You usually pay for that in account managers, project managers, sales commissions and office costs, which show up as higher monthly fees and often longer contracts. Communication can run through several people before it reaches whoever actually edits your site. For large companies with big budgets that structure can make sense. For a single location service business it is often more structure than the work needs. Ask exactly who touches your site.
Heights is built to sit in between. Our team covers design, writing, SEO, AI search work and your Google Business Profile, and we use systems and AI tooling for repetitive tasks so people can focus on strategy and writing. Pricing is flat and public: $750 to build, $399 a month, month to month. Larger programs with ads, video or social start at $1,750 a month. Whichever you choose, ask who does the work, what happens if they leave, and who owns everything.
Send the site over. We will tell you what is broken, what you could rank for, and whether AI search knows you exist. No charge and no pitch deck.
