About
One person. No agency.
I'm Daniel. I build websites for local businesses out of Queens, New York — trades mostly: contractors, auto shops, pest control, movers, anyone whose work comes from people finding them nearby.
Why it's $1,000
This is the question I get most, and usually with suspicion attached. An agency quotes $6,000 for the same site. So either they're overcharging or I'm cutting something. Fair question — here's the honest answer.
What an agency's price pays for
An office lease. A salesperson who takes you to lunch. An account manager who forwards your emails to the designer. A project manager who schedules the meetings. Slide decks. A brand strategist. Their own marketing budget.
What mine pays for
My time designing and building your site. That's the entire list.
None of the first list makes your website better at getting you calls. It's the cost of running an agency, passed to you. I don't have any of it, so I don't have to charge for any of it.
The price isn't low because the work is small. It's low because there's nobody standing between you and the person building it.
The other half of it: I'm fast, because I've built this kind of site enough times to know what a trade business actually needs. A contractor doesn't need a blog, a newsletter signup, or a fourteen-page site. They need to be found, look legitimate, and be one tap from a phone call. That site takes me days, not months.
Why the preview comes first
Because asking a stranger for a deposit before they've seen anything is how most people get burned by web designers, and I'd rather not be the fourth guy who did that to you.
So I build it first. You look at your actual website, on your actual phone, before any money has changed hands. If it's not right, you walk and you've lost nothing. The only thing that costs money before you commit is asking me to change it — because that's more design hours — and even then the $200 comes off your build price.
What I'm not
I'm not an agency and I don't pretend to be. There's no team, no support desk, no ticket system. You text me and you get me, usually within the hour, sometimes at 10pm.
That has a real trade-off and you should know it: I'm one person, so I can't take on twenty projects at once, and I'm not the right call if you need a sixty-page site with an inventory system and a login. If that's what you need, I'll tell you straight rather than take your money and struggle.
What I care about
That the site makes your phone ring. Everything else — the animation, the layout, the typography — is in service of that. A beautiful website that nobody calls is a failure with good taste.
I also won't put anything on your site that isn't true. No invented reviews, no licence numbers you don't hold, no "20 years of experience" if it's six. Partly because it's illegal and it lands on you, not me. Mostly because a local trade lives on word of mouth and a lie is a bad foundation for that.
Where I work
Queens, and everywhere else. Most of my clients are within a few neighbourhoods of me, which means I know what a local search here actually looks like. But the whole thing runs over text and a link — I've never needed to be in the same room as anyone to build their site.
Ask me anything you want.
Including the awkward questions. I'd rather answer them now than have you wondering.