Why hourly kills web projects
If you bill web design hourly, you've been on the wrong end of three scope-creep arguments this year alone. Here's why the agencies winning bigger projects price differently:
- Hourly puts you and the client on opposite teams. They want fewer hours, you want more. That tension corrodes the relationship.
- Hourly punishes efficiency. The agency that ships in 60 hours instead of 100 makes less. That's perverse.
- Hourly makes proposals impossible to compare. A $150/hr agency × 80 hours = $12K. A $90/hr agency × 140 hours = $12.6K. Neither buyer knows what they're really getting.
Fixed-fee + phase-based pricing solves all three.
The 2026 web project benchmark
Starter Site — early-stage marketing site
- Fixed-fee: $8,000
- 8 pages, mobile-responsive, basic SEO
- CMS integration (Webflow / WordPress)
- 1 round of revisions
- 30-day post-launch support
- Timeline: 4-6 weeks
Growth Site — funded company, real revenue site
- Fixed-fee: $25,000 + $1,500/mo retainer
- 20 pages + custom layouts + 3 conversion-optimized landing pages
- CRM/marketing automation integration
- Advanced analytics + heatmap setup
- Quarterly CRO experiments (retainer)
- Timeline: 8-12 weeks
Custom Build — established brand, custom infrastructure
- Fixed-fee: $60,000+ + $3,500/mo retainer
- Custom design system + headless stack (Next.js + Sanity)
- Custom integrations + API work
- Performance budget (Core Web Vitals)
- Ongoing dev retainer (16h/mo)
- Timeline: 12-20 weeks
How to structure phases
The phase structure that wins:
- Discovery & Strategy (Week 1-2) — kick-off, content audit, sitemap, wireframes. Bill 25% of project fee here.
- Design (Week 3-5) — visual design + prototype. Bill 25%.
- Development (Week 6-10) — build + content load. Bill 25%.
- Launch & Handoff (Week 11-12) — QA, launch, training. Bill 25%.
Tie payments to phase completion, not calendar dates. If the client delays content delivery, the project pauses but their next payment doesn't.
Where most agencies underprice
Three places web project pricing leaks money:
1. Revisions. "Unlimited revisions" is the death of margin. Specify: 1 round per phase, additional rounds at hourly rate ($150-$200/hr).
2. Content migration. Importing 50 blog posts from WordPress to Webflow is 8-12 hours. Charge $1,500-$3,000 separately.
3. Post-launch support. Standard: 30-60 days bug fixes included. Beyond that, ongoing retainer or hourly. Don't absorb maintenance into the build fee.
When to require a retainer alongside the build
Anytime the project is >$25K, recommend a retainer add-on:
- Maintenance retainer ($800-$2,500/mo) — uptime monitoring, plugin updates, security patches, minor copy edits
- Growth retainer ($1,500-$4,500/mo) — quarterly CRO experiments, new landing pages, A/B testing
- Dev retainer ($3,000-$8,000/mo) — for ongoing custom development
Setup-fee-only projects often die in scope creep. The retainer is your buffer.
Free template
The web design + development proposal template with these pricing tiers — fixed-fee + retainer add-ons, ready to send.