The numbers
The calculation in one line
Seven systems, bought in versus built in house. Both columns are figured at the lower end.
See the breakdown – item by item
| Component | At an agency | Actual effort |
|---|---|---|
| Website: 117 pages, design system, copy, SEO architecture | €25,000 – 45,000 | about 12 weeks |
| Editorial system instead of WordPress | €15,000 – 30,000 | about 6 weeks |
| Online newspaper with editorial pipeline | €8,000 – 15,000 | about 4 weeks |
| Sales funnel with segmentation and approval | €12,000 – 25,000 | about 8 weeks |
| Business check and compass | €8,000 – 18,000 | about 3 weeks |
| Automation and CRM integration | €10,000 – 20,000 | about 5 weeks |
| Total | €78,000 – 153,000 | about 38 weeks, alongside |
Where these figures come from: Typical market rates for mid-sized German agencies, deliberately set at the lower end – not quotes obtained for this purpose. The weeks on the right are estimated own time, not full-time: the work ran alongside the day job.
The point is not the total. It would have been affordable. The point is that one person delivered it in twelve months – and that what came out generates no recurring invoice.
The options
Four routes to a website – and what they cost
Each of these is the right route for certain jobs. The skill is placing your own case honestly before you ask for a quote.
| Website builder | Freelancer | Agency | Experienced person with AI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly rate | – | €60 – 120 | €90 – 180; owner-run with a creative team rather €150 – 250 | own time |
| A 10-page website | €200 – 600 a year | €3,000 – 8,000 | €8,000 – 25,000 | 2 to 3 weeks |
| A 100+ page website | not realistic | €15,000 – 30,000 | €25,000 – 60,000 | about 12 weeks |
| A design system of your own | does not exist | rarely offered | €8,000 – 20,000 as its own line item | included |
| UX and UI design | a template | depends on the person | a separate service, usually five figures | included, if you know the business |
| Upkeep per year | in the subscription | hourly | €800 – 2,000 per month | none |
| A change by tomorrow | do it yourself | if they have time | a ticket, 1 to 5 days | 5 minutes |
| If the supplier drops out | irrelevant | a problem | a successor is briefed | the knowledge stays in house |
Why the fourth column has only recently existed
Two years ago the calculation was different. A 117-page website with its own editorial system and five connected applications was simply beyond one person – not for lack of ideas, but because of the sheer volume of manual work. That manual work is precisely what AI tools now take on.
What they do not take on: knowing which three figures a managing director needs to see before they pick up the phone. What a prospect is actually asking. When automation becomes dangerous. Those decisions are the difference between a working system and an expensive toy – and they come from twenty years in marketing and sales, not from a model.
So the honest formula is not “AI replaces the agency” but: experience decides, AI executes. With only one of the two you do not arrive at this result – a model without commercial understanding builds past the need, and commercial understanding without a tool stays a concept paper.
Measured
What actually reaches the visitor
Price is one thing, result another. On 27 August 2026 I measured four websites in the same browser, over the same connection, with the same metrics. Three of them were built by established agencies; one is this site.
| Website | Transferred | Loaded after | Files |
|---|---|---|---|
| A federal state's online check, agency built | 6,521 KB | 3,845 ms | 18 |
| A state portal on a specialist topic, agency built | 1,813 KB | 2,532 ms | 22 |
| A funding initiative's portal, agency built | 450 KB | 2,160 ms | 13 |
| This website | 581 KB | 1,053 ms | 9 |
What the numbers mean – and what they do not
- The fastest agency site is good. 450 KB is a respectable figure. The difference is in the load time: twice as long for less data transferred. That suggests a system that has to compute before it can deliver.
- 6.5 megabytes is not an outlier, it is everyday. It comes not from carelessness but because content systems serve images at original size unless someone stops them. On a tradesman's mobile connection on a building site, that is the difference between an enquiry and an abandoned page.
- A single measurement proves little. Four sites are a sample, not an expert report. They show a tendency that anyone can verify on their own pages with the same tools – which is exactly what the business check is for.
- Load time is not everything. An agency brings brand direction, photography, illustration and a team that covers for absences. If that is what you need, that is where you belong.
The sites are deliberately not named. This is not about putting anyone on the spot but about the order of magnitude. Anyone who wants the actual addresses can have them on request – the measurement is reproducible in any browser.
An honest boundary
When you should hire an agency
A comparison is only worth anything if it lets the other side stand. These five cases belong with an agency, not with me.
Building a brand from nothing
Name, logo, palette, imagery, tone of voice – that is creative work with several minds and rounds of rejection. It needs a team, not an individual.
Photography and illustration
Original imagery is not made at a desk. If you need product shots, reportage or illustration, you need people with a camera and a pen.
When cover matters
With statutory deadlines or campaign dates you need someone to step in. An agency has cover; an individual gets the flu.
A shop with real stock
A thousand items, inventory, payment, returns: mature systems exist for that. Building it yourself would be nonsense.
What I offer is not a cheaper agency. It is something else: someone who asks the commercial question before anything gets built – and who can then run what was built without generating a monthly invoice. For a company that mainly means one thing: at the next round of quotes, someone is at the table who knows what sits behind the line items.
Take it with you
This reference as a PDF
The figures, the build and the reasoning, laid out for A4 – without navigation, with contact details in the footer.