Blog - EthanBDev vs Sub-$500 Freelance Web Designers

The $400 site that cost $6,000

I get the same call every few months. A small business paid $400 for a quick site. Eighteen months later, the site is broken, the freelancer is gone, the passwords are lost, and nobody knows where the domain is registered.

Now they need it rebuilt. From scratch. With recovery work on domains and email along the way.

How cheap freelancers work

They keep overhead at zero. They reuse templates aggressively. They move fast and take on high volume. For a side-project site with zero revenue on the line, this model sometimes works.

For a real business with customers, inventory, or bookings on the line, it almost never does.

Where it breaks down

1. No support after launch. Once you pay, the relationship often ends. Bug? Broken form? Usually you are on your own.
2. Template reuse without permission or thought. Your competitor down the road might have the same layout, same photos, same copy structure.
3. Lost access. Domain registered under the freelancer's name. Email set up on their account. When they vanish, so does your web presence.
4. No documentation. Nothing written down. Nobody can take over without reverse engineering everything.
5. SEO that slowly decays. No Core Web Vitals attention, no schema, no internal linking strategy. Rankings drift downward quietly.

See my work

Compare what shipped versus a template reskin. Empire Landscaping, Gaia Landscaping, Sweet Yards Landscaping, and ZB Salon are all production sites, custom-built, and maintained.

Why I am different

I price fair, not rock bottom. There is a floor below which a good site cannot be built, and I respect that floor.

You get the developer, not a handoff to someone else. Same-day replies. Based in Kelowna, so we share a timezone and often a coffee recommendation.

You own everything. Code in your repo. Domain in your name. Hosting under your account. If I ever disappear, another Next.js developer can pick up where I left off.

I have been building since high school. Modern stack, clean code, real SEO setup from the start.

FAQ

What is a fair price for a small business website? It depends on scope, but for a real custom Next.js marketing site in Kelowna, think low four figures minimum. Anything much under that is either a template or a corner being cut.

Can a cheap freelancer ever be the right answer? Yes, if the scope is truly tiny and the business is truly small. Some solo operators just need a one-page contact card and that is fine.

What is the hidden cost of a cheap site? Lost leads from slow page speed. Lost SEO from missing technical work. Rebuild costs in 12–24 months. Support costs when nothing is documented.

Do you offer payment plans? Yes, for larger projects. Email me via the contact page and we can structure something reasonable.

Can you fix an existing cheap site? Sometimes. Often a rebuild is less painful than trying to salvage a mess. I will tell you honestly which one applies.

Cheap is a loan

You borrow from your future self when you buy a bad site. Eventually the bill comes due. Look at the portfolio, the industries I work in, and decide.

If this is too much to evaluate on your own, reach out — I'll give you a straight answer about whether I'm a fit, even if it means pointing you elsewhere.