Business website for €2,500 in 7 working days.Nobody ghosts you with your deposit.
Freelancers are great — for a landing page over a weekend. When it's a site your revenue depends on, you need a team: Fedir Alpatov, founder and tech lead, a designer, a developer, an editor. A contract. A warranty in writing. Code in your GitHub from day one.
6 stories you've probably heard.
Or lived through. This isn't a smear on freelancers — these are real scenarios we see every month when clients come to us for a rescue project.
Vanished with the deposit
Paid 30% upfront. Week one — responsive. Week two — silence. Week three — blocked on WhatsApp. Legally getting your money back is unrealistic, because the contract was “verbal.”
Finished 80%, stopped replying
Site is almost done, but without payment integration / CRM / something critical. You can't launch yourself — you don't have the passwords. Finding a replacement with the same stack — a month of searching.
Launched and refused support
“That's a separate fee” — the standard reply to any request after handoff. Every text edit — from €50. After 3 months, they stop replying entirely.
Each of these 6 isn't an exceptional story. It's a typical pattern. Some of our projects are rescues after a freelancer or another agency. If you recognise yourself — send us the link. The free audit comes within 24 hours and tells you straight what's salvageable.
When NOT to hire us.
Not every project needs a studio. Here are 4 situations where a freelancer is objectively the right call. If you're here — we're not the fit, and that's fine.
A landing under 5 pages with no integrations
Budget below our landing page (€1,200) — a freelancer for a week. A contract and warranty here is overpay.
An MVP landing “over a weekend” to test an idea
Speed > quality: a freelancer ships over a weekend, our landing page takes 3 working days. Beta phase = freedom to break things.
Personal blog / portfolio without business logic
Tilda or a freelancer for €300. Nothing for a studio to do here.
Experimental project with an uncertain future
If you don't know whether v2 will happen, investing in a studio is premature optimisation.
If your project is on this list — go hire on Upwork. We have a list of vetted freelancers we can refer you to. No jokes — we're for honest fit.
Freelancer vs Code-Site. Honest, fact-based.
Not “we're better than everyone.” Here's where a freelancer wins, and where we do — based on 25+ projects.
| Criterion | Freelancer | Code-Site |
|---|---|---|
| Starting budget | €300–2,000 | €1,200 – from €9,000 |
| Team size | 1 person | 4 people: tech lead, designer, developer, editor |
| Specialisations | 1–2 (usually “just code” or “just design”) | 6+ (design, frontend, backend, copy, SEO, QA, PM) |
| Process | flexible, informal | structured: brief → design → dev → QA → launch |
| QA / testing | self-review, sometimes none | 60-point QA checklist before launch |
| Documentation | usually none | full, handed off with the code |
| Contract | verbal / on WhatsApp | legal entity, contract, rebate clause |
| Warranty | “I'll fix it if I have time” | 1 year, in the contract |
| Post-launch support | charged separately or vanishes | 1 year included |
| Replacement when something goes wrong | search for a new freelancer from scratch | handoff inside the team in a day |
| Speed | 1 person = 1 stream | fixed in the contract: business website — 7 working days |
| Disappearance risk | high — no legal obligation | none — the contract breaks, not the person |
Built on custom code
Oleksandr Sytnykov
Clarion Solutions
CO2LAB
IceLab
Right Cars
Grønt Land DK
Who's actually on your project.
A team of 4: Fedir Alpatov — founder and tech lead, a designer, a developer, an editor. Specialists are brought in per task. No account managers between you and the people writing the code.
Core team
Tech Lead / Founder
Project architecture. Technical decisions. Direct client contact at brief.
Designer
Design mocks, prototypes, project design system.
Developer
Translating design to code, performance, cross-browser.
SEO / B2B Marketing Strategist
SEO structure, technical optimisation, content strategy.
Brought in per task (not part of the team)
Backend Developer
Custom APIs, complex logic, CRM/ERP integrations.
DevOps / Infrastructure
Complex architecture, multi-environment, CI/CD.
Copywriter
Homepage copy, service descriptions, SEO articles.
Localisation
Additional-language versions and landing pages.
QA Engineer
Pre-launch — 60-point checklist + regression.
Project Manager
Large projects with complex scope.
Motion / Video Designer
Animations, video cases, hero motion.
Illustrator
Custom illustrations, icons, graphic scenes.
Want to talk to a specific person on the team? Say so at brief — we'll arrange it. There are no layers between you and the executor.
The price gap isn't the hourly rate.
A freelancer bills hours. We charge a fixed package price in the contract. Here's what it covers — besides the hours:
Process
Brief → design → dev → QA → launch. With a freelancer it's often “let's start and see.” With us — a structure your project moves through even if someone gets the flu.
60-point QA checklist
Before launch the project runs through 60 verification points: performance, accessibility, SEO, responsive, cross-browser, forms, analytics. Freelancer does self-test (often none).
1-year warranty
This isn't marketing — it's a contractual obligation. A bug in our code 11 months later, we fix it free. Freelancer: “that's a separate fee.”
30% rebate clause
We miss the deadline — we pay back 30% of the project price. This isn't an empty promise; it's in every contract. With a freelancer, deadline risk is on you.
Contract with a legal entity
A sole trader or limited company contract. Proper invoices. Tax-deductible. Disputes resolved in court, not via “please don't block me.”
Documentation and handoff
Code is delivered with full documentation. If we vanished tomorrow, any next developer understands your project in a day. Freelancers usually skip documentation.
Sanity Studio for self-edits
After launch, you edit content yourself. Without us. Freelancer is usually “message me, I'll fix it — from €50.”
Continuity
If someone on the team is out, the project doesn't stop. Handoff in a day. With a freelancer: one person vanishes = the whole project vanishes.
You edit the site yourself. Without us. Without a freelancer.
The biggest freelancer trap is post-launch dependency. Want to swap a paragraph? €50. Recolor a button? €30. Three months later they stop replying, and you pay the next person to figure out the codebase. We give you Sanity Studio — a full admin where you do it all yourself. From your computer. Or your phone. Free for teams up to 5.
6 things you do without a developer
Drag-and-drop blocks
Drag sections onto a page — text, image, form, testimonials, FAQ. Every block has rules, so you can't break the layout.
Edit from your phone
Actually. Not “responsive admin for emergencies” — full editing on mobile. Heard your competitor's pricing on a call — update yours from a café in 2 minutes.
Create new pages yourself
No developer needed. Click “new entry,” pick a template, fill the fields, publish. 5 minutes from idea to live.
Multi-language built in
Every field has UK and EN versions. Translate, it renders. No plugins, no extra fees.
SEO without plugins
Every page has title, meta-description, OG-image, schema.org fields. Fill them in — Google sees them. No Yoast, no subscriptions.
Free for teams up to 5
Your marketer + assistant + copywriter + editor + you — €0 per month. Paid tier starts at editor #6.
Sanity Studio is open-source. If you decide to leave us in 5 years, the Studio stays with you and content exports to JSON. No vendor lock-in. No freelancer will give you that.
Some of our projects — rescues after a freelancer.
Not an outlier. A typical pattern. Here's what we see on a typical rescue:
Typical situation
- Client paid a freelancer €1,500–3,000 for a landing or site
- Freelancer finished 60–80% and stopped replying
- Site works, but without payment integration / forms / CRM
- No code access — the freelancer never handed it off
- Finding a new freelancer with the same stack — 1–2 months of searching
What we do
- Within 24 hours: a free audit — what's there, what works, what doesn't
- Price and timeline fixed in the contract — per package, not per hour
- If the stack is rough, we rebuild in our code instead of patching
- Launch + 30 days monitoring, a year of warranty and support
Typical outcome
- Live within the package timeline (business website — 7 working days) instead of 1–2 months hunting for a new freelancer
- Site is finally functional, with documentation and warranty
- Client's total spend: freelancer (already lost) + our rescue = on average 1.5–2× more expensive than if they'd come to us first
The conclusion is obvious: a cheap freelancer is often more expensive than a studio from the start. If you're at “deciding — freelancer or studio,” re-read section 03 (when a freelancer is the right call). If you already tried a freelancer and it didn't work out — let's talk.
What we don't do.
Even for serious projects, we're not for everyone. Here's when we'll say no:
Sites under €1,200
Our minimum is €1,200 for a landing page. Cheaper doesn't come with our guarantees.
Launch by tomorrow
Our minimum is 3 working days for a landing page. If it has to be live tonight, hire a freelancer for the night.
A site “like this one but different” without a brief
We don't clone other people's designs. If you need a point-and-shoot copy site, that's Tilda over 2 hours.
Your relative can do it cheaper
Seriously, if you have a developer in your network with a real portfolio — hire them. We're not better than a specific good freelancer — we're better than the average of freelancers as a category.
If your case is on this list, we'll be honest and pass on the project. Better to say no now than disappoint you later.
What's cheaper: freelancer or studio?
On paper — freelancer. Over 12 months of ownership, often the opposite. Let's look honestly:
Scenario 1: five-page business website
| Line item | Freelancer | Code-Site |
|---|---|---|
| Development | €2,000 | €2,500 |
| Support, first year | €50/mo × 12 = €600 | €0 (included) |
| Critical bug fixes (2 a year) | €200 + €300 = €500 | €0 (warranty) |
| SEO catch-up after 6 months | €400 | €0 (SEO structure in the package) |
| Ghosting / rework risk (15%) | €2,000 × 0.15 = €300 | €0 (contract and penalty clause) |
| Total year 1 | €3,800 | €2,500 |
A freelancer is cheaper only on the development line — by €500. Over a year of ownership the difference is €1,300 in our favour. Freelancer figures are typical market rates; yours may differ.
Scenario 2: online shop, up to 100 products
| Line item | Freelancer | Code-Site |
|---|---|---|
| Development | €5,000 | €3,900 |
| Support | €80/mo × 12 = €960 | €0 (included) |
| Integrations (CRM, payment, delivery) | €1,200 | €600 (CRM); payment and delivery in the package |
| Bug fixes | €600 | €0 (warranty) |
| Rescue project risk (25% for e-commerce) | €5,000 × 0.25 = €1,250 | €0 (contract and penalty clause) |
| Total year 1 | €9,010 | €4,500 |
A freelancer is more expensive already at the build stage. Over a year of ownership the difference is €4,510 in our favour. Freelancer figures are typical market rates; yours may differ.
What people ask most
I worked with a freelancer, they vanished. What now?
Can you finish what a freelancer abandoned?
I have a freelancer in my network who's cheaper. What's the difference?
What if your Tech Lead gets sick?
Can I talk to a specific person on the team?
Let’s launch a site that works for your business.
We’ll go through your project: structure, features, timeline, and budget. We’ll tell you straight what’s worth spending on — and what isn’t.
