Web development agency

Has anyone on here employed the services of a web design/development agency for a large scale project?

I'm looking for recommendations on companies that can produce a website from scratch, powerful but lite code, html5, databases, security, entirely tailored to suit what I hope will be a significant website in a few years time.

No amateurs, proven portfolio and recommendations.

Budget from £5k-£10k initially.

PM recommendations if you prefer. Can't discuss project sorry.

(I started a thread on this last June and can't believe I'm no further on!)

 

£5,000 - £10,000 isn't going to cut it for an agency. You'll need to raise your budget quite a fair amount I'm afraid, if you don't want to pay for 'amateurs' as you say.

 

The budget might restrict you for a completely bespoke build.

Possibly one of those Freelance websites where you list your requirements and they bid on the project might be a good route.

Freelancer.co.uk has some nice looking sites listed on it.

 

Looks like you beat me to it Dave!

£5k - £10k should get you some nice front end code though.

 

Whilst £10k isn't going to get much from an agency, that is a number that could attract a talented freelancer.

 

Freelancer would be the more cost effective route but even then you'd be looking at the top end of your budget and above, you'll also find most freelancers that do a good chunk of work in those values and/or do alot of outsourced work would be restricted by NDA's and therefore not able to produce portfolio examples to other prospects...............As they say catch22.

 

Your budget is about 10% of what it needs to be for an Agency. You're in smallish webdesigner business money at that budget. You need a 5-10x multiplier on there.

The company we used for a chain of 5 venues, with regular graphics work for easter, paddys, davids, valentines etc, security audits, regular upgrades, forum management, etc was costing more per month than your budget.

If you want an agency i.e. multiple dedicated talents, you need to step up.

Edit: I was working in sales and marketing for the 5 venues, so it wasn't me directly.

 

Thanks for the advice guys, all sharing the same view. Wouldn't be a problem spending the magnitude of money but of course the risk of the project increases, so I'll need to re-evaluate how I approach this. I can do a lot of the ground work myself, but I want to produce something that will last, and not require a significant change if it takes off.