For architects
Websites for architects
Your work is beautiful and your website is probably making it hard to hire you.
Architects have the opposite problem from most trades. The photography is excellent, the design taste is obvious, and the website is often a slow, unlabelled gallery that tells a prospective client nothing about fees, timescales or what actually happens first. I build practice websites that keep the visual standard and add the plain answers that turn admiration into an enquiry.
What your customer is actually deciding
A private client contemplating an extension or a self-build is intimidated before they arrive. They do not know what an architect charges, whether they can afford one, or what the difference is between planning drawings and a full service. Most are quietly worried they are not a serious enough client to be taken on. Alongside them sit developers and commercial clients, who are checking scale, sector experience and whether you have delivered anything the size of their scheme.
Where most architects’ websites go wrong
Total silence on fees, which the profession treats as normal and which stops a large number of good private clients from ever getting in touch. The second failure is projects presented as photographs with no words: no brief, no constraints, no planning story, no indication of scale. The third is no explanation of the work stages, so the client cannot tell what they would be buying at each point or where they could stop.
A couple own a tired 1930s semi and have been told an extension might work. They have never hired an architect and assume it is for other people. They look at three practice websites. Two are elegant galleries with a contact page. The third explains that a feasibility study costs a set fee, takes a few weeks, and can be done before anyone commits to anything further. That is the practice they email, because it was the only one that gave them a first step small enough to take.
The pages a architect actually needs
Not a generic five-page template. These are the pages that earn their place on a architectural practice website.
- 01
How fees actually work
Percentage, fixed stage fees, hourly, and what a first feasibility study costs. It does not need to be a price list. It needs to stop a nervous private client assuming they cannot afford to ask.
- 02
Project pages with the story, not just the photographs
The brief, the constraints, what the planning position was, how long it took, roughly what scale of budget. This is what a prospective client is genuinely reading for, and it is what separates a practice site from a portfolio.
- 03
The work stages, in plain English
What happens at each stage, what the client receives, and where they can pause. Most private clients have no idea what they are buying, and explaining it makes hiring you feel like a series of steps rather than an open-ended commitment.
- 04
Planning applications and listed buildings
Conservation areas, listed consent and permitted development are searched heavily by homeowners who have hit a problem. These are useful pages that also happen to attract exactly the right people.
- 05
Residential extensions and self-build
The bread and butter for most small practices and worth separating from the commercial work, because the private client is buying something quite different and needs far more reassurance.
Three mistakes worth fixing first
If you do nothing else with your current site, start here. All three are cheap to put right.
- 01
No mention of fees anywhere
The convention in the profession is silence, and it costs practices real work. A private client who cannot judge whether they are in the right ballpark tends to assume they are not, and never makes contact. A fee structure and a feasibility study price fix it without publishing a rate card.
- 02
Projects with no words
A stunning photograph with a one-word title proves you have taste and nothing else. The brief, the site constraints, the planning battle and the timescale are what convince someone you could handle theirs, and they are what makes the page findable at all.
- 03
A gallery that loads slowly
Architectural photography is heavy and it is frequently uploaded at full resolution. The irony is that the most design-conscious sites are often the slowest, and a client on a phone leaves before your best project has appeared.
What people type when they need a architect
Roughly the shape of the searches worth being found for. Put your own town where the brackets are, because local intent is where a small business can genuinely outrank a bigger one.
- architect [your town]
- architect for house extension
- listed building architect near me
- architect fees uk
- planning application drawings [your town]
I set this up during the build rather than selling it back to you afterwards as an SEO package. What I will not do is promise you the top spot, because nobody can honestly promise that.
What it costs
A website for a architectural practice starts at £1,000 for up to five pages, live in about two weeks. You get one number in writing before anything starts, and it does not move unless you ask for something that was not in the brief. Hosting and your domain run separately at roughly £100 to £150 a year, and the care plan is optional.
The full breakdown is on the pricing page. You talk to me the whole way through, because there is nobody else to talk to. I have been doing this for 12 years and I am still reachable after launch, with 30 days of free tweaks while you settle in.
What clients say
“Jay created a new website for me, exactly how I wanted it. Jay went above and beyond my expectations. Highly recommended.”
“Jay is a kind, devoted and enthusiastic professional. He will be eager to work efficiently on your project and deliver it in no time.”
“Just had Jay make me a website and new logo. Very knowledgeable and great at what he does. I didn’t know what I wanted and left it to Jay - very happy with end result.”
Questions architects ask
Other trades I build for
Websites for builders, Websites for property developers, Websites for carpenters. There is also a general page for trades and, if being local matters to you, web design in Essex.
Tell me about the business
A couple of lines is plenty. I will come back with what it would cost, how long it takes, and what I would need from you.
Send a message
It goes straight to my inbox and I will get back to you as soon as I can.