Squarespace says $16/month.
What it doesn't say — forty hours of your weekend, a template that looks like 200 other shops, page-speed that bleeds conversions, switching cost that compounds every year.
Real cost: ~$2k+ year one.One
A real brand.
A fast website.
Live in a week.
Productized, fixed-bid, code yours. From $1,500.
Two — the false binary
You shouldn't have to choose
between cheap and good.
The agency says $25,000.
What it doesn't say — four months in their queue, a project manager you pay for to forward emails, a retainer they hope you'll forget to cancel.
Real cost: $25k+ year one.There is a third option.
Three — what we ship
A real brand.
A real site.
Owned by you.
A senior team, fixed bid, weeks not months. Code in your GitHub from day one. Hosting on your own account. We disappear cleanly when the work is done.
yourbrand.com
— Studio · est. 2026
Made by hand.
Made by hand.
Shipped fast.
Small-batch goods from a studio that cares about details.
Shop the collectionFour — the math
Same outcome.
Less hidden cost.
DIY tools Stack Renew Agency
Year-1 cost ~$2k+ (subs + your time) $1.5k – $10k all-in $25k+ + retainer
Who builds You, on YouTube Senior team · 1–5 weeks Their queue · 2–4 months
Looks like 200 other small biz sites Custom — your brand Custom
Performance 3–5s · hurts conversion <1s · Lighthouse 95+ Varies wildly
When you outgrow Painful re-platform Just code · easy to extend Re-engagement fee
Five — pick a tier
Two tiers.
Pick what fits.
Launch
Brand kit + a 1-page site that ships in a week.
$1.5k – $3k 5–7 days · fixed-bid
- Logo (1 primary concept + 2 refinements)
- Color palette + typography pairing
- 1-page Astro site, fully responsive
- Custom domain setup (you bring the domain)
- Contact form wired to your email
- Lighthouse 95+ performance baseline
- + 3 more in scope
Grow
Full brand system + 5–10 page site with a CMS your team edits.
$5k – $10k 3–5 weeks · fixed-bid
- Brand system: logo, palette, typography, voice, usage guide
- 5–10 page Astro site (home, about, services, contact, pricing, etc.)
- Headless CMS (Sanity or Payload) for editable content
- Basic copy direction + structure (not full copywriting)
- Analytics (GA4) + Search Console wired
- Schema.org markup + on-page SEO baseline
- + 4 more in scope
Six — configure your build
Pick the pieces.
Watch the price.
Toggle the add-ons you actually need. Estimate updates as you go. No email required.
Configure your build.
Pick a tier, toggle the add-ons you actually need. Estimate updates live. No email required.
$5k–$10k
Fixed-bid after a 15-min scoping call.
Seven — in their words
"We'd been on Squarespace for three years and were embarrassed every time we sent the link. Stack Renew rebuilt the whole thing in four weeks — six pages, our own CMS, the brand finally looks like our shop feels. Our store manager publishes blog posts in plain English now. Mobile Lighthouse went from 39 to 98."
Brian C. · Owner
Hollowbrook Cycles · Portland, OR
Eight — common questions
The questions
everyone asks.
Why is this so much cheaper than your other engagements?
Scope. The Launch and Grow tiers are productized — fixed deliverables, fixed timeline, fixed price. They lean on AI-assisted scaffolding and our existing Astro starter kit. Our SaaS-replacement and custom-software work is full custom engineering against your specific business model, which is a different product entirely.
Do I really own the code and brand files?
Yes, day one. The repo is in your GitHub from the first commit. The brand files (Figma source, vector logos, color tokens) live in a shared folder you keep when the engagement ends. No DK control plane, no per-seat licence, no "we host it for you" lock-in.
What does the timeline actually look like?
Launch tier: kickoff Monday, brand concept Wednesday, site preview Friday, refinements over the weekend, live by end of week 2 at the latest. Grow tier: week 1 brand + sitemap, weeks 2–3 design + build, week 4 content + refinement, week 5 launch. We hold to these or refund the difference.
What if I want changes after launch?
Launch tier includes 14 days of post-launch tweaks; Grow includes 30 days. Most teams then edit content themselves — the Grow tier ships with a headless CMS so you write copy like Google Docs, no code. If you need bigger changes later, send us a quick brief and we'll quote a fixed bid for it.
Can I edit the site myself after launch?
Launch tier: content lives in code (single page, simple to edit if you're comfortable with text files; or we make changes for you). Grow tier: a headless CMS (Sanity or Payload) means your team edits like Google Docs — no code touched.
— Last screen
Brand + site.
Live in a week.
A two-minute estimate. A six-hour weekday reply by an actual engineer.