Three services, one person, no handoffs.
Empyria offers three services: website design, website development, and website care. Most projects use the first two together; a design phase and a build phase, six to ten weeks end to end, starting at $10,000. Care is a separate monthly arrangement and is always optional.
Most studios sell these as three departments with three account managers and a handover between each. Here they are the same person on the same project, which is the only reason the seams do not show.
The three, and when you need each
Almost every enquiry arrives asking for one of these and needing two of them. This is the short version of which is which.
Website design
Structure, hierarchy, typography, and a look that belongs to you rather than to the template author. The part everyone assumes they are buying.
- Sitemap and page-by-page structure
- Every page designed, not just the home page
- A design system you can extend later
Website development
Hand-built, fast, accessible, and yours. No proprietary platform and no license you have to keep paying to keep your own site.
- Built from the design, not from a theme
- Performance and accessibility as constraints
- Handover with the keys to everything
Website care
Updates, backups, monitoring and the occasional small change, handled by the person who built the thing in the first place.
- Core, theme and plugin updates, tested
- Off-server backups and uptime monitoring
- A monthly allowance for small changes
What every engagement includes, whichever one you buy
These are not add-ons and they are not line items. They are the reason the number is what it is.
A fixed price, agreed before anything starts
Scope, timeline and a number, in writing, signed by both of us. No hourly meter, no change-order theatre. If the scope genuinely changes we agree a new number before the work happens, not after.
You talk to the person doing the work
There is no account manager, because there is no account team. Every call, every email and every line of code is the same person. That is the feature, and it is also the constraint that caps how many projects run at once.
You own the result
Your hosting, your domain, your database, your files. No proprietary builder that stops working when you stop paying, and no license held in my name. Leaving is always possible, which is the only honest way to earn staying.
Written from interviews, not from a brief
You do not have to face a blank page. I write from conversations with the people who actually do the work, then you review and correct. A foreman explains a job better than a marketer will.
Projects start at $10,000
Most land between $10,000 and $25,000. What moves the number is how many pages need real thought and whether the content exists yet, not how many pages there are. Twelve pages of the same thing costs less than four pages that each have to argue something.
You get a fixed number before the work starts. Half to begin, half at launch, and nothing in between unless the scope changes and we agree a new number first.
If your budget is under $10,000, I will say so on the first call and point you somewhere sensible. That is not a brush-off; a studio that takes a project it cannot do properly at that price is doing you a worse favor than one that declines.
More on why it costs what it doesBefore you enquire
Can I buy just one of the three?
Design and development are sold together as a project, because a design nobody built is not a result and a build with no design is a template. Care is always separate and always optional, including on sites I did not build.
Do you work with our existing developer?
Sometimes, on design-only engagements. It works when your developer is good and the handover is a real design system rather than a folder of images. It does not work when the arrangement exists to save money, because that is where the seams appear.
What do you need from us?
Two or three hours of conversation across the project, one person who can make decisions, and whatever photography and documents already exist. Not a brief, not a mood board, and not finished copy.
What if we need something that is not on this page?
Ask. E-commerce, a careers system, a client portal and multi-location content are all things I have built. If it is genuinely outside what I do well, I will tell you that rather than learn it on your budget.
Tell me which one you think you need.
Then I will tell you whether you are right. Thirty minutes, no deck, and a straight answer about whether this is a fit before either of us spends anything.