How small businesses actually choose a design or AI vendor

We publish our prices and our exclusions because the research says buyers want exactly that. Here is the research, so you can check our reasoning rather than take our word for it.

Almost everyone already has a website; the money is in fixing it

Clutch surveyed 406 US small-business owners in August 2025. 83 percent had a website, up from 64 percent in 2018. 45 percent had an agency build it, 37 percent built it in-house, and 9 percent each used the owner or a freelancer. 61 percent of projects cost under $10,000, with a typical range of $3,000 to $12,000. 90 percent planned to invest in the site within a year: a redesign or refresh for 58 percent, speed for 53 percent, mobile for 45 percent, search for 37 percent. Four in ten site owners named search as their top source of leads.

Referrals and reviews do the choosing

Clutch reports that 80 percent of small agencies win business through referrals. Gartner Digital Markets and Capterra, surveying about 3,500 businesses in 2025, found reviews to be the single most used input for a shortlist, cited by 41 percent, and that 83 percent of buyers changed their shortlist after doing research. Location was named by a minority of buyers in Clutch's older agency-selection survey, around 15 percent, which is why a Redmond studio can work with a client in Spokane or Ohio without pretending to have an office there.

Regret comes from expectations, not price

Around 60 percent of small and mid-sized businesses regretted a software purchase within 18 months, according to Gartner Digital Markets. Capterra's 2025 report on the causes: unmanaged expectations for 41 percent, problematic hand-offs for 38 percent, and vendors not living up to promises for 36 percent. Small businesses were more likely than large ones to blame poor implementation. The fix is boring and effective: write down the scope, write down what is excluded, and name who does the work before any money moves.

The most requested change: show the price

In TrustRadius's B2B Buying Disconnect research, 74 percent of buyers wanted clear, detailed pricing up front, and transparent pricing has been the top item on buyers' wish lists every year since 2023. 81 percent wanted to find the price on the vendor's own website. 64 percent of executives said they were less likely to buy if they had to hand over personal information to see a price. These are technology buyers rather than design buyers, but we have not found a reason to think design buyers feel differently.

Buyers do not punish a high price nearly as often as they punish a hidden one.