Apex vs the alternatives

Three ways to get a local business website. Here’s where each one wins.

We’re not always the right answer. This page lays out honestly where a full agency, a DIY builder, or a freelance marketplace beats us — and where we beat them.

Full agency
$8,000 – $15,000
6–12 weeks

Custom design, brand strategy, discovery workshops, ongoing retainer.

Apex Marketing
$199 + $99/mo
7 days

Proven templates, customised to your trade. Fast, flat-priced, ongoing support included.

DIY (Wix / Squarespace)
$12–$30/mo + time
A lost weekend (or six)

Cheap subscription, full creative control, zero strategic help.

Apex vs a full marketing agency

When the agency quote is ≥ $8,000.

Full agencies are the right call for established businesses with brand complexity, e-commerce, or multi-location operations. For a solo tradie or small local business, they often sell more than you need.

Apex Marketing
Full Agency
Typical cost year 1
$1,387
$8,000–$15,000
Time to live
7 days
6–12 weeks
Discovery workshops required
No — 5-min form
Usually 2–3
Custom brand strategy
No (honest)
Yes
Templates as starting point
Yes — 40+ tested builds
No — built from scratch
Ongoing hosting & support
Included in $99/mo
$200–$500/mo retainer
Account manager layer
No — you talk to the builder
Yes
Reasonable pick when…
Small-to-medium local service business
Multi-location, franchise, e-commerce, premium brand

Straight answer

If your business is a solo tradie, a small service crew, or a local clinic doing under $1M/yr in revenue, you almost certainly don’t need what a $10k agency build includes. They’re selling you discovery workshops, brand decks, and strategy documents that won’t make your phone ring. We skip that layer and ship a proven template in a week.

Pick an agency over us if: you’re a multi-location franchise, you need e-commerce with 500+ products, or your brand is the product (boutique hotels, high-end consultancies, law firms).

Apex vs DIY (Wix, Squarespace, WordPress yourself)

When you’re about to lose a weekend.

DIY builders are genuinely good products. The problem is you. Not insultingly — just the reality that building a converting website while running a tradie business means nights and weekends you won’t get back.

Apex Marketing
DIY (Wix / Squarespace)
Subscription cost
$99/mo (incl hosting + support)
$12–$30/mo (hosting only)
Setup fee
$199 (we build it)
$0 (you build it)
Time you’ll actually spend
30 min (onboarding form)
20–60 hours
Conversion-optimised by default
Yes — built from what works
Depends on your design sense
Local SEO baked in
Yes (LocalBusiness schema, suburb pages)
Manual setup required
Copy written for you
Yes (we write it, based on your brief)
No (you write every word)
Looks professional immediately
Yes (designer-built templates)
Often obviously DIY
Ongoing changes
Email us — done same day
You edit it yourself
Reasonable pick when…
You value your time at >$50/hr
You genuinely enjoy building it, or budget is <$100 total

Straight answer

DIY is the right call if you genuinely enjoy the process or if you’ll spend the hours. It’s absolutely not free — people underestimate the time cost massively. A basic tradie DIY site takes 20–40 hours of real work including content, photos, SEO setup, and the endless small design decisions. At $60/hour of your time, that’s $1,200–$2,400 of work you’re doing for free.

Pick DIY over us if: you have 20+ free hours this month, design sensibility, and enjoy tinkering. Otherwise the time you lose building it is time you’re not on the tools earning $100+/hr.

Apex vs a Fiverr / freelancer

When the quote is suspiciously cheap.

There’s a whole category of $200–$800 “complete business website” offers on Fiverr, Upwork, and local freelance marketplaces. Sometimes they’re good. Usually they’re not.

Apex Marketing
Fiverr / freelancer
Upfront cost
$199 + $99/mo
$150–$800 one-off
Ongoing hosting & maintenance
Included
Separate (your problem)
Content updates after launch
Included monthly
$30–$100 each (if responsive)
Site actually built on your hosting
N/A (we host)
Depends — watch for lock-in
Style & quality
Tested on 147 live builds
Lottery — great to bad
Freelancer available in 12 months
We’re a business with SLAs
~50% have moved on
Local SEO expertise
Specifically for Australian trades
Varies wildly
Reasonable pick when…
You want something reliable long-term
You’ve worked with them before and trust them

Straight answer

A good freelancer is a great relationship. A Fiverr gig with 30 reviews is a lottery ticket. The real hidden cost of a cheap freelance site isn’t the price — it’s the “what now?” 3 months later when you want to change a service, add a photo, or just understand how to edit it. Freelancers disappear. Marketplaces don’t enforce support. You end up paying someone else to fix it.

Pick a freelancer over us if: you have a specific person you’ve worked with before and trust them to still be around in 2 years.

Still weighing it up?

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