Start a web design agency without guessing.

The 4-step starting sequence

Don’t pick a niche first. Don’t build a portfolio first. Do this instead:

1. 1

   Find 20 prospects in one evening

   Open the No-Website Finder, pick a niche (dentist, plumber, restaurant), pick a city, and copy 10-20 businesses to a spreadsheet. Total time: 30 minutes. Total cost: $0.

   Open No-Website Finder
2. 2

   Write a 4-line cold email

   Steal a template from the Cold Email Library. Replace the tokens. Add one specific observation about each prospect. Send 50 in week 1.

   Browse cold-email templates
3. 3

   Send a redesign mockup with the email

   Cold emails with a mockup get 2-3x the reply rate. Use the Mock Preview Generator (or Figma if you have time) to make a 1-page version of their site.

   Mock site preview
4. 4

   Niche down after 100 sends

   Don't pick a niche before you have data. Send 100 emails across 3-4 verticals, see which replies, double down. Use the Niche Picker for a directional shortlist.

   Niche Picker quiz

Six clusters, six pages

The full playbook split into focused pages. Each one stands on its own. Read them in order or jump to the one you need first.

• 1Cluster B: Find clients

  How to find clients for your web design agency

  11 channels for finding web design clients ranked by ROI, plus a free tool that shows you 10 local businesses without a website right now.

  Read the cluster
• 2Cluster C: Pick a niche

  How to pick a niche for your web design agency

  Decide which niche your web agency should serve. 12 verticals scored by demand, price-per-site, and competition. Free quiz included.

  Read the cluster
• 3Cluster D: Cold email

  Cold email for web designers: scripts that actually book meetings

  Cold email templates that have booked real meetings for web designers. Sorted by niche and angle. Free, copy-paste ready.

  Read the cluster
• 4Cluster E: Pricing

  How much to charge for a small business website

  Real pricing data for one-page sites, multi-page sites, and retainers. Anchored to local SMB budgets across US, UK and EU markets.

  Read the cluster
• 5Cluster F: Toolkit

  The web agency toolkit: tools we'd use again

  The exact stack for a one-person web agency: prospecting, cold email, design, dev, hosting and analytics. Free tier on every category.

  Read the cluster

The free tools that do the boring parts

Every step above maps to one of our free tools. None require a signup; all are real (we use them ourselves).

• Website Health Check

  Score any business website on clarity, mobile, proof, CTA and trust. Free, no signup, instant results.

• Email Verifier

  Check syntax, MX records, disposable domains and catch-all in one click. Free, unlimited, no signup.

• Subject-line Scorer

  Grade cold email subjects on spam triggers, length and predicted open rate. Free, client-side, nothing stored.

• ICP Canvas

  Build your Ideal Customer Profile with an 8-box canvas. Export as printable PDF. Free, no signup.

• No-Website Finder

  Pick a city and a niche. Get 10 real local businesses that have no website. Free, no signup, real Google data.

• Web Agency Niche Picker

  6-question quiz that recommends 3 profitable niches for your web agency, based on your skills, region and deal size.

• Cold Email Template Library

  24+ vetted cold-email templates filterable by niche, angle and length. Copy-paste ready, with personalization tokens.

• Niche Profitability Map

  Heat map of weak-website rates across 5 niches and 10 cities. The higher the no-website rate, the bigger the opportunity for a new web agency.

• Mock Site Preview Generator

  Paste a business name + city. Get an AI-generated mock website you can send the prospect as a cold email teaser.

Frequently asked

• Can I really start a web agency with no clients and no portfolio?

  Yes. The fastest path is local outbound to businesses that don't yet have a website. With a focused niche, a 1-page personal site, and 50 personalized cold emails per week, most freelancers land their first client in 30-60 days.

• How much money do I need to start a web design agency?

  Almost nothing. The free tier of every tool you need (Figma, Vercel, Plausible, Gmail, Prospea) covers the first 3-6 months. The real investment is hours: 10-15 hours per week of consistent outreach for the first 90 days.

• What's the single most important thing to get right early?

  Niche + outreach quality. A focused vertical (dentists, plumbers, restaurants...) lets you write cold emails that reference industry pain in line one. Generic emails get 1-2% reply rates; niched ones get 8-15%.

• How long until I can quit my job?

  Plan for 9-12 months from first cold email to $5K/mo in retainers. That's 10-15 retainer clients at $300-$600/mo, plus a steady pipeline of one-time builds. The math works; the patience is the hard part.