Ask anyone who's paid a deposit to a web designer and you may hear the story: money up front, months of silence, a result that wasn't what was pictured, and a sinking realisation that the leverage left with the bank transfer. The whole arrangement runs on the client trusting first. We thought there was a simpler way to arrange it: reverse the order.
How it works in practice
The sequence never changes. You tell us the job. We reply with a fixed price — a real number, not an estimate with a tail. We build the work and show it to you in a private preview: the actual page, fix or automation, working. You look, you poke it, you show it to someone whose judgment you trust. If something isn't right, we revise it. When you say the words — approved — then the invoice exists. Not before.
"Approve" means exactly what it says: you have seen the finished thing, not a promise of it.
What it costs us
Honesty works both ways, so here is the other side of the ledger. Occasionally someone walks away from finished work without paying. It's rare — fixed prices and previews mean nobody is surprised — but it happens, and when it does, the loss is ours. The arrangement also puts cash-flow risk on us: we do the work before the money moves, every time.
We keep it anyway, for three reasons. It filters out bad-fit clients early — people comfortable with the arrangement tend to be good people to work with. It forces clarity up front: we can't hide a vague brief behind a deposit, so the fixed quote has to be honest. And it keeps the pressure where it belongs. If the work isn't good, we don't get paid. That's a strong incentive to make it good.
What it costs you
Nothing extra. The price on the menu is the price on the invoice. You're not paying a premium for the arrangement; you're just not being asked to fund someone else's risk. Compare it with the usual structure — 50% up front, balance on "completion", a word defined by the person holding your deposit — and decide which you'd rather explain to your business partner.
The fine print that's actually fine
Two honest exceptions, both logical rather than weaselly. Recurring things — hosting, monthly care — are ordinary subscriptions, because there's no finished thing to approve each month; you're paying for a state of the world, and you can cancel any month. And larger custom work moves in stages, starting with a paid Direction week; each stage is still approved before its invoice, but a £10,000 build doesn't happen on one final reveal.
That's the whole policy. It's on the homepage, it's in every quote, and it's how every job runs — from a £29 fix to a full build. If you have a job in mind, tell us about it. The reply within one working day is free, and so is the honesty.