I built a 1-person web agency in 7 days using Claude Code + Netlify. Full stack + pricing breakdown.

#claude #showdev #startup #webdev

TL;DR

I'm a performance marketer (8 years) who got tired of watching agencies charge clients $20k-50k for websites that take 3 months and don't convert. So I built my own 1-person agency, the vibe company, with a radically different stack:

Stack: Single-file HTML + Tailwind, Netlify hosting, Python SEO page generator, Playwright screenshots
Price: $260 - $1,300 USD (1/3 of agency pricing)
Timeline: 5-21 days (1/3 of agency speed)
Monthly cost to client: $0 (Netlify free tier + $12/year domain)
Live portfolio: 6 sites shipped and running

Site: zamhwa-studio.netlify.app

The real problem with web agencies in 2026

I ran paid ads for 8 years. I've seen hundreds of landing pages fail. Here's the pattern:

Agency charges $30k for a "brand refresh"
Takes 3 months
Delivers a pretty Figma export that doesn't convert
Charges $300/month retainer forever

The designers don't understand ad funnels. The developers don't know CRO. The project managers extend timelines to justify fees.

Meanwhile, the actual work — designing a page that converts cold traffic — is something a single person with the right tools can do in a week.

The stack that made this work

├── Design:    Figma + v0 + AI-generated Tailwind
├── Dev:       Claude Code + Cursor
├── Hosting:   Netlify (free tier, auto SSL, CDN)
├── SEO:       Python generator → 1,200+ location pages
├── QA:        Playwright screenshots across viewports
└── Payment:   Toss Payments (Korea)

No CMS. No backend unless client explicitly needs one. No subscription fees. Every site is a single HTML file that loads in under 800ms.

Pricing (first 10 clients, 30% off)

Package	Price	Pages	Timeline
Starter	$260	1-page landing	5-7 days
Business	$530	Up to 5 pages	10-14 days
Premium	$1,330	Unlimited + AI + CMS + payments	14-21 days

The full pricing breakdown I published: 2026 web agency cost guide

Live portfolio (all in production)

NEMORIZZ — photobooth rental e-commerce
Drain Korea — 24hr emergency plumbing service
Stareum — celebrity booking + equipment rental platform (1,200+ SEO pages)
Isabella Blind — smart home AIoT brand site
SNAPOZ — premium photobooth landing
대한 건강사주 — health diagnosis SaaS

The SEO trick: programmatic location pages

For Stareum (the celebrity booking platform), I generated 1,219 location-specific landing pages programmatically. Python reads a CSV of Korean administrative districts, fills a Jinja2 template with district name + nearby popular artists + booking cost data. Each page gets unique metadata, schema.org JSON-LD, and internal links.

Result: 1,219 pages indexed by Google in 4 weeks. Target keyword rankings jumped from page 10 to page 1 for a dozen [city + celebrity booking] queries.

The full SEO checklist I used.

Why $0/month hosting is the real unlock

Most agencies charge $300/month "maintenance" because they built the site on WordPress + a VPS. That's $3,600/year the client bleeds forever.

Netlify free tier gives you:

100GB bandwidth/month
Free SSL + CDN (Cloudflare-grade)
Deploy previews + rollback
Build minutes sufficient for 5+ sites

The only recurring cost to the client: a domain ($12/year). That's the business model small shops have been waiting for.

Domain purchase — where I send clients

Short guide: domain buying guide

.com → Cloudflare Registrar (no markup, $9.15/year)
.co.kr → Gabia (Korean local registrar)

What I learned

Marketing-first design beats aesthetic design. Every one of my sites started from ad funnel logic, not Dribbble inspiration.
SEO is a compounding asset. The 1,219 pages I generated once now drive 400+ organic visits/day with zero ad spend.
Speed is a moat. Agencies can't compete when you deliver in 7 days because their process overhead is 3 weeks minimum.