Web designer in Middle Franconia: direct, no agency

You are looking for a web designer in Middle Franconia.

Chances are you have already compared a few options. Agencies, website builders, freelancers. Plus a handful of quotes that are almost impossible to line up side by side.

That does not make the decision any easier.

This page explains how I work. Where I operate, how a project runs, and what it costs.

I am Rafael, a freelancer based in Fürth. I have been building for the web for more than 20 years. I started out with table layouts in Dreamweaver, and today I work with AI. The core of the job has not changed.

Listen, understand, build. In that order, never the other way around.

Where I work: from Fürth across Middle Franconia

I am based in Fürth and work with businesses across the whole of Middle Franconia. We can meet in person or by video.

Middle Franconia is more compact than many people expect.

The region, in northern Bavaria, has five independent cities: Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen, Schwabach and Ansbach. On top of that come seven rural districts: Fürth, Erlangen-Höchstadt, Nürnberger Land, Roth and Ansbach, plus Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen and Neustadt an der Aisch-Bad Windsheim.

From Fürth, most of it is close by. Nuremberg is right next door. Erlangen and Schwabach are a short drive away.

Meeting in person often helps at the start.

You show me your shop, your workshop or your office, and I get a feel for how your business actually runs. After that, most of the work happens over video. A 20-minute call often replaces a long drive. For businesses out in Gunzenhausen or Bad Windsheim, that is a real advantage. Nobody has to give up half a day just to sit in a meeting.

For local businesses, something else matters too.

Your customers search in their own town. So your website needs to show up on Google when someone in Erlangen or Schwabach is looking. I plan for that from the very beginning: clear location details, a clean structure and fast load times.

In the end, the postcode is secondary. What counts is that we can talk to each other easily.

One contact instead of an agency

With me, you deal with the same person from the first call to launch day. No project manager in between, no handover to people you have never met.

Plenty of agencies in Nuremberg do good work.

They simply have a different setup. There is sales, project management, design and development. Every handoff takes time and coordination, and in the end you pay for that structure. On the market, agency hourly rates sit at around 90 to 200 Euro. Freelancers usually charge 60 to 120 Euro.

With me, that chain does not exist.

Design, code and strategy all come from one place. The person you talk to is the person who builds it. Your questions come straight to me, and the answers come straight from me. That cuts out misunderstandings and endless feedback loops.

For small and mid-sized businesses, this is usually the better fit.

A trades business rarely needs a team of eight. It needs someone who listens, and someone who tells you honestly what makes sense. Sometimes that means building less.

An agency tends to pay off for very large projects with many stakeholders. If that is your situation, I will tell you so.

Ask any web designer for examples of their work. With me, you also get to see my own products: zeit, events, casa, topf-secret, denkpause and henry. They show you directly how I build software.

There is a more detailed comparison on the page about web design for small and mid-sized businesses in Nuremberg.

From first call to launch

Every project starts with a 15 to 30 minute call. After that, you receive a fixed-price proposal and a clear timeline.

In the first call, you tell me what you need.

What does your business do? Who do you want to reach? What bothers you about your current site? I listen and tell you what I think. Honestly, even when the answer is not the one you hoped for. Sometimes a single page is enough. Sometimes you need more.

Next comes the proposal.

It states a fixed price and the exact scope. You know what you will pay before anything starts. No surprises on the final invoice.

Then we move to design. I lay out the pages in Figma, so you see early on how everything will look. Your feedback goes straight into the drafts.

Once the design is approved, the build begins.

Most of the time that means WordPress, so you can update text and images yourself later on. For more specialized requirements, I build custom with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Customer portals, calculators or an online shop can be added as well.

Before launch, we review everything together: mobile layout, load time, forms and links. Then the site goes live.

If you already have a website, care is needed. Your existing Google rankings should not disappear overnight. How to avoid that is explained under website relaunch.

What a website costs

On the market, a small website costs 1,500 to 3,500 Euro and a business website 4,000 to 9,000 Euro. My websites start at 3,000 Euro net, at a fixed price.

Web design prices vary widely.

That is mostly down to scope. A few market ranges for orientation: a landing page runs 1,500 to 4,500 Euro. A small website with up to five pages costs 1,500 to 3,500 Euro. A business website with five to twelve pages is 4,000 to 9,000 Euro. A simple online shop starts at 4,000 to 7,000 Euro.

My websites start at 3,000 Euro net.

There is no tiered price list and no off-the-shelf package. Every project gets its own fixed price after the first call, written into the proposal. Anything outside the agreed scope is billed at my hourly rate of 100 to 120 Euro net.

The work does not stop at launch.

A website needs ongoing updates. For that, there is a maintenance plan at 59 Euro per month net. It includes updates for WordPress, plugins and theme, a daily backup stored off-site, and a monthly functionality check. If something breaks on a working day, you hear back within 24 hours.

The plan is optional. The choice is yours.

The details of how fixed pricing works are on the page about web design at a fixed price.

Hiring a web designer or learning web design?

This page is for businesses that want a website built. If you are looking for web design training, vocational schools, universities and the local Chamber of Commerce are better places to start.

People searching for a web designer in Middle Franconia do not always mean the same thing.

Some want someone for a project. Others are looking for a career. The second group has its own routes: a vocational apprenticeship as a digital and print media designer, degree programs and retraining courses. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Nuremberg and Middle Franconia has information on training companies in the region.

I do not offer training or courses.

My job is a different one. I build projects for self-employed professionals, startups and small and mid-sized businesses. That covers more than web design: branding with logo, colors and typography, landing pages for individual offers, and multilingual websites for businesses with customers abroad.

Then there are custom web applications.

Customer portals, configurators, internal tools. And automations built with n8n that take routine work off your plate: sorting emails, preparing quotes, moving data between systems. Automations start at 1,500 Euro net.

Everything comes from one place, with no handover between providers. That is the real difference.

More about working together locally is on the page about web design in Fürth.

Let's talk.