Ask HN: Are Web Agencies Cooked?

10 points by mijustin 33 days ago | 8 comments

I'm curious about what's going on in the agency world right now.

I worked at web agencies for a lot of my career, and I'm thinking about the kinds of projects we would get: build a website, build a simple app, build internal tools, maintain a WordPress site, build a website theme, etc...

It feels like a lot of that is being taken over by LLMs and tools like Claude Code? Are agencies feeling cooked right now?

If you're at an agency, what's happening in your world?

SunshineTheCat 33 days ago |

I have been thinking the same thing.

In fact, I recently started a one-man-show business I'm doing as a bit of an experiment in my city.

Every single web agency here builds WordPress sites. Really old, mostly ugly, WordPress sites.

So I've built out a next.js-powered CRM that's faster, more secure, easier to use, etc.

Now I'm in the starting stages of rebuilding local sites for free just to grab the case studies.

I'm doing this 1.) as a bit of an experiment and 2.) because it feels like the web agencies here are ripe for disruption (and no one else seems to even mention or touch AI)

With Claude + Codex (and a 15-year background in WordPress) I've jumped from taking around a month to build out a custom site to less than a day.

The interesting/tougher part will be product/market fit and building those first few paying clients.

So to answer your question? It definitely looks like it. I'm sure there are plenty out there who are adapting but they seem to be the exception in what I've seen.

SoMomentary 33 days ago |

Not at all! My shop is having one of its best years ever. We've been switching to value based billing with our clients which has made them happier and us more profitable.

Using AI powered prototypes to sell clients on new features has gone really well for us. Many of our clients have presold themselves on adding AI features of some kind, which is nice because it generally means they will need support for these features going forwards.

Stoo 33 days ago | |

What do you mean by value based billing?

borplk 32 days ago | | |

I think it means charging based on the value of the work to the client not just the cost of doing the work.

That means if you get fast and efficient at doing something valuable for the clients you get to enjoy better margins because your costs are relatively low but the value is high so the customers still happily pay a good amount for it.

kypro 33 days ago |

My friend ran one for years and was forced to close his late last year after doing layoffs earlier in the year.

I suppose it wasn't quite a "web agency" as they also took on some more complex projects, but demand really started to dry up in the back half of last year.

My understanding was that it was less AI competing, but that there was just far fewer companies with the budget or interest to spend. I live in the UK though and our economy is horrendous which I'm sure is 80% of it.

I think you're right though... Web agencies are probably more or less cooked. Not because there will be no demand for someone to build a website, but because increased competition and efficiency will make it a much less profitable business to run. If you can do in a day what used to take a week you won't be able to charge the same for the same project, so you either find 5x more clients or make far less money.

andrei_says_ 33 days ago |

Web agencies talk to clients and provide them with packaged services in understandable language.

Coding is a part of what clients pay for.

Agency clients want nothing to do with coding.

So make that part cheaper and faster and use the competitive advantage.

sminchev 33 days ago |

I will give you an example from recent weeks. I am a developer and I implemented a android app, all with AI, because Kotlin is not my language. But to make it working my expertise and skills to analyze, think of the architecture, security, databases, issues, debugging helped me make a stable product and I am really proud of the results. I got so confident that I thought I can do the marketing campaign with the same tools and success... AND I FAILED!!

Why? Because I don't know the basis, I can't decide what AI generated suggestion is good and what bad, what will work, and what won't work. Sometimes AI suggests things that are just not ethical. If I had a good basis, like in software development, I would have better results.

Yes, for sure, work will drop and it will affect some people, but web agencies will stay. I will give you another example. I have all the tools at home to make my own desk, but at the end of the day, I go to IKEA and buy a new from there ;) . I believe that the number of people needed to do a job will decrease, and the demanded quality will increase, because manual labor is more expensive. Because it is more expensive, it make sense clients to demand more for what they pay.

Time will show :)

guzfip 33 days ago |

I thought they all pivoted to social media service/consulting and marketing firms years ago.