What it costs · Alexander Watson Studio

What you are actually buying

One piece of work in three stages, not three things bought together.

You are not paying for pages to be built. You are paying for the work of taking a practice that is difficult to describe — which most good practices are — and making it coherent, recognisable and easy for the right person to trust.

Each stage decides the next, which is why they are not sold separately and why you are never asked to choose how much of one you need.

Practice Clarity · the thinking
Who the practice is for and who it is not for, what is actually being offered, what should be led with, what should be left out, and what a particular reader needs before they will make contact. Written down and approved before anything is designed.
Identity · the visual expression
Typography, colour, hierarchy and a simple wordmark where one helps — chosen because of what the first stage settled, not because they look well together. This is the identity the website needs rather than a brand programme, and the design decisions in it are mine to make.
The website · the implementation
Structure and information architecture, your words set properly, a responsive and accessible build, essential on-page SEO, an enquiry route that suits a therapy practice, two consolidated rounds of changes, launch, handover and the first year of care.

A template solves the third stage and only the third stage. It gives your words somewhere to go, and for some practices that is genuinely the right purchase. What it cannot do is work out what the practice should say, what to emphasise, what to remove and what not to claim — and those decisions are what the design is downstream of. That is the difference the price is for, rather than the fact that somebody knows how to build web pages.

The first three practices

£495 now, £995 after that — and here is exactly why.

I have spent the past several months building this properly: the Practice Clarity method, the six finished cases with their documents published in full, the process, the scope and the terms. What it has not had yet is a real practice going through the whole of it from enquiry to launch.

So the first three practices are £495 rather than £995. Not a smaller version of the service and not a trial: the same scope, the same thinking, the same two rounds, the same year of Website Care. The difference in price is the difference in what I get back — three complete projects with real therapists, an honest account of what was unclear or awkward, and, where the work is good and you are willing, a case study and something you would be happy to be quoted saying.

The payment is weighted to match that. £100 to begin. £395 when your website is approved and ready to launch. The deposit is not meant to be income; it is the smallest sum that establishes commitment on both sides so the work can begin. The balance falls due when the website has been through the whole process, including both revision rounds, and you have approved it for launch — which is a step in the process with a defined meaning, set out in clause 11 of the service terms, rather than an open-ended condition.

After the third, it is £995, which is what the work is set at, and the payment returns to its normal shape. There is no deadline and nothing counts down. When the three places are taken, the price on this page changes. That is the whole mechanism.

What you pay: £495. £100 to begin. £395 when your website is approved and ready to launch.
What you receive: Everything on this page: Practice Clarity, the Direction Note, the identity, the full design and build, two consolidated revision rounds, launch, handover, thirty days of corrections and the first twelve months of Website Care. Nothing is removed, and nothing extra is added to make the price look better.
What I ask back: Your honest reaction to the process while it is happening, and permission — if you are pleased with the result — to show the website and quote you. If you would rather not be shown, say so and the price is the same.
After the third: The price becomes £995. Anyone already booked at the founding price stays at it, in writing.

Enquire about a founding place Read the whole scope first

Writing commits you to nothing, and I will tell you in my reply whether the three places are still open. If the fact that you would be among the first three matters to you either way — in favour or against — say so, and I will tell you honestly what I have and have not done before.

The core service

The short version, and the long version underneath it.

Three columns: what arrives, what you supply, and the part that is mine. Everything in the full scope is a detail of one of those three.

What you get

Working out who the practice is for and what the website needs to say, before anything is designed
An original website designed for your practice, starting from the work you respond to
Up to five core pages, written properly and set properly
A written Direction Note before anything is built, so you see where it is going
Typography, colour and a refined wordmark that hold together
Fast, responsive and accessible on a phone as well as a laptop
An enquiry route that suits a therapy practice
The first twelve months of Website Care

What you bring

Your words, or notes clear enough to edit from
Your fees, availability and practical details
A photograph of you, if you have one you like
A domain name, or the willingness to buy one
Replies within about five working days

What I do

Every design decision, so you are not choosing fonts
Tell you what is missing from your intake rather than guessing
Two consolidated rounds of changes, then launch and handover
Say plainly if this website is enough, or if something needs settling first
Keep it running for the first year

Three to five weeks from a confirmed start. Nothing outside this happens without a written quote first.

Everything included, and everything excluded Open the full scopeClose

Included

Working out who the practice is for and what the website needs to say
An original design for your practice, starting from the work you respond to
Up to five core pages
A visual identity for the website: typography, colour, and a simple wordmark where one helps
Your words set properly, and edited for clarity where they need it
Your images prepared, cropped and optimised
A responsive build across phone, tablet and desktop
Accessibility, performance and security good practice
Essential on-page SEO: titles, descriptions, headings, alt text, sitemap
An enquiry route appropriate to a therapy practice
A written Direction Note, approved before the build begins, with one consolidated revision
Two consolidated revision rounds on the website itself
Pre-launch checks, launch and handover
Thirty days of minor corrections after launch
The first twelve months of Website Care

You supply

Your words, or notes clear enough to edit from
Your photographs, or a decision to work without them
Your existing logo, if you have one you want to keep
Your professional-body designations, set exactly as your body permits
Your fees, availability and practical details
Your domain name, or access to buy and connect one
Replies within five working days, so the project keeps moving

Not included

Copywriting from a blank page, or rewriting the practice in new language
Several competing design concepts
A brand identity programme: competing logo concepts, brand guidelines, stationery, trademark work or specialist illustration
Pages beyond the five agreed, or features outside the agreed scope
Booking, payment, membership, course or client-portal systems
Photography, illustration or video production
Domain registration fees, paid font licences, stock image licences
Email hosting or mailbox migration
Marketing, advertising, directory management, social media

Anything not listed as included is not included. The full scope and the service terms say the same thing at greater length, and form part of the contract.

Three to five weeks, and three decisions that are yours.

Everything between them is my work rather than another thing for you to manage.

01 · Before you pay
Tell me which work you respond to

Name the one or two from the collection you keep returning to. That is the visual starting point, not the finished thing. Free to change until your intake is complete.
02 · Week one
Approve how it is being tailored

A short written note: what I have understood, the palette and typefaces, the page structure, and the decisions I have made for your practice. Nothing is built until you agree with it, and one consolidated revision of the note is included.
03 · Weeks three to five
Approve the finished website

After two consolidated rounds of changes. Nothing goes live without it, and the £395 balance is not due until you have given it.

Between them I read your intake and tell you what is missing, then tailor, build and check the website. Three to five weeks from a confirmed start, which is the point at which your intake has been checked and I have given you a start date in writing — a straightforward project can be quicker, and replies arriving late move it. Estimates given in good faith rather than promised dates. The whole sequence, step by step, is on the full scope page.

After launch

You are not left holding it.

A website is not finished when it goes live — something always needs renewing, updating or fixing. The first year of that is included. It is not a bonus; it is the end of the job. Nothing to decide, nothing to set up.

£29a month after the first year, if you want it to continue.

I will write to you before the year is up and ask. No automatic renewal, no minimum term, and it stops at the end of the month you say so.

Host it yourself instead if you would rather. If Care ends, you get the files, the instructions and at least thirty days' notice before the website comes off my hosting, and your domain was in your own name the whole time. There is nothing to be locked into.

Care covers

Hosting the website on the studio's infrastructure
The TLS certificate, renewed automatically
Deployments, and keeping the build working
Dependency and security updates
Version history, so any change can be reverted
Help pointing your domain, and with DNS changes
Fixing faults in the website or its deployment
Keeping your fees, availability, contact details and qualifications up to date — no quota, best sent together

Care does not cover

New pages, new sections, redesign or structural changes
Writing, or substantially rewriting, your content
A new service or offering that needs its own words
Guaranteed uptime, a repair time, or round-the-clock monitoring
Your domain registration fee
Email hosting or mailboxes
Third-party services, which have their own terms
Marketing, SEO campaigns or directory management

Content amendments are quoted separately when you need one. Care is a narrow, honest promise rather than an open-ended support contract.

What owning it actually costs

In the first year, nothing beyond the £495 except your domain renewal, which you pay to your own registrar and which is a small annual amount. After the first year it is £29 a month if you want Care to continue, or nothing at all to me if you move the website somewhere else — it is yours either way.

Beyond that there is only what you ask for: content changes after the first thirty days, quoted when you need them. If your website ever needs a paid font licence, a stock image licence or an email mailbox, those are bought in your name and I will say so before anything is chosen. There are no other charges, and nothing renews without you being asked first.

Practice Clarity

Understanding the practice is the work. It is not an extra.

Every website includes as much of this as it needs. You are not asked to work out how much that is, or to buy the right amount of thinking — that judgement is mine, and it is most of what the £495 pays for.

For a practice you can already describe, it is mostly listening, and then deciding: what to lead with, what to cut, what a visitor needs first. For a practice that is still settling, it takes longer and asks more questions. Either way it happens before anything is designed, and what comes out of it is written down for you to approve.

The reason it is not sold separately is that a website will not resolve an unresolved practice — it will only display the uncertainty more attractively. If I think the work needed is larger than a website project can carry, I will say so before anything starts rather than building on top of it.

What you receive from it is the Direction Note: what I have understood, who the site is speaking to, and the decisions I am proposing — before anything is built, with one round of changes included. It is the same work as the documents below, at the length a project needs rather than the length a case study can afford.

The six documents in the collection show this method in unusually full form, because a portfolio case has room to publish its whole argument. What a client receives is shorter: the decisions that govern their website, written down.

Practice

What is actually being offered here, in plain terms, and what is not?
People

Who is this for — and, just as usefully, who is it not for?
Position

What is distinctive about it, said without claiming anything you cannot stand behind?
Message

What should somebody understand within seconds, and what language fits you well enough to say out loud?
Expression

How the practice should feel, what to emphasise, what to remove, and how the services are organised.

Those five are what the Direction Note records, and the website is built from it. The answers are useful beyond the website too — on a directory profile, in a referral conversation, on a leaflet — and they are yours to use that way.

What it is not: business or marketing consultancy, advice on your fees, or a plan for getting more clients. It settles how the practice should be described. What you do with the practice itself stays yours.

Outside the normal scope

Some projects are not this project.

A custom project, scoped and quoted individually.

A larger organisation, unusual functionality, complicated information architecture, integrations, or an original direction that genuinely needs exploring from nothing. Tell me what you are trying to build and I will scope and quote it separately, in writing, before anything begins.

Describe the project

Not sure yet whether you need a new website at all? Ten questions that usually settle it.

Questions I am asked most

Do I own the website?

Yes. On full payment the finished website made for your practice is yours to keep, host and move, and your domain stays in your own account. The underlying design system stays mine, licensed to you permanently for one website for your own practice.

What if I change my mind about the look?

Before the intake is complete, one change of visual direction is free. After the build has started it is a new brief rather than a revision, and is quoted.

Can you write it for me?

I edit and shape what you write, which for most therapists is the right amount of help: the words still sound like you. Working out who the practice is for and what needs saying is included, so you do not have to arrive with that settled. Full copywriting from a blank page is outside the normal website scope.

I already have a website. What happens to it?

Your domain is yours and stays in your own account throughout. If it is registered somewhere else, I help you point it at the new website rather than taking it over, and that help continues through the first year of Care.

Send me the words and images from your current site and I will edit and shape whatever is worth keeping — that is included. Writing from a blank page is not, and I will say so rather than quietly absorbing it. The new website is built with the same essential on-page SEO as every website here: titles, descriptions, headings, alt text and a sitemap.

What I will not do is tell you what will happen to your position in search results, because nobody can honestly promise that. If your current site has pages that other people link to, say so when you write: what happens to those addresses is settled in writing along with the rest of the scope, before anything is agreed.

Will you follow my professional body's rules?

Designations are set exactly as BACP, UKCP, NCPS or your own body permits, and nothing goes on the page you cannot stand behind. I do not give regulatory advice, and the published website remains your responsibility.

I am not technical. Is that a problem?

No. The intake is in plain language, the design decisions are mine, and if you would rather not touch it at all, that is what Care is for.

Can I edit the website myself?

No, and it is worth being plain about it. There is no login, no page builder and no admin area. That is the reason the website is fast, stays accessible, and has nothing to keep updated or broken into — but it does mean the changes go through me.

In practice: for the first thirty days after launch, corrections are free. After that, changing your fee, your availability, a paragraph of your biography or your contact details is an email to me, quoted before I do it and usually small. A new page or a new section is a new piece of work, quoted the same way.

If holding the keys yourself matters to you, say so when you write. Some practices genuinely want that, and I will tell you honestly that I am not the right person for it rather than sell you something you will find frustrating.

Can I pause, or get a refund?

A project that goes quiet is held for sixty days, then treated as dormant. Refunds depend on how far the work has gone; the position is set out in full on the cancellations and refunds page.

Is this a template?

No, and it is worth being exact about the difference rather than defensive about it. A template solves layout, structure and styling. It gives your words somewhere to go, and for some practices that is the right purchase.

It cannot decide who the practice is for, what should be said, what should not be claimed, or what a particular reader needs before they will make contact. Those decisions are the work here, and the design comes out of them — which is why the six in the collection have almost nothing in common rather than being one layout in six colourways. Five of those decisions, with the reasoning.

How is this different from a bespoke website?

The visual exploration has already happened. The thinking about your practice still happens, with every client. What you are buying is that thinking, the tailoring, the build and the care — not three weeks of concept work.

When you are ready

Read the whole scope, then decide.

Everything included and excluded is set out in full, and forms part of the terms.

Start a website Everything included

One price, published before you speak to me.