One senior freelance Next.js dev or a London agency? Read this first

Every couple of weeks a founder messages me asking the same thing. Should I go with a London agency or a senior freelance Next.js developer in the UK. Here is the honest answer I give them.

The agency math nobody shows you

A typical UK product agency quote for a Build like mine sits between £30,000 and £80,000. For that you get a team. Sounds great until you ask who is actually writing the code. Usually a mid weight engineer with two years of experience, two other clients on their plate, and a PM filtering every question through Slack so the senior architect does not get bothered.

You are paying senior rates for junior output. That is the entire agency model.

What a solo senior actually delivers

• One inbox, one engineer, one shared Slack channel
• Decisions made in minutes, not in a Tuesday stand up next week
• The same person writing the auth flow, the database schema and the Stripe webhook
• No knowledge silos because there is no team to silo across
• Source code handover the day we launch, no licensing nonsense

When the agency is actually correct

Agencies exist for a reason. If your project needs a brand strategy, a market positioning workshop, a design system, motion direction, copywriting, a six month rollout plan and a media buy, you need an agency. That is not what most founders need. Most founders need software to ship by a date that already exists in a board deck.

If the actual deliverable is a working web platform, hire one senior freelance Next.js developer in the UK. If the deliverable is a 70 slide pitch deck, hire an agency.

How to vet a solo senior

• Ask for production URLs you can poke at right now (not Dribbble screenshots)
• Ask how long the engagement is and whether the price is fixed
• Ask who owns the code on day one and on day ninety
• Ask what the stack is and why
• Ask for one client you can ring

If they answer those five questions in under two minutes with specifics, you have found a senior. If they need a slide deck to answer, walk.

What I tell founders honestly

I have lost work to agencies and I have won work back from agencies after the agency stalled. The pattern is always the same. The founder picks the safe option, the safe option takes nine months, the founder lands back in my inbox with a launch date that has already moved twice. By the time they hire me they are paying for the project twice. Save yourself the round trip.