FAQs

how to use this guide

• General Questions

  • What is your speciality?

    We offer 3 x core services: SEO / Digital Marketing, Web Design and Branding. Our specialty is being able to combine these services to help you create a strong and unique position on the web so that you can be stand out, and be found.

  • Is your team in-house or virtual ?

    We have made the conscious decision to be a hybrid agency that uses both virtual and in-house team members. We feel that this gives us the most flexibility when it comes to meeting your needs. We’re able to use first class talent that we can cherry-pick irrespective of geographic boundaries. Our team is located across the United States, from California to the East Coast, as well as internationally in South Africa, London, Italy and other parts of Europe.

    Our offices are located in the chill beach town of Laguna Beach, across the street from the Pacific Ocean and a couple blocks away from a little-known surf-spot which does a pretty good impersonation of a world-class break when the Gods of the Sea decide to be good to us! We keep a small & tight team in-house who work their butts off to make sure that deadlines are being met, and that things run smoothly and on-time!

  • What’s it like to work with you guys?

    We do like to think that we go above and beyond for our clients every time! We’ll throw a few comments from some past clients below for you guys. Now, since this is the internet, and the bar for truth is so low it’s almost underground, we’re going to go ahead and tell you to seek out any of the folks listed below to chat with them more about their experiences with us if you’d like.

    “Working with them has been such a pleasure. They’ve always had a great professional, fun attitude, even when challenges come up. We were in need of updating parts of our site, so they took our newly branded assets and created beautiful pages + updates with them. It now feels enjoyable again to browse our website. If you want a team that has an eye for fun, modern, functional sites I’d highly recommend Studio Misfits!”

    – Genevieve Andrea De La Porte // Sambazon

    I have worked with a good amount of agencies and Studio Misfits is by far my favorite. It was really easy getting what I was looking for in a new website. I thought it and they were already showing it to me without having to say anything. The whole crew is creative as well as logical. I am looking forward to working with them more, cause no doubt they will be my go to guys!

    – Jeff Wallace // Power Crunch

    “After interviewing over 20 design studios from LA to San Diego we chose to go with Studio Misfits to re-design our website in celebration of our centennial year and we could not be happier. It is a project “100 years in the making” and very important that it was done well.

    Always professional, and in touch with contemporary design, they seemed to meet our needs with ease. Warren and the crew went above and beyond to bring this project to fruition, and have helped us adapt all of our branding to transition to the new website look.

    I can’t emphasize enough how knowledgeable, and helpful Warren, Max and the rest at Studio Misfits are. As a director of design with over 16 years of experience, I’ve worked with a lot of design studios but none have exceeded my expectations like Studio Misfits.”

    Tim Schwab // Laguna Art Museum

  • Will you take my project on?

    While we love hearing from new clients, we do not take on every project that comes across our desks. The reasons for this are many and not all projects are a great fit for us. Being a small shop, we have to be selective about who we choose to work with, not only for our own good but also in order to consistently offer a high level of service to our existing clients.

  • Do you specialize in any industries?

    Yes! While we are able to work with anyone, we have the most experience and therefore the most to offer our clients in any of the below industries:

    Contemporary Architecture, Art & Design
    Active & Healthy Lifestyle
    Consumer Packaged Goods
    Luxury Brands

• Payment & Billing

  • How much do you charge?

    All new engagements and large projects are quoted out as a project price. Small changes to scope or minor adjustments to projects are quoted out at an hourly rate which varies from $125 – $250 p/h. Every project is unique & custom, and are priced as such, and so it’s not possible to throw out numbers that will apply to everyone. As much as possible we tie our pricing back to outcomes because no one likes to keep funneling money at something without knowing the final cost of their desired outcome.

    With all that said, here are some ballpark numbers below:

    Websites

    Our projects start at $25K. Just like the purchase of a house, the price will vary depending on the project complexity and functionality required. More on that below.

    SEO / Marketing Campaigns

    SEO & Marketing Campaigns are custom and are built around your unique needs and the monthly deliverables that we set forth to achieve your goals.

    They start at $4K per month.

    There is a 90-day minimum after which you can cancel at any time with 30 days notice.

    Branding

    Branding starts at $7500 and goes up from there depending on the degree of execution you require.

  • How do you break up payments?

    Retainers

    – Due at the beginning of the month for that month’s work

    Projects under $10K

    These are typically split into 2 – 3 payments, depending on the nature of the project:

    Either:

    – 50% deposit due before project commences
    – 50% balance due upon completion of project w/ 2 week terms, or on a specified date

    Or:

    – 50% deposit upfront before work commences
    – 25% billed midway through the project, or on a specified date, w/ 2 week terms
    – 25% balance due upon completion of project w/ 2 week terms, or on a specified date

    Projects over $10K

    – Deposit at the beginning of the project (typically 25%, less on projects over $50K
    – Balances are then are split into multiple milestones which are customized by project deliverables as well as final due dates of milestones.
    – All proposed milestones & due dates are discussed and signed off on upon up front before your project commences.

• Website Design

  • What is included in my project price?

    While some agencies may charge you for your website and then upsell you on a whole bunch of additional features, we bundle up everything that you actually need into our quoted price. To us, your website is only half finished unless it has the following features:

    – SEO-optimized images, content, and pages
    – Integration with the email capture program of your choice (MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc)
    – Optimized to load fast for both UX and SEO
    – Clean animations and modern styling
    – Your site is synced w/ Google search console
    – Analytics are integrated
    – The site is built to be 100% Responsive, meaning it will look great on all modern devices such as your phone, tablet or computer.
    – Tested on modern browsers and devices (tablet / iphone / desktop / laptop). We will make any tweaks to tighten any content up if necessary on certain devices.

    Every site we build comes standard will all the above functions and features.

  • How long will my project take?

    Although this is a tough one to answer and varies greatly from project to project, most basic projects take 12-14 weeks to complete.

    More complex projects do of course take significantly longer. We have a very comprehensive and robust process that we use to build websites to ensure that you are 100% happy with your new website and we work tirelessly to hit your milestones, which are set upon commencement of your project.

  • Do you work on all website platforms? For example, Magento, Squarespace or Wix?

    No, we do not. Being a small shop, we have chosen to focus on one CMS so that we can stack our expertise and get better and better at our platform of choice.

    We primarily build websites in WordPress, and we integrate E-commerce through WordPress Solutions like Woo Commerce. We believe that this offers the most in terms of functionality and customizability, and work for 95% of all websites.

    While there is nothing wrong with other solutions, we have chosen to focus on the following platforms. If we feel that your website should be built on an alternative platform, we do not hesitate to let you know that you should look elsewhere for another agency that specializes in that platform.

    At the end of the day, saying that we can do something that we cannot is a surefire way for any project to blow up in our face and create huge disappointment and stress on both sides. That is something we try and avoid at all costs!

  • Why Wordpress?

    If you want a website that drives your image, creates a presence for your brand, speaks to who you are and what you do, and has infinite customization options, then we recommend WordPress, which comprises about 95% of the web work that we do.

    It’s great for a lot of reasons, and you can do just about anything with it. There are many, many layers to this software, and it powers more of the world wide web than any other website platform, including some serious websites like CNN.com, Sony, Best Buy, Time Magazine and many more.

    If you’re looking for something that you can sell on, that you can scale on, & that you can create infinite types of layouts on, WordPress is it.