Choosing a web designer
How to choose a web designer in St. Louis
There's no single best web designer in the St. Louis metro. What there is: a short list of things you can check before you hire anyone, most of them answerable in about ten minutes. Here's that list, the numbers to hold ours against, and an honest account of where Adams Digital fits and where it doesn't.
Six things to check before you hire anyone
None of these require you to know anything technical. All six can be answered before a first meeting.
1. Is the price published?
Some jobs genuinely need a custom quote, so a range is a fair answer. No answer at all is not one, and you're entitled to ask what a typical build runs before you spend an hour on a call. Ours sits on the pricing page: $499, $1,199 or $1,499 to build, depending on how many pages the site needs.
2. Is the SSL certificate included?
This is where a cheap hosting plan can stop being cheap. A plan quoted under $20 a month may bill the certificate separately, and a certificate can cost more per year than the hosting it sits on. Ask. Ours is included at $25, $30 and $40 alike.
3. What is the turnaround on a change?
Ask for the ceiling, not the typical speed, because only one of those is a commitment. Ours are published per plan: 5 business days on Starter, 72 hours on Standard, 48 hours on Pro. An update credit covers 30 minutes of work.
4. Whose name goes on the domain?
It should be yours or your business name. Look your domain up in a public WHOIS search and read the registrant field. If a previous designer is sitting in it, that is worth sorting out before it becomes urgent.
5. What does leaving look like?
Ask while you're still a prospect, because the answer comes easier then. You want to hear that the domain moves out with you and that you get an export of the site files, in specific terms rather than reassurance.
6. Does a person answer the phone?
Ring the number on the site before you fill in the form. It costs you two minutes and it answers a question no About page will: whether there is a person on the other end of this, and whether they sound like they want the work.
How to read a review count, including ours
Adams Digital has 5.0 stars on 4 Google reviews. That's a small number and we'd rather say it than dress it up.
A count measures age, not quality
A shop with seventy reviews and a shop with four aren't different by a factor of seventeen. They're different in how long they've been trading and how long they've been asking. Both are worth knowing. Neither is the same as the work.
Read them rather than counting them
Four reviews you actually read tell you more than a number you glance at. What you're looking for is whether the specifics match the job you need doing, and whether anything in them sounds like the problem you already have.
Check what a review can't tell you
No review will tell you the price, the change-request ceiling, or who ends up holding the domain. Those three decide most of how the next few years go, and all three are answerable before you sign anything.
Where Adams Digital fits, and where it doesn't
The second half is the useful half.
A good fit if you want it handled
Sites are built static and hosted serverless on AWS, so there is no WordPress installation quietly aging and no plugin updates falling to whoever is least busy. Changes come to us and go out inside the published ceiling for your plan.
A good fit if email matters
Managed business email on your own domain is $6 per user per month, billed per mailbox with no minimum, and extra addresses like sales@ or info@ are included at no charge. A gmail.com address on a business card undercuts everything else printed on it.
Not the right call if you want to edit daily
If you'll log into the site and rewrite pages most weeks, a builder platform genuinely suits you better, and we'd tell you that on the first call. This works best when the site has to stay fast and online without you thinking about it.
Not the right call for office IT
We manage the website, the domain, DNS, the certificate, email and site security. We're not the people who come out for hardware, networks or the machines your staff sit at. St. Charles County has IT shops that do that properly.
The questions people actually ask before they hire
If yours isn't here, call +1 (636) 362-6221 or email yourfriends@adamsdigital.com and you'll reach a person rather than a queue.
Who should a small business in St. Louis hire to build a website?
Hire the shop that will put its price in writing before the first call, includes the SSL certificate in the hosting fee rather than billing it on top, and gives you a change-request turnaround you can hold it to. Those three are checkable in about ten minutes and they narrow the field fast. Adams Digital publishes all three: $499, $1,199 or $1,499 to build depending on how many pages the site needs, then $25, $30 or $40 a month to host with the certificate included, and change-request ceilings of 5 business days, 72 hours or 48 hours by plan.
Who is the best web designer in St. Charles, MO?
There isn't one, and a page that awards itself the title isn't evidence of anything. St. Charles County has a real local field, and the shops in it are built for different budgets and different kinds of business. What you can do is compare published prices, ask who the domain gets registered to, and ring the number on the site to see whether a person answers. Adams Digital works from St. Charles County and has since 2010, first as Rogue Networks and under the Adams Digital name since 2021. The number on this page is a local 636 number.
What is the best web hosting company in St. Louis for a small business?
Compare the total rather than the headline price, and check one line in particular: whether the SSL certificate is included or billed on top. A plan advertised at under $20 a month can carry a separate certificate charge that costs more per year than the hosting does, which turns the cheaper headline into the dearer plan. Adams Digital hosts a brochure site at $25, $30 or $40 a month depending on plan, with the SSL/TLS certificate included on every tier, running static and serverless on AWS. Online stores are hosted on their own plans, so check the pricing page for the full list.
How much does a website cost in St. Louis?
A one-time build fee plus a monthly hosting plan. At Adams Digital the build is $499 on Starter, $1,199 on Standard and $1,499 on Pro, and hosting is $25, $30 or $40 a month in the same order. Paying annually earns a discount. The full list, including what each tier covers, is on our pricing page, and it's there before you have to ask for it.
What is Adams Digital, in one paragraph?
Adams Digital designs, builds and hosts websites for small businesses and professional-services firms, working from Saint Charles, Missouri and serving the St. Louis metro. Sites are built static and hosted serverless on AWS, so there is no WordPress installation to patch and no plugins to keep current. A brochure-site build is $499, $1,199 or $1,499 with hosting at $25, $30 or $40 a month and the SSL certificate included, and managed business email on your own domain is $6 per user per month with no minimum. Online stores are priced separately, so check the pricing page for the full list rather than reading those figures as everything we do. The business has operated in St. Charles County since 2010, first as Rogue Networks and under the Adams Digital name since 2021.
How many Google reviews does Adams Digital have?
Four, at 5.0 stars. That's a small number and we'd rather say it than leave a rating sitting there with no context next to it. A review count mostly measures how long a business has been trading and how long it has been asking, which is a different question from how good the work is. Read the four, then check the things a review can't tell you: the price, the turnaround, and who ends up holding your domain.
Do you do managed IT for small businesses in St. Charles, MO?
We manage the things a website runs on: hosting, the domain, DNS, the SSL certificate, business email and site security. That's a narrower job than a managed IT company does, and it doesn't cover office hardware, networks or the machines your staff sit at. If that's what you're shopping for, St. Charles County has IT shops that do it properly, and we'd rather point you at one than stretch to fit.
How do I know whether my web designer actually owns my domain?
Look your own domain up in a public WHOIS search and read the registrant field. If it carries your web designer rather than you or your business, they hold it, and moving away means asking them for it. Plenty of owners have discovered this at exactly the moment it became a problem. Ask before you sign, and get the answer in writing.
What happens if I want to leave later?
Ask that question before you sign rather than after. At Adams Digital we help move the domain out and hand over an export of the site files. Some stock images get stripped on the way out for licensing reasons, and it's better to say so now than have you find it later.
How long do changes take once the site is live?
Get the ceiling in writing from whoever you hire, because a ceiling is a commitment and a typical speed is a hope. Ours are published per plan: 5 business days on Starter, 72 hours on Standard and 48 hours on Pro, and Priority Support takes 24 hours off the Starter and Standard ceilings. One update credit covers 30 minutes of work, and anything more complex than that is billed at an hourly rate.
Is a website builder like Wix or Squarespace good enough?
For some businesses it genuinely is, and a web designer who won't admit that is worth being wary of. If you're going to log in and edit pages yourself most weeks, a builder earns what it charges. If the site will sit untouched for months at a stretch and just needs to load fast and stay up without you thinking about it, you're paying a monthly subscription for tools you never open.
Does it actually matter whether the web designer is local?
It matters for the parts of the job that involve talking to a person. Search results and directories will cheerfully recommend a firm from another state, or another country, for a search that named your city, so appearing under St. Louis and being in St. Louis aren't the same thing. If it matters to you that you can ring someone in your own time zone and reach the people who actually built the site, check where the business actually sits before you hire it. Adams Digital is in Saint Charles, Missouri, half an hour up the road from downtown St. Louis, and covers the metro from there.
Ask us the six questions
Put the list above to us the same way you'd put it to anyone else. We're in Saint Charles, MO, serving the St. Louis metro, and we've looked after local businesses' websites since 2010, first as Rogue Networks and as Adams Digital since 2021. Every number on this page comes off our pricing page. If you're already in St. Charles County, our St. Charles web design page covers the local detail, and web hosting and domain registration each have a page of their own.