Sam Stagg, East Dulwich

I'm Sam. I run Stagg Studio from a flat in East Dulwich, south east of the river. I build custom, hand-coded websites for small businesses around here. Clinics, salons, cafes, trades, creative studios. Real local businesses with real customers.

The short version

One person, no agency. Every site designed and built from scratch. No templates, no Wix, no Squarespace, no page builders, no monthly software licences. No meetings with account managers who don't know your project. No quarterly strategy decks.

You talk to me, I build it, we ship it. Typically in 1 to 2 weeks.

Why I work this way

Most small business owners I talk to have been burnt once. Either by Wix (they built it, it never ranked, they're still paying the monthly fee), or by a freelancer who vanished after launch, or by an agency that charged £8,000 for a site that looks like a template.

None of those options are actually bad in every situation. But for a small business in SE London with one to ten staff and a real catchment area, there's a narrow middle lane that almost nobody is serving properly. A designer who takes the brief personally, writes good code, understands local SEO, and doesn't charge agency prices because there's no agency overhead.

That's what I'm trying to be. Everything on this site is built around that one idea.

What I actually do, hands on the keyboard

• Design in the browser. I don't spend weeks in Figma. Rough shapes on paper, then straight into HTML and CSS. You see the real thing, on your phone, within days. Not a Figma mock-up that will look different when it's coded.
• Hand-coded HTML, CSS, and a small amount of vanilla JavaScript. No frameworks unless the project genuinely needs them. Lighthouse 95+ mobile is the floor, not the ceiling.
• Proper local SEO from the first line. Schema, geo tags, area served, the whole thing. Not a plugin, not an afterthought.
• Accessibility as a default. WCAG 2.1 AA minimum. Keyboard navigable, screen-reader friendly, proper colour contrast.
• Real writing help. I'll help you rewrite the headline, trim the waffle, and make sure the first screen does its job. This matters more than most designers pretend.

How I price

Fixed, per project. Most custom builds and rebuilds come out between £350 and £1,500, depending on scope. After launch, £30 a month covers hosting, ongoing management, any tweaks you want to the site, and continued local SEO work.

No hourly rates. No surprise invoices. No minimum contract. Full breakdown on the pricing page.

Where I work

I'm based in East Dulwich, London SE22. A short walk from East Dulwich station, the 40/42/176/185/P4 buses, and almost every Dulwich business I end up working with. Home ground.

My work area is all of South East London. Crystal Palace, Peckham, Camberwell, Herne Hill, Forest Hill, Brixton, Bermondsey, Sydenham, Nunhead, New Cross, Lewisham, Catford, Brockley, Honor Oak, Deptford, Greenwich, Rotherhithe, Denmark Hill, Elephant & Castle, Streatham. If you're in an SE postcode, you're inside my service area.

Clients further afield in London or the UK are welcome, but in-person meetings work best for businesses I can actually walk to.

Work I've shipped

Currently two live client sites:

• Crystal Palace Osteopathy — full rebuild for Virginia Spencer-Smith, registered osteopath in SE19. Mobile-first, full MedicalBusiness schema, Lighthouse 98. Live in 12 days.
• Hamlet Podiatry — boutique rebuild for Michele Osborne in Dulwich Village SE22. Harley Street and NHS-trained podiatrist. Photographic hero, editorial reviews carousel. Live in 14 days.

More case studies coming as new clients ship. If you want to be case study 03, get in touch.

What I'm not

A few things I'm up front about.

• Not an agency. No team, no PM, no design lead, no junior devs. If you need a team of 12 people working on your site, I'm not it. Go talk to a proper agency in Shoreditch.
• Not a Wordpress developer. I build in pure HTML and CSS. If you need a traditional CMS because ten non-technical staff need to edit pages every week, we should talk about whether that's actually the right solution for your business, but it's not what I specialise in.
• Not an e-commerce specialist. I can build a 5-10 product Shopify-lite setup using Stripe Payment Links or similar. If you need full cart, inventory management, warehouse integration, go to someone whose full-time job that is.
• Not a growth marketer. I do local SEO, which is about being found. I'm not running your Meta ads or your newsletter. There are great people who do. Happy to recommend.

How to get in touch

Easiest way is the form on the homepage. Reads within 24 hours, replied within 48 at the latest.

Phone works too: 07535 442 133. Voicemail if I'm not about. Email: staggstudiosuk@gmail.com. Instagram: @staggstudios.uk.

If you want a proper read of the thinking behind all this, start with the honest guide to web designer pricing in SE London. Everything else follows from that post.