The UK Craft CMS market is small. Maybe 30 agencies actively listing Craft as a primary offer, and a few dozen freelancers who use it day to day. If you are hiring, that helps narrow the search. It also means most decisions come down to the same handful of questions.
I have been working with Craft since the start. I have rescued sites from agencies that built on it without understanding it, and I have handed work back to agencies who use it well. What follows is the criteria I would use if I had to choose one tomorrow.
What an agency built on Craft actually looks like
Some agencies list Craft alongside WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Squarespace and headless setups. That is fine for a general digital agency, but it is not where you find depth.
Depth lives in agencies that have built a working studio around Craft. They have a content model template they reuse. They have opinions about Matrix field structure. They have written or contributed to plugins, or at least they can name a few they use on every project. Their portfolio leans heavily on Craft over the past two or three years rather than one Craft site five years ago.
The marker I look for is whether the agency has any presence in the Craft community. Sponsoring Dot All. Posting in the Craft CMS Slack. Writing about Craft in any depth on their own blog. None of these are required, but they correlate with people who actually like the platform rather than just sell it.
Questions that filter quickly
Some questions tell you more than the agency intends.
Ask what version of Craft they prefer to build on. The honest answer in 2026 is Craft 5, with a sensible plan for handling Craft 4 sites that already exist. If they hedge or say it depends entirely on the client, that is fine but probe further.
Ask how they handle the difference between sections, entry types, fields and Matrix blocks. You do not need to follow the answer technically. You are listening for whether they think about content architecture before they think about page builds. If they describe their process as "we just build the templates first", you are talking to a front-end agency that uses Craft, not a Craft agency.
Ask about their typical project handover. Documentation, content modelling notes, a list of plugins with the reasoning, a deployment runbook. If they say "we send the login details and the codebase", set expectations accordingly.
Ask if they have moved a site from one Craft version to another. Most have. Listen for what went wrong, because something always does, and how they handled it. People who have done painful migrations get specific about plugin compatibility, Matrix block changes between versions and console command quirks.
The pricing range to expect
UK Craft work tends to sit in three brackets.
Senior freelancers and one-person studios sit somewhere in the £400 to £700 per day range. Faster turnaround, less project overhead, more direct access to the person doing the work.
Mid-size agencies who do Craft as a core offer tend to sit around £800 to £1,200 per day for a senior developer. You pay for project management, design capacity and a team that can absorb someone being off sick.
Larger agencies who position Craft as enterprise tend to quote £1,200 plus, often with rate cards that vary by role. The work is similar in shape but the wrapper is heavier.
None of these are right or wrong. They reflect the overhead of the business you are buying from. Match the bracket to the project. A new five-page brochure does not need an enterprise wrapper. A complex multi-site build for a regulated client probably does.
The retainer question
If the agency only does project work and waves goodbye at launch, factor in finding someone else for ongoing maintenance later. Craft sites need attention. Plugin updates, Craft minor version bumps, fixes when a content editor hits something unexpected.
Some agencies do retainers natively. Some hand you off to a junior support team that does not know your build. Some refuse retainers and tell you to find a freelancer afterwards. Pick the model that matches how you want the next two years to look, not just the next six weeks.
Red flags worth taking seriously
Generic case studies that could be about any CMS. Most agencies who do good Craft work talk about specific Craft features in their case studies.
A long list of CMS platforms on the homepage with no specialism. The Craft community is small enough that genuine Craft agencies are known to each other. If you mention three Craft agencies and they do not recognise the names, that is information.
Reluctance to put you in touch with a previous Craft client. Confident builders are happy to refer.
Vague answers about how they upgrade Craft sites. Major version upgrades are not exotic. Anyone who has been working with Craft for more than a year has done one and can describe the steps.
Where freelancers fit in
A senior freelance Craft developer can do everything a small agency can, except absorb risk. If your project needs design, copywriting and content production alongside the build, you usually want an agency. If you have the design sorted and need someone to make Craft do what you need it to do, a freelancer is often a better fit and cheaper.
The risk model is real. If a freelancer is unavailable, the agency wrapper protects continuity. So price that risk in. Either pay for an agency, or pay for an additional Craft-literate contact who can take over if needed.
I do both kinds of work. Project leads for businesses who do not want to fund an agency wrapper. White-label support for agencies who need extra Craft capacity. The bracket depends on the work, not the title.
What to do next
If you are weighing up Craft agencies, the practical move is to shortlist three, ask them the questions above, then make a decision in days rather than weeks. The agencies who are right for you will answer fast and specifically. The ones who are not will reply with a brochure.
If you are not sure whether you need an agency at all, get in touch and I will tell you honestly. Sometimes the answer is yes, you do, and I will point you at people I think do good work. If a freelancer fits, see what hiring a Craft CMS developer looks like.
Frequently asked questions
How many Craft CMS agencies are there in the UK?
There are roughly 30 UK agencies that list Craft CMS as a primary offer. Several dozen more list it among many platforms. The active Craft community in the UK is small enough that the genuine specialist agencies know each other.
What should a Craft CMS agency cost?
Senior Craft freelancers sit around £400 to £700 per day in the UK. Mid-size agencies with Craft as a core offer charge £800 to £1,200 per day for a senior developer. Larger enterprise agencies quote £1,200 plus, often with role-based rate cards. Match the bracket to the project, not the other way round.
Is a freelance Craft CMS developer a real alternative to an agency?
For most builds where design and copy are already handled, yes. A senior freelance Craft developer can do the same technical work as a small agency for less, with more direct access. The trade-off is continuity risk if they become unavailable. Price that risk in by retaining a second Craft-literate contact or paying for an agency wrapper.
What should I ask a Craft CMS agency before hiring?
Ask what version of Craft they prefer in 2026, how they think about sections versus entry types versus Matrix blocks, what their handover documentation looks like and whether they have done a major Craft version upgrade. The depth of the answer tells you whether you are talking to a Craft specialist or a front-end agency that happens to use Craft.
Need Craft CMS help without the agency wrapper?
If a senior freelance developer fits better than an agency, get in touch and tell me what you are dealing with.
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