The finished website looks nothing like what they pitched

What they showed you vs what you got

Cast your mind back to the pitch. There was probably a deck of past work - slick, modern sites with smooth animations and clean layouts. Maybe a mockup of your site specifically, designed to win you over.

Then the finished site arrives. The fonts are different. The layout is generic. The animations are gone or feel cheap. The homepage looks like a template you have seen on a hundred other small business sites.

You are not imagining it. You were sold a vision and delivered something else.

Why agencies pitch one thing and build another

There are a few reasons this happens, and none of them are your problem to solve.

• The pitch was done by their best designer. The build was done by their cheapest. The person who made the mockup is not the person who built the site. The mockup was a sales tool.
• The demos in the deck were their best ever work, not their typical work. Every agency has two or three flagship projects they show everyone. Yours was never going to get that level of attention at your price point.
• They quoted for the pitched design but priced for a template. To make the numbers work, they dropped the custom design and dropped your site onto a stock theme with your logo on it.
• Scope quietly shrank as the project ran over. The bespoke homepage, the custom animations, the unique layouts - all the things that made the pitch exciting - got cut to bring the project back on time and budget.

The pitch is a marketing exercise. The build is a cost centre. Most agencies have not figured out how to make those two things match.

What counts as bait and switch

Not every difference between mockup and final site is a problem. Designs do evolve during build, and sometimes the live version is better than the static mockup. That is normal.

What is not normal:

• The custom design you approved has been replaced with a generic theme
• Specific features shown in the pitch (animations, custom sections, layouts) are missing with no explanation
• The site is visibly less polished than the demo sites they showed you
• The agency cannot explain why the final differs from the approved design
• You are being asked to pay extra to bring the site back in line with the original pitch

The pitch deck and any approved mockups are part of what you paid for. If the agency delivered something materially different, they have not fulfilled the agreement - whether that is written down formally or not.

What to do right now

Get the evidence in one place before you do anything else.

Find the original pitch deck, the proposal, any mockups or design files they sent you, and any emails where you approved a specific design. Screenshot the live site as it stands today. Now you have a side-by-side comparison.

Write to the agency in plain terms. Something like: "The site you have delivered does not match the design shown in your pitch on [date]. Specifically: [list three or four concrete differences]. Please confirm how you intend to bring the build in line with what was agreed."

Do this in writing, by email. Phone calls disappear. The account manager who promised everything on the call will deny saying any of it.

If you have not paid the final invoice yet, do not pay it. That is your leverage. Once the money is gone, the urgency on their side evaporates. If you have already paid, you can still push for a fix or a partial refund - it is just harder.

If they refuse or stall, your next steps are a formal complaint in writing referencing the original pitch documents, then if needed a small claims court action. For most projects under £10,000 this is straightforward and does not require a solicitor.

How to stop this happening again

Whether you fix this site or start again somewhere else, three things make a difference next time round.

First, get the approved design signed off in writing before the build starts. Email is enough. "I approve this mockup as the design we are building to" - that single sentence makes any later deviation a clear breach.

Second, ask who is actually building the site. The designer who wowed you in the pitch and the developer doing the work are rarely the same person. If they will not tell you, that is your answer.

Third, agree what happens if the build deviates from the design. Free revisions until it matches? A discount? A walk-away clause? Get it in writing before you pay a deposit.

If you are starting over, you do not have to use another agency. A solo developer who handles both the design conversation and the build cannot pull the bait and switch trick - there is no junior team to hand it off to. SkipTheAgency builds sites from £600 and the person who shows you the design is the person who writes the code. Most clients move onto the Maintained plan at £65/month after launch for ongoing changes and hosting, against the £100-200/month agencies typically charge for the same service.