We had a discovery call last week with a Bristol kitchen company that had just left a London agency. Twelve-month retainer at £6,800/month. They had been assigned an account manager who had never visited a kitchen showroom in his life and could not name three of the company's competitors. The work was technically fine. The fit was wrong from week one.
This is not a story about London agencies being bad. The good ones are very good. It is a story about what a £400k turnover trade business actually needs from a marketing partner — and why that almost never matches what a London agency is built to deliver.
What the London agency model is built for
Big London agencies are optimised around three things: large retainers, multi-stakeholder client teams, and quarterly brand campaigns. The cost base is rent in W1, six-figure account directors, and a lot of overhead. To make the unit economics work, the smallest viable client is usually £8k-£12k/month. That is fine if you are a national brand. It is the wrong shape for a UK SMB with one decision-maker, a £14k average job value, and a need for leads on Monday.
What a Bath-built studio is built for
We are based in Bath. Our cost base reflects that. Our team is small, senior, and works across a tight stack — site, ads, AI follow-up, SEO. We can sit at a kitchen showroom in Wells on a Tuesday morning and ship a new landing page from a coffee shop in Bath the same afternoon. The client we onboarded last week is twenty-two minutes from our front door.
Lower overhead, lower price, same stack
Our growth bundle is £750/month. Same disciplines a London mid-tier would deploy: paid social, paid search, conversion-rate work, AI follow-up, monthly reporting. The price difference is not a quality discount — it is the absence of a 12-person account team and a Soho lease.
Proximity creates accountability
When the client can drive twenty minutes and look you in the eye, the work changes. Excuses get harder. Promises get smaller and more honest. We have noticed that our local clients ship faster decisions and ask better questions, because the relationship is real, not abstracted through a quarterly review deck.
Smaller stack, faster decisions
A London agency typically spreads work across a planner, strategist, designer, developer, ad ops, analytics lead, and account manager. Seven inboxes for one campaign. We run the same campaign with two people who know each other's work. The number of decisions per day is much higher because the path between idea and shipped is short.
Where a London agency does still win
- , You are a £20m+ brand and need a brand team that scales with you
- , You need a creative reel that has to go on national TV
- , You operate in five countries and need pan-European media buying
- , Your board is the audience and the deck matters as much as the campaign
If any of those describe you, hire London. We are not the right partner. If none of them describe you — and they do not describe most UK SMBs we talk to — the calculus is different.
The right marketing partner is the one who answers the phone before lunch and tells you when your idea is bad. Geography helps both of those.
Seb Planchais
If you are an SMB anywhere in the South West and you have been talking to a London agency, get a second quote from a local studio before you sign. The gap between what you will pay and what you will get is wider than most owners realise.