Creating a website is a path full of choices, and one of the first and most important choices you'll have to make is deciding who to hire to help make your project a successful reality. As you sift through the candidates, you may find that they fall into two main categories: agencies/teams comprised of two or more people and individual designer/developers who are like a one-person band. But in the world of web design and development, "more" is not necessarily better. Following are some misconceptions you may have about hiring an agency/team over an individual.

FALSE: Agencies/teams are simply "better at it" than individuals.

Agencies/teams are not specially anointed groups who are automatically better at what they do than individuals. They are simply a collective of individual people who decided to pool their resources. The level of their work is determined not by how many people are on their team, but by the skills, knowledge and talents of their individual members. Typically an agency will put at least two team members on a project: one for design and one for development. (If an agency dedicates only one team member to your project, then there is really no difference between hiring that agency and hiring an individual, except possibly in terms of pricing—see below.) You might think that means you're getting specialists in each area, but in some cases the designer may be great and the developer not so good, or vice versa. In this case, there's no difference between hiring the agency and hiring an individual who is stronger in one area than another.

FALSE: Agencies/teams have more time to work on your project.

You may think that an agency/team will be able to devote more time for your project than an individual, since they can spread the work across more people. If you were the team's only client, that would be true. But teams often work for several clients simultaneously. And because of their higher overhead, they often have to fill up their work schedule, which may make them less able to devote as much time to your project.

TRUE: Individual developers typically cost less than agencies/teams.

Agencies/teams simply have more overhead than individual designer/developers. May they're leasing office space or offering benefits to their employees or have to pay payroll taxes. Because individuals typically work from home and don't have such overhead concerns, they can charge lower rates. It's important to understand, however, that lower rates do not mean a reduction in quality. A great web designer/developer needs only a computer and an Internet connection. And, of course, talent.