Last Updated on September 8, 2026
Architectural practices tend to market like galleries and sell like consultants. The gap between those two is where most of the lost work sits.
Whito sorts advice into three stages. Start is clarity and the basics. Build is systems, consistency and conversion. Scale is leverage and multiple channels. Advice that skips a stage does not work.
Start: can a stranger tell what you do and whether you are real?
You are at Start if any of these is true.
- Your ARB registration number is not on the website.
- Project pages are photographs with a place name and no words.
- There is nothing about fees, not even a structure.
- You cannot tell from the homepage whether you do domestic extensions or 200-unit schemes.
- The practice name, address and phone number differ across Companies House, the site and Google.
All five are free to fix. The registration number is the single highest-value one because it is the only credential in the built environment a client can verify in ten seconds, and it is backed by a criminal offence for anyone claiming it falsely.
The gate out of Start: a stranger can work out, without contacting you, what kind of work you do, roughly what it costs, and that you are registered.
Build: does the same thing happen to every enquiry?
Architecture has an unusual conversion shape. The enquiry is often years ahead of the project, the buying decision is emotional and financial at once, and the client is comparing you with people doing a different job at a lower price.
- Is there a standard first response, and does it go out the same day?
- Is there a written fee structure you can send, rather than composing one each time?
- Do you record enquiries, feasibility conversations and appointments as three separate numbers?
- Does every completed project get written up with the constraint and the resolution, not just photographed?
- Do you ask for a review or a testimonial at handover, every time?
The write-up question is the one that compounds. A practice with thirty projects photographed and three written up has three pages a search engine or an AI assistant can use and twenty-seven it cannot.
The gate out of Build: you can say from records how many enquiries became feasibility conversations and how many of those became appointments, over the last year.
Scale: what changes at six people
Two things, and neither is the budget.
First, the RIBA Chartered Practice threshold. Band 3, six to ten staff, is £42.50 a month or £510 a year including VAT on the published band scale, against £17.50 a month at two to five. Chartered Practice requires at least one in eight staff to be Chartered Members with all architectural work supervised by one, plus policies on employment, equality, health and safety, environmental and quality management, and valid professional indemnity insurance. That is a governance shift, and the marketing value of it is that it is checkable.
Second, the competence regime. Once you are taking on work that engages the Building Regulations principal designer duties introduced by the 2023 amendment regulations, or the Building Safety Act duties for higher-risk buildings, you are selling organisational capability rather than an individual’s portfolio. Those are different sales conversations and they need different pages.
Where the work actually comes from
One honest note on channels. RIBA’s Find an Architect directory does not publish a listing fee; listing is restricted to Chartered Practices, so the effective cost of entry is the Chartered Practice subscription, £60 to £4,512 a year including VAT by band. We found no architect lead platform publishing GBP lead pricing on any page we opened.
Which leaves search, referral and local planning knowledge. The last of those is the underused one: clients search for what they are allowed to build long before they search for who might design it, and pages on conservation areas, permitted development and local plan constraints in the places you actually work are where that search lands.
Which stage are you at?
| Symptom | Stage | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiries are the wrong size of project | Start | Say plainly on the homepage what you do and do not do |
| Clients ask if you are a real architect | Start | Publish the ARB number and link the register |
| Fee conversations go badly | Build | Publish the stage split and the exclusions |
| Enquiries go quiet after the first call | Build | Same-day written response with the fee structure attached |
| Portfolio is large, website is thin | Build | Write up three projects with the constraint and resolution |
| Six or more staff, chasing bigger work | Scale | Chartered Practice, and pages on competence duties |
Common questions
Should a small practice publish fees?
Publish the structure rather than the number. The client’s confusion is about what they are buying, not about your percentage, and the stage split answers most of the first call without committing you to a figure.
Is RIBA Chartered Practice worth it?
It is the entry ticket to the Find an Architect directory and a checkable governance signal, at £60 a year including VAT for a sole practitioner on the published band scale. Whether it pays depends on whether your clients look there, which is worth asking three recent clients directly.
How do I compete with cheaper drawing services?
By making the difference legible rather than complaining about it. Publish the registration number, publish what a full service includes that a drawings-only service does not, and write up projects so the client can see the problem that was solved rather than just the finish.
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