Traditional Agency vs Karpi Studio

The question you should be asking

Most founders shopping for a web agency start with the wrong question. They ask: Who can build us a beautiful website?

The right question is: Who can build us a website that drives revenue?

That single shift in framing separates two fundamentally different agency models. One optimizes for awards. The other optimizes for results. This article breaks down exactly how they differ — and why it matters for your bottom line.

The Glamour Trap

There is a pattern in the agency world that we call the Glamour Trap. It looks like this:

A polished agency pitches you a stunning portfolio. Dribbble shots, Awwwards nominations, beautiful case studies with no revenue data. They talk about "brand storytelling" and "immersive digital experiences." The proposal feels premium. The team is charming.

Six months and $150K later, you have a gorgeous website that your board loves — and your pipeline has not moved.

Signs you are in the Glamour Trap:

• Case studies showcase visuals but never mention conversion rates, pipeline growth, or revenue impact
• The agency prioritizes polished aesthetics and founder egos over measurable business outcomes
• Reports arrive monthly to justify retainers, not to drive performance decisions
• They respond quickly but build slowly, always waiting for your lead
• The site wins a design award. Your sales team still has nothing to show prospects

The Glamour Trap keeps you stuck in a cycle of looking successful instead of being successful. And it is the default mode for most traditional agencies.

How traditional agencies operate

The standard agency model was designed around deliverables, not outcomes. Here is the typical workflow:

Strategy → Wireframes → Design → Development → Launch → Gone.

Each phase is a milestone. Each milestone requires sign-off. If you realize at the design stage that your messaging is wrong — congratulations, that is a change order. Extra budget. Extended timeline.

The entire model is built to protect the agency's margins, not to optimize your results.

After launch, the relationship usually ends. Maybe they offer a "maintenance retainer" for minor updates. But nobody is watching your conversion rates. Nobody is testing whether the hero section actually drives sign-ups. Nobody is making sure AI search engines can find and cite your content.

You paid for a website. You got a website. Whether it actually works for your business is, implicitly, your problem.

How Karpi operates

Karpi is a Webflow Enterprise Partner that specializes in two things: CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).

We build websites on Webflow. But the website is not the product. The product is measurable revenue growth.

Here is how our model differs:

Migration → Measurement → Optimization → Growth.

The website launch is not the finish line. It is the starting point. Once your site is live on Webflow Enterprise, the real work begins: systematically improving conversion rates and building visibility across AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

CRO: Your site should convert, not just impress

Every page we build has a job. If that job is to get a demo booked, we measure whether it does that — and we optimize until it does.

This is not abstract. For Blueberry Pediatrics (telemedicine), we achieved +144% homepage-to-signup conversions through systematic CRO. Not a redesign. Not a rebrand. Targeted, data-driven changes to layout, copy, and user flow.

Traditional agencies do not offer this because their business model ends at launch. CRO requires ongoing measurement, testing, and iteration — which means ongoing commitment from both sides.

AEO: Your site should be cited, not just indexed

SEO gets your pages ranked. AEO gets your content cited by AI answer engines. These are different problems with different solutions.

When someone asks ChatGPT "What is the best Webflow agency for B2B SaaS?", the answer is pulled from structured data, content architecture, and entity relationships — not just keywords and backlinks. We build schema markup, entity graphs, and RAG-optimized content structures that make your site machine-readable at the deepest level.

For dYdX (Web3/crypto), this approach delivered +3,722% Google Search growth — and that was before AI answer engines became mainstream.

The real comparison

Who this is for — and who it is not for

Karpi works with two types of companies:

High-traffic growth engines — 50K+ monthly visitors, Series A+ funding, website drives 30%+ of revenue. You need a site that scales, converts, and feeds your pipeline. Industries: B2B SaaS, healthtech, fintech, deep tech.

Professional services firms — 5K–50K monthly visitors, 60%+ revenue from referrals. Your website needs to match your reputation. When a referral checks your site before signing, it should close the deal, not create doubt. Industries: wealth management, law, insurance, consulting.

If you are a first-time founder looking for the cheapest option, or a company that primarily cares about winning design awards, we are not the right fit. No hard feelings.

Founder to founder

You talk to Pavel. He runs Karpi. He runs a business, does sales pitches, manages delivery. He understands the founder challenge because he lives it.

His commitment is simple: if we do not deliver measurable results, we do not deserve your money.

That is not a marketing line. It is how the retainer is structured. If the CRO numbers do not move, there is a real conversation about what needs to change — including whether the engagement should continue.

This only works if both sides commit. Karpi does not take one-shot projects. If we start working together, we invest time, resources, and senior attention. We expect the same from you.

The bottom line

A beautiful website is not a business strategy. It is a digital brochure. And in 2026, a digital brochure is not enough.

Your website should book demos while you sleep. It should be cited by AI assistants when prospects ask about your category. It should compound in value every month through systematic optimization.

That is what Karpi builds. Not websites. Revenue engines.

If that aligns with how you think about your business, let's talk.