There's a Company Called "Bye Bye Web Designers" — So Should I Panic?

Someone named their company "Bye Bye Web Designers." And I only found out about it while researching blog ideas.

Honestly… respect for the audacity.

So let's talk about it. Because if there's a platform literally named after replacing me, I should probably have an opinion.

What Is It, Actually?

Bye Bye Web Designers is an AI website builder that targets tradespeople. Plumbers, roofers, HVAC engineers, electricians. That kind of crowd.

It generates a full website in 20 to 60 minutes. You answer a questionnaire. It builds the site. You pay $29 a month.

That's it.

They're not shy about the pitch either. "Traditional web design agencies typically charge $2,500 or more for websites that often fail to rank." There's a quote from a plumber who says he got quoted £2,500 elsewhere and his leads tripled in the first month.

Cool. Good for him.

Should You Actually Be Worried If You're a Web Designer?

If your clients are plumbers who want a 16-page site listing their services and postcodes… then yeah, maybe a bit.

But let's think about what this tool is actually doing.

It's building templated, formula-driven websites for a very specific audience that genuinely just needs something functional. They need a site that says what they do, where they do it, and has a phone number visible within three seconds. That's the brief.

Not every web design project is that brief.

There's a gap the size of a skip lorry between "AI questionnaire site for a roofer in Basildon" and "brand identity, custom UX, and a conversion-optimised website for a professional services firm in London."

One of those I do. The other one… fair enough, let the robot have it.

The Bit No One Mentions

Here's what bugs me about the narrative around tools like this.

That plumber says his leads tripled in the first month. And I believe him. But that's not because AI is some unstoppable force. It's because he probably had nothing before… or something embarrassing from 2011.

Going from zero to basic is easy. Going from basic to genuinely good is where the work actually is.

Anyone who's tried to explain to a client why their homepage needs restructuring, why their brand doesn't match their audience, or why "more information" is not a call to action… knows that no questionnaire is solving that.

Strategy takes context. Design takes judgment. Conversion takes understanding actual humans. If you're curious what actually moves the needle on that front, here are six things that genuinely work.

A questionnaire gives you answers. It doesn't ask the questions that matter.

The $29 vs £2,500 Argument

This one comes up constantly. "Why pay thousands when AI does it for thirty quid a month?"

And look… if your budget is thirty quid a month and you just need to exist online, great. Do it. No one should go without a basic digital presence because they can't afford an agency.

But the comparison only holds up if both outputs are the same. They're not.

A £2,500 site (if done properly) is built around your business goals. It's got a thought-out structure. Someone who understands search intent, user behaviour, and your audience looked at your competitors and worked out how to position you differently.

A $29 site built from a questionnaire is a solid foundation. But it's a foundation someone else's template poured.

Different things. Different results. Different clients.

What This Actually Changes (For Me, Anyway)

Honestly? Not much.

The clients who choose Bye Bye Web Designers weren't going to hire a designer in the first place. They were probably going to stay on their nephew's Wix site for another three years, or keep using that GoDaddy builder they've been complaining about since 2019.

Tools like this pull people off the fence into having something. That's fine.

The ones who want a website that genuinely reflects their business… who care about the details… who see the website as an investment rather than a line item… those people aren't filling in a questionnaire and pressing go.

They want someone who's going to care about it. Who'll notice when something's off. Who'll tell them when their logo needs rethinking before it goes on a site.

That's not a feature you can add to a chatbot. And it's not quite the death of web design some people keep predicting either.

Final Thought (From the Designer Who Was Not Replaced)

I think the real question isn't "will AI replace web designers?" It's "which part of web design is actually just a template with extra steps?"

Some of it is. Genuinely. The formulaic, fill-in-the-blank stuff. The ten-page brochure for a sole trader who needs to be found on Google. Fair enough.

But the part that involves knowing what a business actually needs before the client even knows how to say it… that's not going anywhere.

And if you're wondering whether AI tools are coming for websites altogether, the answer is more complicated than most people think.

For the record… if they wanted to take my name off the internet entirely, they'd need to call themselves something a lot scarier than Bye Bye Web Designers.

Maybe "See Ya Later, Chris."

That one might've kept me up.