I want to talk about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: the future of web agencies.
I’m a web agency owner, and I genuinely love what we do at Forge and Smith. We’ve done it for a long time, and we all want to keep doing it for an even longer time. I know the same is true for other web agencies around the world. But the odds seem to be stacking up against us.
According to a detailed 2025 report by Promethean Research, the number of North American agencies has grown 54% in the last decade—but profits are stuck.
- Since 2015 the average annual agency profit margin has hovered between 14-16% (15-35% is considered a healthy target)
- Annual agency revenue growth has fallen—from 25% in 2021 to just 5.7% in 2024
- 46% of US SMBs have cut back spending to mitigate the impact of inflation, and 39% have increased prices (source)
- 50.2% of Canadian SMBs reported inflation as their biggest obstacle (source)
Agencies need to make enough money to stay in business, but the only ways to increase profit are to increase our fees, or to increase our team sizes. Quoting higher for projects often results in losing bids. And adding head count eats into any profit gained from producing more sites.
We’re in a crowded market, spinning our wheels. So what the heck are owners supposed to do?
Forge and Smith actually already did it, and that’s what I’m here to share.
Two years in a row we have increased annual profitability by 20% and our annual launches by 25%—without increasing headcount and without increasing our fees. This was possible because we’re operating smoothly at Stage 5 in the Vibe Agency Maturity Model. And any agency can do exactly what we did to get here and see results.
It’s not rocket science. It’s a roadmap to agency success.
Let’s get into the what, the why, and the how of the VAMM path to operational efficiency and profit.
What is the Vibe Agency Maturity Model?
I created the Vibe Agency Maturity Model (VAMM) in early 2025 as a way to share my learnings with other agency owners. VAMM applies web agencies’ niche services, pain points, and goals to a five-stage maturity model framework.
There are five VAMM stages, and every agency is currently already in one:
- Hustle
- Repeat
- Systemize
- Scale
- Optimize
You’re probably wondering what’s with the “vibe” thing?
The terms “vibe marketing” and “vibe coding” have been kicking around in industry media this year. They refer to using AI tools to perform agency tasks, most popularly for content generation. At its root, vibe-anything is about systemizing something with a tool to support a human’s workflow.
VAMM is also about systemization. But although its later stages position agencies really well to integrate AI tools, AI is not driving the model.
A VAMM agency uses low-code web development to systemize 80-90% of website build tasks, while simultaneously improving non-developer teams’ processes. This facilitates three critical profit-driving changes:
- Yields faster project timelines, which help close more sales
- Helps small developer teams to build websites faster, and build more websites per month
- Empowers non-developers to make basic site edits, reducing reliance on developers for simple change requests and eliminating late-stage launch delays
Developers at any skill level can use a low-code website builder plugin or tool to build and style the majority of pages, posts, and templates using a library of components. The remaining 10-20% of the site is customized via traditional coding by an intermediate or senior developer. With the time savings, agencies can produce even more websites, enhance aspects of their offering, focus on innovation, and productize all of their services.
And that’s Stage 5—when your agency has a smooth, repeatable process, efficient internal operations, rare launch delays, and can sell all of your services independently to maximize profitability.
Why did I create the Vibe Agency Maturity Model?
I’m neurodivergent. My brain is highly analytical and problem-solving is my favourite pastime. Reliable profitability and growth was a problem that I absolutely had to solve for my agency. VAMM is the outcome.
Forge and Smith has been a custom WordPress agency for almost 15 years, and we’ve had our fair share of peaks and lows. I’ve expanded and downsized the company more than once. There have been services cut and added back, some great industry partnerships, some mistakes, and of course, the business loans.
Through it all, the biggest challenge to growth and profit continued to be web development.
Even at Forge’s best performance we were still experiencing internal bottlenecks and delays. No matter how well we refined our overall process—and we have a great process—we just couldn’t avoid delays around site builds and dev tickets. Not without hiring more developers.
At the same time, we were getting more and more feedback, during sales pitches and from our clients post-launch, that clients expected way more control over their sites. A fully custom, hard-coded WordPress site was great, until the client wanted to change a heading style or adjust a page layout. Then they had to hire us to make the changes to the code, which came across like gouging.
So on the one hand, I needed to find a permanent solution for the developer reliance and delays. On the other hand, I needed to solve for rapidly changing client expectations.
I knew that low-code development was the answer, and honestly I had known for a couple of years. I just wasn’t satisfied with any of the options on the market; most could save our agency time on builds, but would add more problems when it came to creative control. So I hired a team of engineers to build our own low-code site builder plugin, Refoundry.
What does all that have to do with the Vibe Agency Maturity Model? Everything.
VAMM is putting all of this learning into words, and into a framework to help other agencies solve the same problem. It captures everything I figured out over those years of ideating, testing, failing, and trying again.
It maps the path from where Forge started, at Stage 1 like everyone else, to where we are now, turning 20% more annual profit two years in a row without expanding our team. And there aren’t many agencies at Stage 5—because you know you’re stuck, but you didn’t know what you needed to change.
Until now.
What are the stages of VAMM?
The Vibe Agency Maturity Model provides a clear outline of what each stage means, and the steps to level-up from traditional, technical-dependent operations to a fully scalable, productized powerhouse agency.
Here’s an overview of the five VAMM stages. You can get a VAMM scorecard and self-rank your agency right now.
Stage 1: Hustle
Every agency starts at Stage 1. You’re a brand new business, and usually you’re relying on referrals from the founder’s network.
The team is also new to one another and to your company, so flows haven’t been established. There are no processes. All projects are approached fairly reactively, figuring out necessary steps based on the client’s needs and expectations. There can be big variances in the steps from project to project, which makes it impossible to accurately project a timeline.
This likely means inaccurate scoping, and frequently going over budget due to not being able to forecast the hours required. There might also be higher turnover on the team, as talented team members seek out more stable work. You’re not yet seeing profit.
Stage 2: Repeat
At Stage 2 you can feel some change, and it feels better than where you were even though it’s still unsteady.
You’re starting to create processes, although you’re still finding that many projects require ‘breaking’ a process. This has a ripple effect on the timeline, and causes internal stress. Scoping is getting slightly more accurate, but you’re still under-charging and going over on budget fairly often.
You have a team of skilled developers who are custom-coding everything, so site builds are slow – and you regularly suffer delays from developer resourcing issues. Profit margins are unpredictable and thin.
Stage 3: Systemize
The majority of agencies are currently at Stage 2 or 3. At Stage 3, operations are running reasonably smoothly. You have almost all of the steps in your process mapped to a repeatable process. Not all, but you’re getting there.
Where you’re still suffering is delivery. Your team is at maximum capacity, and the only way to get better at meeting launch deadlines (or to take on more projects) is to expand the team. But you can’t afford to do that.
You recognize that your reliance on high-cost, fully custom development is the holdup. You have bottlenecks of sites waiting to be built, or QA tickets waiting to be addressed, or both. This impacts your ability to sell the short project timelines that win bids, and to more reliably deliver on estimated launch dates. Profit has increased, but not by enough and you’re definitely not in a position to ride out an unexpected slow period without downsizing.
Stage 4: Scale
Stage 4 is exciting because you’re putting in the work, and it finally shows.
All of your projects follow a repeatable process, with predictable flexibility baked in. Because of that, your scoping is more often accurate than not. Some projects still fail to launch on time due to developer resourcing delays, but you’ve started seeking or even testing solutions while you continue to hone your operational flows.
You have also productized parts of your offering, such as creating retainer SEO services or a menu of add-ons to regular projects. You’re so close to seeing steady increases in profit and being fully scalable, other than web development.
Stage 5: Optimize
Once you get to Stage 5, all you have to do is keep putting in the effort to maintain. But the best part is that now you can easily do that while still being innovative, and driving real profit.
Stage 5 agencies have all of their operations systemized and running like a well-oiled machine. You’re running a lean team and taking on more projects than ever before, without creating stressful workloads for anyone.
Your builds are fast and predictable, which makes scoping a breeze and empowers you to offer shorter project timelines that win more bids. Your launches are rarely (if ever) delayed by your team, and your operations are fully scalable. You can, or already have, productize all of your services, including web development. Clients are happy, driving more referrals.
You are fully in the black, and you could ride out a slow period without having to make changes.
The way my agency achieved Stage 5 was by adopting low-code development. I strongly believe that it’s the only way for agencies to get to a place of stellar scalability and profitability. This is what Stage 5 looks like for us:
Increased client happiness and repeat business
70% faster site builds
25% more sites launched per year
20% higher annual profit margin
Improved cross-team collaboration
I’ve provided the framework, and the guide for using low-code to get to Stage 5. I really mean it when I say any agency can do it, if you’re committed and ready to make the necessary changes. If you want to chat about it, reach out to me any time.
