Quick answer
Web design studios serving Queenstown include Swordfox, Jones Creative, Whitelaw Mitchell, Feast Creative, Ellamac Design, Webstudio, Kindred by Courtney, Stuart Victor, Triangle Design, Dream Config (from Wanaka), Back9 Digital (from Invercargill), Rocketspark partners and Alpine Studio, and studios in Christchurch and Auckland that take Queenstown work. The right fit depends on the job you need done.
Alpine Studio designs and hand-codes websites in Queenstown, at fixed prices from $749. See Web Design, or run the free audit on your own site.
Search for a web designer in Queenstown and you will find a dozen agencies all describing themselves the same way. Premium. Custom. Results-driven. None of that helps you choose. What actually separates them is who does the work, what platform your site ends up on, who owns it afterwards, and what their sites score on the tests Google uses to rank you.
Everything below comes from each agency's own public website as of September 2026. Where a claim is theirs, we say so. Where an opinion is ours, we say that too.
The Queenstown Field
Swordfox
One of Queenstown's longest-standing agencies, by its own account, and a full-service option based locally. Swordfox covers digital marketing, SEO, web design, branding and social media in one shop, from an office in Queenstown. If you want one supplier handling your website and your ongoing marketing spend together, this is the model built for that, and the trade-off is that the website is one service among many rather than the whole job.
Jones Creative
An established one-person-plus studio that leads with WordPress, with over 100 local clients and 15+ years in the game by their own count. That track record is real and worth respecting. Their lead offer is WordPress builds, which means a familiar admin dashboard and a big plugin ecosystem, and also means hosting, updates and security patching become part of your life, usually via a maintenance plan. They also build WooCommerce and Shopify stores, and headless sites for businesses that do not need WordPress.
Whitelaw Mitchell
A brand and web agency that leads with strategy: brand first, website second, plus AI-powered digital tools as a newer offering. Suits a business that wants its whole identity rethought rather than just a site built. Expect a brand-project budget rather than a website budget.
Feast Creative
A full-service design studio spanning brand, digital and print. Strong visual pedigree and a portfolio heavy on tourism and hospitality, which makes sense in this town. If your project is as much about the brand story as the website, they belong on your shortlist.
Ellamac Design
A small local studio doing web and graphic design together, run as a small team that works with retained consultants. The fit here is a business that wants one studio handling the logo, the print work and a straightforward website, with the accessibility of a small operator.
Webstudio
Mobile-optimised sites and eCommerce, with speed called out as a priority on their own site, which we rate: most agencies do not even mention it. It is also a certified Google Ads Partner. Worth a look particularly if you are selling online.
Back9 Digital
An Invercargill agency, with a second office in Christchurch, that services Queenstown with a full in-house team of designers and developers. Southern, established, and a reasonable option if you do not mind your agency being a few hours down the road. The same distance question applies in reverse for businesses in Wanaka and Cromwell, where most Queenstown agencies, us included, will still meet you on site.
Rocketspark partners
Not an agency but a NZ website-builder platform with a network of partner designers in Queenstown. Its own pitch is a designed website “at a fraction of the cost of a large agency”, and it is an honest route if your budget is tight. The trade-off is the platform: your site lives on Rocketspark, on Rocketspark's ongoing subscription, within Rocketspark's limits, for as long as it exists.
Kindred by Courtney
The studio of Courtney Gaudion, a freelance brand and website designer based in Queenstown who also designs for clients in Australia and beyond. She offers two services, website design and brand strategy and design. Every website is custom designed, and her list of inclusions covers copywriting, SEO foundations, booking or e-commerce integration and training so you can update the site yourself. She takes on a limited number of projects at a time. The fit, going by her own description, is a purpose-led business that wants its brand and website built on the same strategy.
Stuart Victor
A Queenstown web designer based at Lake Hayes Estate, designing mobile-friendly websites and offering SEO. He builds new sites and upgrades existing ones, using the Bootstrap 4 framework. His portfolio includes Queenstown trades, a counsellor, a wedding venue and a cleaning start-up. The fit, by his own pitch, is a business that wants what he calls an affordable, professional online presence that works on phones and ranks in Google.
Triangle Design
A website design agency based in Queenstown, building responsive websites, e-commerce solutions and custom web applications, with SEO and managed hosting alongside. It describes its sites as bespoke and custom built. Its stated focus is complete online solutions, so it suits a business that wants the website, any online store or web application, and the hosting behind them from one team.
Dream Config
A digital agency based in Wanaka, with another office in Chippendale, New South Wales, offering website design and development, SEO and answer-engine optimisation, and analytics. Pricing is scoped through a paid discovery phase, and the platform is chosen per project: Webflow is its common default for mid-market builds, with Craft CMS or a custom CMS as other options. Its local work includes Lake Wānaka Tourism and the Wānaka Festival of Colour. The fit, in its own words, is a marketing lead, GM or founder with a website that is ageing, underperforming or due for a major rethink.
Alpine Studio (us)
We build hand-coded websites for trade and service businesses, and custom software such as dashboards and portals. No WordPress, no page builders, no platform fees. Sites are built as static code, which is why they load the way they do. Fixed-price quotes, and your code and content are yours once the build is paid for; we hand over every account on request. We deliberately take on few projects at a time, which is either a feature or a limitation depending on your timeline. The JTECH Solutions build is the local example: a Queenstown civil engineering firm, live twelve days before their magazine advertisement ran.
What we are not: a marketing agency. We build sites that rank and convert, but if you want someone managing social media every month, pair us with a marketer or pick a full-service shop above.
Studios Elsewhere That Take Queenstown Work
EightySix Digital
A one-person web design and digital marketing agency based in Christchurch that builds websites for Queenstown and Central Otago businesses remotely; its own Queenstown page says it is not based in Queenstown. Founder Stu Clark designs and hand-codes the sites himself and also runs SEO, Google Ads and AI search optimisation. Its site lists plumbers, electricians, and trades and construction as specialities. It suits a local business that wants its website and search marketing handled by the same person, which is how the agency describes its model.
Groundwork Digital
A small-business web design studio based in Titirangi, West Auckland, which builds websites for Queenstown businesses remotely. It sells two flat-priced packages, a single-page site and a five-page site with full SEO, priced one-off with no monthly fees and no lock-in contracts. It builds fast, lightweight websites and says it will tell you if an online store or booking system is better served by a platform like Shopify or Square. It pitches itself at tradies and small businesses that want a simple professional site at a fixed package price.
TOAST Creative
An Auckland creative agency that lists Queenstown among the places it works, offering branding, web design and development, and design production. It builds on Silverstripe and Shopify and is a Silverstripe CMS Professional Partner. Its Queenstown page centres on tourism and hospitality websites with booking system integrations and online payments. Its stated speciality is websites with booking integrations, so the fit is a tourism or hospitality business that needs bookings built into its site. Not to be confused with Toast Creative, a separate Queenstown video production company.
Rocket Studio
A custom website studio based in Christchurch, whose founder Keir Beaman designs and codes sites for service businesses around New Zealand, including in Queenstown. Its sites are custom coded in React and Next.js, and it also offers SEO, hosting and maintenance, website migration, and AI and automation work. Clients work directly with the developer, with no account managers. The fit, going by its Queenstown page, is a professional services firm, trade or established company that wants a custom-coded site.
Chalk n' Cheese
An Auckland digital marketing company with a page offering web design to Queenstown businesses. Its team of website designers, e-commerce specialists, strategists and digital marketers builds custom WordPress websites and Shopify stores, alongside SEO and social media marketing. It says it has helped hundreds of clients in New Zealand and Australia. It suits a business that wants a WordPress or Shopify build and ongoing digital marketing from one agency, which is the combination it sells.
The Honest Matchmaking
Skip the rankings. Match the agency to the job:
- Marketing and website under one roof: Swordfox, or Back9 if southern distance does not bother you.
- Full rebrand where the site is one deliverable: Whitelaw Mitchell or Feast.
- A WordPress site from a long-standing local: Jones Creative.
- Tight budget, real website: a Rocketspark partner, eyes open about the ongoing subscription.
- eCommerce focus: Webstudio.
- A fast, hand-built site that is yours once it is paid for, from a studio whose sites you can speed-test yourself: that is us.
Five Questions That Sort the Field
Whoever you shortlist, ask these before signing anything. The answers separate agencies faster than any portfolio:
- Who owns the domain, hosting and code after launch, in writing?
- What does this site cost me monthly in year two?
- What do your last three launched sites score on PageSpeed mobile? Test them yourself while they answer.
- Is the quote fixed, and what exactly does it include?
- Who actually does the building: the person in front of you, or a subcontractor?
We wrote a fuller version of this checklist in how to choose a web designer in Queenstown, including the red flags that should end a conversation on the spot.