Autoeight is a web studio in Halifax, half an hour along the A646 from Todmorden. We build custom sites for shops, market traders, cafes, trades and small firms across the upper valley, with payments, bookings, CRM sync, automated emails and AI wired in from the start. One fixed quote, a site you own outright, and a builder close enough to see how your business actually runs.
Todmorden punches well above its size. The indoor market and the outdoor stalls beside it keep the town centre trading the way market towns are supposed to. Incredible Edible started here, planting food in public beds and putting the town on the map for visitors who'd otherwise have driven straight past. The Rochdale Canal threads through the middle, Stoodley Pike stands over the town, and the old Lancashire boundary runs right underneath the Town Hall. Half your customers think in Yorkshire terms, the rest come over from Littleborough and Rochdale.
The centre is full of butchers, grocers, cafes, salons, secondhand shops and long-standing stallholders, plus trades and small workshops out in Walsden and Cornholme. What most share is a web presence that undersells them. A Facebook page instead of a site, a template store nobody has updated since launch, a phone number and hope.
Customers on both sides of the border search online first and buy from whoever makes it easiest. A site with payments, bookings and follow-up built in turns that traffic into trade instead of letting it drift to the next town along.
A template gets a page live quickly, then the limits show. Winning searches like "butcher Todmorden" or "cafe Todmorden" is harder on a platform whose page structure is identical for millions of sites. Speed suffers under features you never switched on, and everything genuinely useful, from deposits to stock control to proper booking, is a paid add-on with its own monthly charge.
The deeper issue is the rent. Subscription platforms cost you every month, good year or bad, and the moment you stop paying the site is gone. Monthly rent on a template that never quite fits is a poor place for a careful business to spend money. We charge once, then the site belongs to you.
A stallholder in the market hall, an electrician in Walsden and a cafe on Halifax Road all need different things from a website. Here's how a build changes across the Todmorden businesses we see most.
An online shop that runs alongside the counter. Stripe checkout, click and collect for regulars, delivery further afield, stock updated from your phone, and order confirmation emails sent automatically. The Dice Tavern, our e-commerce build, works on the same bones.
Menus you edit yourself, table bookings, weekend pre-orders, and a mailing list that brings people back midweek. In a town Incredible Edible made famous for food, ranking for "lunch Todmorden" and "farm shop near Todmorden" is worth real money.
Quote forms straight to your phone, a job gallery that does the selling, service pages for Todmorden, Walsden, Cornholme and over the border, plus automatic review requests when a job finishes. Our TM Joinery site follows this exact pattern.
Online booking with staff calendars, deposits that cut no-shows, SMS and email reminders, client notes and history, and gift vouchers sold from the site. Fewer gaps in the diary, less time on the phone.
Halifax to Todmorden is about eleven miles, half an hour by car or a direct train along the valley. So instead of a video call with an agency in another city, you get someone at your counter or in your workshop before a line of the site is written. Seeing the business in person changes what gets built. The stock system, the booking flow and the wording end up matching how you actually work.
It keeps the build honest too. Reviews happen in person when that's easier, decisions get made on the spot, and handover ends with you able to run the site yourself. The first conversation is free with no obligation on either side.
Builds start at £2,000 for a tight, focused site and go up with scope. Kickoff to launch runs 3 to 12 weeks. You get a single fixed quote before we start, and that's the number. No per-seat licences, no platform subscription, no hourly rate quietly stacking up. The free call puts a realistic figure on what you're after.
About eleven miles. We're based in Halifax at the other end of the Calder Valley, which works out at roughly half an hour by car along the A646, or a straight run on the train. Near enough that kickoff meetings, progress reviews and handover all happen face to face, at your premises or somewhere in the town centre.
Yes. Plenty of Todmorden businesses serve customers in Walsden and Cornholme on the Yorkshire side and over the border towards Littleborough and Rochdale. We set the site up to rank for searches on both sides of the boundary, so you're found by everyone within realistic travelling distance, not just one county.
Absolutely, and it's often the fastest win. We build you a proper online shop with Stripe checkout, stock you can manage from your phone, click and collect for local buyers, and delivery for everyone else. Orders trigger confirmation emails automatically and every customer lands in your mailing list for the next promotion.
It's the opposite. Small firms feel platform fees and missed enquiries hardest, so a site that works harder pays back quickest. Builds start from £2,000, you pay one fixed quote, and then the site is yours with no monthly platform rent. Compare that with years of subscriptions for a template that never quite fits.
Book a call. We'll go over your current setup, pick out the changes that would bring in the most trade, and put a fixed number on it.
Book a free call