Some are staffed by people with technical backgrounds, others are full service ad agencies who subcontract their Web work. And while some offer design services on-site, they may farm out the marketing or graphic design functions to other companies.
Prices are equally diverse.
Some firms charge hardly anything for a basic cookie cutter, one size fits most page. But watch for other charges, such as monthly service fees based on the number of times people visit your page. Higher end companies take the opposite approach, offering you lots of bells and whistles up front that many browsers can't access because their software doesn't support the enhanced markup languages. And the fees for such enhancements could run into the thousands and thousands of dollars. None of this is good or bad.