How Long a Website Takes, and What to Ask Before You Commission OneHow Long a Website Takes, and What to Ask Before You Commission One

A realistic timeline

Those are working timelines with a client who responds within a couple of days. The same projects routinely take twice as long, and the extra time is almost never spent building.

One caution about very fast quotes. A five-page site can be produced in a week, and sometimes that is exactly right. But a build that skips the conversation about who buys from you and why produces a site that looks finished and does not work, which is the more expensive kind of fast.

What actually causes the delay

In order of how often it is the culprit.

1. 01Copy. Somebody has to write what the pages say, and if that is you, it will slip — not through laziness but because it is genuinely hard and there is a business to run. This single item is the cause of most overruns.
2. 02Photographs. "We will get some proper photos taken" is the most reliable four-week delay in the industry. Decide early whether you are shooting, buying stock, or working with what exists.
3. 03Decisions with more than one decision-maker. Two partners who disagree about the homepage will cost more time than the homepage costs to build.
4. 04Access. Domain registrar logins nobody has, hosting owned by a developer who left in 2019, a Google account belonging to a former employee. Start hunting for these in week one, not in launch week.
5. 05Scope arriving late. A booking system mentioned in week five is a new project, not a change. Not forbidden — but it moves the date and it should be said out loud when it happens.
6. 06Third parties. Payment providers, booking platforms and anybody requiring an account approval work to their own schedule.

How to write a brief, in one page

A brief does not need to be a document with a cover. One page answering these questions will get you a more accurate quote than most formal briefs, because it contains the things that actually change the price.

1. 01What do you sell, and who buys it? Two or three sentences, in the words a customer would use.
2. 02What should the website make happen? An enquiry, a call, a booking, a sale. Pick the main one. A site trying to do four things does none.
3. 03What is wrong with the current site, if there is one? Be specific — "it looks dated" and "nobody can find the contact form" lead to very different work.
4. 04Roughly how many pages, and what are they? A list of page names is enough, and it is the single biggest driver of the fee.
5. 05Is there anything unusual about how you sell? Sold by weight, by configuration, by appointment, by quote, by area. This one detail decides the platform.
6. 06Who is writing the copy and supplying the photographs?
7. 07What is the budget range, and when do you need it live? Withholding the budget does not get you a better price — it gets you a proposal aimed at the wrong tier.

Three or four sites you like and one sentence each on why is worth more than a page of adjectives. "I like how obvious the enquiry button is" tells a designer something. "Clean and modern" does not.

Seven questions that make two quotes comparable

Two quotes for the same site can differ by a factor of ten and both be honest. Ask all seven, of everyone, including me.

1. 01Is this a bespoke design or a bought theme? Both are legitimate; the price should reflect which.
2. 02How many pages, and what happens if I need one more?
3. 03Who writes the copy and who supplies the photographs?
4. 04What are the running costs after launch, itemised, in pounds per month?
5. 05Whose name is the domain registered in, and whose account is the hosting in?
6. 06What happens if I want to leave — do I get a working copy of the site?
7. 07What is not included? Ask it exactly like that, and listen to the length of the pause.

Question five is the one people regret. The domain should be registered in your name at a registrar you control, and the hosting should be in your account with the supplier given access. Both cost nothing to arrange at the start and are the difference between changing supplier and starting again.

Do you even need a website?

Worth asking honestly, and there are businesses for which the answer is not yet.

If all your work comes by referral, you have no intention of growing, and customers only ever want to check you are real, then a complete Google Business Profile does most of that job for nothing. It carries your details, photographs, hours, reviews and a route to call you, and it appears in the map pack that sits above the ordinary search results. For a one-person trade with a full diary that may genuinely be enough.

You need a website when you want work you are not already getting: when people search for what you do rather than for you, when the decision is considered enough that somebody wants to look at your work first, when you sell something, or when you need to explain something a listing cannot.

And if the answer is not yet, the Google Business Profile is still the first job. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and for a local business it will out-earn the first several months of anything I could sell you.

What the process actually looks like here

1. 01A conversation. What you sell, who buys it, what the site has to make happen. For local clients I would usually suggest doing this in person — an hour in the business teaches me more than a brief.
2. 02A price and a page list, in writing, before anything starts. Websites from £500, then from £50 a month for hosting and care. If it is not a £500 project I will say so at this point rather than later.
3. 03Design and build, with something to look at early rather than a reveal at the end.
4. 04Content, which is where the timeline is decided. Whatever we agreed in step two about who writes it.
5. 05Launch, and a walkthrough so you can edit it yourself.
6. 06Afterwards: hosting and care keeps it current. Growth work, if you want it, is a separate block of hours with no minimum term — and I will tell you honestly when the answer is that you do not need it yet.