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Web · · Updated · 2 min read

How long should a website take to build?

The short answer

A straightforward marketing site should be live in two to four weeks if the words are ready. Months-long builds are usually waiting, not working. The timeline slips when nobody owns the copy and every page needs a committee.

On this page

Four months for a five-page site is not craft. It is calendar. Most of that time is waiting for feedback, waiting for copy, waiting for someone who is “the brand person” to come back from leave.

Here is a timeline that matches how the work actually happens when one studio designs and builds the thing.

Two weeks is a real number

For a small marketing site (home, work, about, contact, maybe a services page) two weeks is honest if you show up. Day one is the sitemap and the offer. The middle is design and build overlapping, not a relay race.

2–4
weeks to launch a small site, copy ready

We put timelines on our pricing page because hiding them helps nobody. Every website package is built to go live in weeks, not months, at a fixed price from £495.

Where timelines actually go to die

Copy. Photography. “Can we just add a shop.” A second round of “the team had some thoughts” that undoes the first round.

If more than three people can block a page, the site will not ship this quarter. Decide who signs off before kickoff.

  • One owner for the words
  • One owner for sign-off
  • A freeze date after which new pages wait until v2
  • Real photos or a clear plan to get them

A website does not take four months to build. It takes four months to get permission.

What a week-by-week looks like

Week one: sitemap, wire, first visual pass, stack stood up. Week two: content in, forms tested, domain, launch. Anything bigger than that is a different job: an app, a portal, a rebuild of three brands at once.

Apps and shops are a different clock

A brochure site and a product are not the same sentence. Apps need decisions about accounts, data and stores. Shops need catalogue, payments and the boring fulfilment questions. Those take longer. They should. Pretending otherwise is how you get a pretty homepage and an empty basket.

Ask for the timeline with a date you can hold us to. We publish ours.

What you should expect from us

A date, a price, and one person to talk to. Not a status deck. Not a four-month “discovery phase” that rediscovers you sell windows. Start your project and we will send you both.

(Questions)

What people ask

Can a site really go live in two weeks?

Yes, if the sitemap is small, the copy is in, and you are not inventing a brand from scratch at the same time. Our website packages are built to go live in weeks, not months, and you get a launch date before we start.

What if we do not have copy yet?

Then the clock starts when the words start. We can write them with you, but we will not pretend a blank document is a two-week build.

Will we be stuck if we need changes later?

No. You get a site you can edit, and optional care plans if you would rather we handle it. Launch is the start of use, not the end of the relationship.

Want a fixed price and a date for yours? Tell us what you need, and you’ll have both within 24 to 48 hours.

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