How long does it take to build a website?

For most business websites, one to two weeks is realistic with a fast team and quick decisions. Our web design team averages 5 days from kick-off to live, and that figure covers the whole job, not just the code.

Kick-off to live means the clock starts on the kick-off call, where we agree the pages, the message and what success looks like. It stops when the site is live on your domain. In between sit the copy, the design, the build, SEO set-up, tracking, forms and testing on real phones.

A fast build is only worth having if the site works afterwards. We built Masterclip's website, and Masterclip has had 3 years of double-digit growth since. The Masterclip case study shows what we did after launch.

5 days is an average, not a promise. A simple site can be quicker. A large site with lots of pages, an online shop or custom features takes longer. The rest of this guide explains why.

Seven things decide the timeline. Most of them are about decisions and content, not design or code.

• Pages: a five-page site and a fifty-page site are different jobs. More pages means more copy, more design and more testing.
• Copy: someone has to decide what the site says. If nobody has, that's the first job, and it's often the slowest.
• Features: booking, quote calculators, member areas and custom tools all add build and test time.
• Integrations: connecting your CRM, booking system, stock or accounts software adds work at both ends.
• E-commerce: products, payments, delivery rules and order emails all need setting up and checking.
• Approvals: one decision-maker moves faster than a committee. Every extra round of sign-off adds days.
• Platform: page builders and heavy themes look quick but fight you on speed and layout. Clean code is quicker to get right.

Plenty of agencies talk in months. Usually that isn't because the build is hard. It's the way the work is organised around it.

Long discovery phases come first, with workshops and documents before anyone designs a page. Then the work is handed from strategist to designer to developer, and each hand-off adds a wait. An account manager sits between you and the people doing the work, so every question takes a round trip. And your project joins a queue behind everyone else's.

None of that makes the site better. It makes it later. When the people on the kick-off call are the people who design and build the site, most of those waits disappear.

The other big delay is feedback by committee. Five people each send comments a few days apart, the comments disagree, and the designer waits for someone to decide. Agreeing who signs off, and when, does more for the timeline than any tool.

We work to a set timeline and agree feedback slots before we start. Here's how a typical build runs.

1. 1Day 1: Kick-off call. We agree the pages, the message and what success looks like.
2. 2Days 1–2: Positioning and copy. We write the homepage and key pages first.
3. 3Days 2–3: Design and build. You get a live preview link, not a PDF. Feedback in WhatsApp, Slack or email.
4. 4Day 4: Remaining pages, SEO set-up, tracking, forms, testing on real phones.
5. 5Day 5: Live. Redirects from your old site, Search Console and Bing set up, and a final check.

A redesign follows the same timeline as a new build, with a few extra jobs. The aim is a better site that keeps everything the old one earned.

First, content migration. We decide what to keep, what to rewrite and what to drop, rather than copying every old page across.

Second, redirects. Every old URL that matters points to its new home, so visitors and search engines don't hit dead ends.

Third, SEO protection. We keep what works, fix what doesn't, and redirect your old URLs so you don't lose rankings. Titles, meta descriptions and schema are set before launch, and Search Console and Bing are checked after.

A large site with years of content takes longer to map than a small one. We'll tell you the timeline with the fixed price, before we start.

Most of the time a website takes is in your hands, not ours. These four things make the biggest difference.

• Decide the message: what you sell, who it's for and why they should pick you. We'll write it, but we need your view.
• Gather logos and photos before kick-off, in one shared folder.
• Name one decision-maker who can sign off without a committee.
• Give feedback within 24 hours. A day's wait on each round soon adds up to a week.

Live isn't the end of the job. A website needs updates, backups and small changes to stay fast and secure.

You can make simple copy changes yourself, because we set up simple editing for the pages you change often and show you how. Or leave it to us with a care plan: we look after the site every month, and you message us when something needs changing.

If you want the site to rank for competitive searches or bring in more enquiries, that's ongoing SEO and ads work. The same team that built the site can do that too.

No. Speed comes from how we work, not from cutting corners.

Senior people do every step. The person on the kick-off call designs and builds your site, so nothing gets lost between teams.

Every one of us works with AI tools for the repetitive parts, so more of the time goes on the decisions that matter.

We don't use templates. Each site is designed around what you sell and hand-built in fast, modern code.

And we test properly: forms, tracking, speed and every page on real phones before launch. After launch, a care plan keeps the site updated, backed up and monitored every month.