Website timelines, scope and what you are buying

Honest 2026 bands: landing page 1–2 weeks; 5–10 page business site on a CMS 3–6 weeks; 20+ page site or store 6–10 weeks; custom web application 8–24+ weeks. The single biggest delay is never the code, it is content: copy, photos and decisions arriving late. Halve your timeline by having content ready before kickoff.

6–12 weeks for a real store: catalog setup, payment and shipping configuration, theme customisation and testing. The variable that bends it most is data quality, clean product data migrates in days, messy data eats weeks. The store-specific prep is the launch checklist.

Yes, a real one, under three conditions: one page (or a handful from one template), all content ready, and decisions made fast. What a week cannot include: custom design exploration, content writing, integrations with third-party systems, or revision cycles. Speed is a scoping decision, not a talent claim, anyone promising a week and a custom brand exploration is selling the week.

Ranked by speed: a builder platform you drive yourself (hours–days, template ceiling), a proven theme on a CMS with a developer (1–3 weeks, real ownership), a custom build (weeks–months, full control). Fastest useful path for most businesses: the middle one. The trade-offs are drawn honestly in the no-code vs custom guide.

3–8 weeks for most redesigns, shorter than a first build because content often exists, longer than expected because scope creeps into "while we are in here". A redesign that preserves SEO adds a redirects-and-schema workstream that must not be rushed. The staging plan is the redesign guide.

Development and launch are different events: launch itself is 1–3 focused days, DNS cutover, redirects, analytics, search-console verification, final QA on production, preceded by a rehearsal on staging. The unglamorous truth: launches slip on domain access and third-party approvals more than on code. The sequence is the launch checklist.

A proper engagement includes: design implementation (or custom design), CMS setup with editable content, responsive behaviour, forms with spam protection, baseline SEO (titles, sitemap, redirects), performance basics, deployment, and a handover with training. It usually excludes, and bills separately or needs clarity on, copywriting, photography, data entry, content migration at scale, and ongoing marketing. Scope mismatches live in that gap; the brief template closes it.

Turns requirements into a working, maintained, performing website: writes the code, configures the platform, integrates third-party services, fixes what breaks, and owns the technical consequences of launch. The visible 20% is layout; the professional 80% is security, speed, compatibility, data handling and the recovery plan. What a development company adds is parallel hands and process around that same work.

You need one when the website must do something, sell, book, integrate, rank, or represent a serious brand. You do not when the site is an experiment, a single temporary page, or a hobby where template ceilings do not matter. The honest self-test: if the site failing would cost you money, hire someone accountable; if it would cost you an evening, build it yourself.

Builders (Wix, Squarespace, Framer) genuinely fit experiments and simple brochure needs, fast, cheap, capped. Hire a developer when you need ownership, performance, custom functionality, integrations, or SEO beyond basics. The middle path most businesses land on: WordPress with a developer, template economics with professional control. Full analysis: no-code vs custom.

The honest sequence: (1) brief and goals, (2) structure and content plan, (3) design, (4) build, (5) content entry, (6) QA and rehearsal, (7) launch, with an eighth that separates professionals: care after launch. Steps 2 and 5 are where projects actually fail, which is why the process guide spends most of its ink there.

The maintenance era: platform updates, backups, security patches, content refresh, performance watch, and periodic SEO review. Sites are software now, unmaintained sites decay (and get hacked) on a schedule you can set your watch by. What care actually costs and covers: the maintenance FAQ.