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.