Website timelines · Seven real projects How long does it take to build a website?
Twenty five to fifty days, if what you want is the range my last five came in at. The longer answer has more in it, and what moves it is almost never the coding. I'm Willis, I run Another Monday out of Baltimore, and every date below came out of my own project logs.
Five sites live, between 25 and 50 days. Two still open, and neither one is stuck on the building.
Every number is counted from the day the project opens in my own log, which is the first date I can prove, to the day the domain answered on Netlify. Never from a later artifact that happens to be the earliest file on disk, because that shortens a project by whatever came before it. Open projects are counted to September 10, 2026. Businesses are named by trade, the way Another Monday references client work everywhere else on this site.
The short answer is weeks. The useful answer is what those weeks go on.
Building a website takes anywhere from an evening to a few months, and what moves it is the number of pages you need, whether the words and photos already exist, and how quickly one person can make a decision. A Squarespace or Wix template you fill in yourself can be up tonight. A professional small business website is usually quoted at four to eight weeks, which is a fair number and roughly what I'd tell you too. My last five custom sites ran 3, 25, 32, 48 and 50 days from first recorded work to live on Netlify.
| How you're getting it | How long | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| A template you fill in yourself | An evening to a few weekends | How much of the writing you have already done |
| A marketplace gig | A couple of days | Nothing. It's a template with your name in it |
| A professional small business website | Four to eight weeks is the usual answer | Page count, photos, and how fast one person can decide |
| A custom-coded website, the way I make them | 25 to 50 days on my last five | The same three things, in that order |
| Moving a site that already ranks | The same calendar, plus the redirect map | How many addresses have to survive the move |
The one row worth arguing about is the first. Every website builder on the market advertises a site in minutes, and an AI website builder really will put pages on a screen that fast. What comes out is a filled-in template with your business name in it, and the website development work that decides whether anybody ever finds it hasn't started. That isn't a knock on the drag and drop editors, which I've used and still recommend to plenty of owners. It's that the time it takes to generate a page and the time it takes to build a website that earns work are two different measurements, and the website builders are quoting you the first one.
Two of those rows are the same website, bought two ways. A Wix template with your name in it and a custom site made around the searches your customers type into Google will both be live inside a month, and they'll do completely different amounts of work for you afterwards. That difference is a money question more than a time one, and it lives on the page about how much a website costs for a small business.
The coding is not what runs long. The deciding is.
How long does a website take, by the kind of site you're buying?
Four different types of websites, and the one you're buying decides most of your calendar before anybody opens an editor.
A one-page site
A single page, one job, usually a phone number or a form at the bottom of it. A simple website like this is the quickest thing I make and the shortest conversation we'll have. If all you need is proof to a Google searcher that you exist and a way to be reached, say that on the first call and I'll size it that way.
A small business website
A home page, an about page, a contact page, and one real page for each thing you sell, because that is how somebody searching for that one thing finds you. Three services lands around five or six pages. Nine services is a much bigger site, and the page count is the single biggest thing moving your date.
A site that takes bookings
The moment a site has to hold a calendar, take a deposit or talk to something like Acuity, there's a second system inside the job and a second round of testing before launch. On the nail studio that meant every booking path tested end to end before the DNS moved. That time is real and I'd rather quote it than discover it.
An online store
Product counts, payment flows and inventory change the work enough that I don't publish a number for it. Every client on the Another Monday roster is a local service business selling time and expertise. If you're selling products online, say so first and I'll tell you whether I'm the right person.
Almost every business I work with sits in the second card, and the number of services is what separates a five page site from a fifteen page one. An auto body shop selling collision, frame and paint work needs different pages from a nail studio selling six treatments. Count the things somebody could hire you for and you've already estimated your own project better than any range on the internet will. What comes with each of those pages, and what deliberately doesn't, is on the small business website design page.
What happens inside those weeks, in the order it happens?
My website development process runs six stages, same order every time, whether the site is new or coming off Squarespace, Wix or WordPress. I'm not going to hand you a day count for each one, because I don't record them and a made up number is worse than no number. What I can tell you is which stage of the development process the calendar goes on.
The inventory
Before anything gets designed, I pull every address your current site has out of your sitemap and Google Search Console, with what each one shows up for and what it earns. That list sizes the whole job and it's where the redirect map comes from. On three of the projects above, Phase 0 finished the same day it started.
The direction
The project gets scaffolded and you sign off on how it's going to look before a line of code ships. Settling that here, once, is most of the reason a website takes weeks. Reopening it after the pages exist is most of the reason one takes months.
The pages
Written and coded one at a time, one search per page, in the order that matters to the business. This is the part everybody pictures when they think about making a website, and it's almost never the part that runs long.
The redirects
Every old address gets pointed at its replacement in one 301 hop. This is the difference between a launch and a reset, and it's the reason the address list gets written down in step one instead of on cutover morning.
The checks
Nothing goes live until every page has been through the same list: the links, the schema, the forms tested end to end, the copy read against the voice, the layout at a phone width. A failing check stops the launch, which is the point of having one.
The switch
Your DNS gets pointed at Netlify, and that's one day. Your Squarespace or Wix plan stays up and paid for right until it happens, so there's no window where a customer looks you up and finds nothing.
Stage three is the one people budget for and stage two is the one that decides the date. The website building itself is the predictable part: development time after the pages exist runs on a checklist, so it takes what it takes and surprises nobody. Every project that has run long on me ran long before a single page was written.
What would your date be?
Tell me what you sell and how many things you'd want a page for, plus whether you already have photos. I'll come back with a real number for your business instead of a range.
- 450K+ search impressions across the sites we manage
- 5,800+ organic search clicks across the sites we manage
- 600+ leads and booking requests across the sites we manage
Last 90 days, across the sites and Search Console/GA4 accounts Another Monday manages. Figures as of August 2026.
Seven real projects, and what each one took.
Five finished and two still going, named by trade. The dates are the ones in my own records, not the ones that would look best on a page.
| The business | Coming off | First recorded work | Live | Calendar days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Painting contractor | WordPress | August 28, 2026 | Still open | 13 days so far |
| Nail salon and spa | Squarespace | July 14, 2026 | Live August 8, 2026 | 25 days |
| Auto body shop | Squarespace | June 15, 2026 | Live June 18, 2026 | 3 days |
| Tutoring service | Wix | July 1, 2026 | Live August 2, 2026 | 32 days |
| Photographer | Pixieset and Canva | July 31, 2026 | Still open | 41 days so far |
| Plant studio and events | Square Online | July 16, 2026 | Live September 2, 2026 | 48 days |
| Therapy practice | Squarespace | July 13, 2026 | Live September 1, 2026 | 50 days |
Five of these are finished, and the spread between them is the honest answer to the question: 25, 27, 32, 48 and 50 calendar days from the first thing in my log to the day the domain pointed at Netlify. Every one of the five was a business already trading, already ranking for something in Google, already taking calls, so the site had to come across without dropping any of that on the floor. The quickest and the slowest were about the same amount of coding.
The two still open are in the table as well, and so are the two that took seven weeks. I'd rather publish those than quietly leave them out. A page that only showed you the ones that went quickly would be an advertisement with dates on it.
The sites themselves, with before and after video on six of them, sit on the what the finished sites actually look like page.
The four that ran longest never ran long on the building.
Four projects, four reasons, and not one of them is the reason you would guess.
The therapy practice: fifty days, and most of them were a hold
The home page, the about page and the best ranking service page were built, checked and committed weeks before any of it went live. The business had a launch of its own running on Squarespace, and the rule I gave them is that we don't move the address out from under a launch. Fifty days on the clock and almost none of them were spent writing code. Waiting was the right call and I'd make it again, which isn't a sentence you'll find on a project timeline anywhere.
The photographer: still waiting on a domain and access
There's nothing to point at yet. The business has been running on a free Pixieset subdomain, so it owns no domain of its own and has no Search Console or analytics history behind it, and the Google profile access I need hasn't come across either. Access is a dependency exactly like copy is, and no amount of building routes around it.
The painting contractor: still waiting on photographs
Thirteen days into a WordPress takeover, still in Phase 0, with a running list of questions only the owner can answer. The one at the top isn't copy. It's photographs of finished work, with a before shot to sit next to the after. For a painting company the before and after is the most persuasive thing on the entire website, and it can't be written. Somebody has to stand in the room and take it.
The plant studio: forty eight days, waiting on a price list and a boundary
Twenty seven pages sat built and running on a development server for weeks after the move off Square Online. What held them there was a rate card the owner was willing to publish and a clear line on what the business does and doesn't do. I won't put a claim on a page a business can't stand behind, so that line gets drawn before anything ships instead of after somebody calls asking for a service nobody sells.
Content is the answer every guide gives for why a website runs late, and as far as it goes it's right. What I keep walking into is narrower than that. It's a decision nobody has made, a Google Analytics property still owned by a previous agency, a domain registered to an email address that stopped working two jobs ago, or a photograph that has to be taken by a person standing in a room. A fact I can't get is a page I can't write, and no amount of me working faster changes that.
Every one of those four was waiting on something only the owner had.
What I need from you, and when I need it.
Four things, all of them wanted at the start of a project instead of the middle. Everything I can do without you runs in parallel, so the short list I can't do without you is the list that sets your date. Make sure these four are moving in week one and your website can take weeks instead of months.
Photographs, in week one
Real pictures of real work, at the size they came off the camera. A screenshot enlarged six times in Gigapixel doesn't come back sharper, and a stock photo of somebody else's work is the thing every visitor can smell. If content creation has to happen, a shoot or a writing day, it belongs at the start of the calendar and not in the middle of it.
The words only you have
I write the pages. What I can't write is what you say on the phone to somebody asking why you're worth it, or the terms of your warranty in writing. Ten minutes of you talking into a voice memo is worth a week of me guessing.
Four logins
Hosting, whoever your domain name is registered with, the Google Analytics property and the Tag Manager container. On a site that has changed hands a couple of times these are rarely all in one place, and every one of them is easier to sort out while the old site is still up and still paid for.
One person who can decide
Not a committee, and not somebody who has to go and ask a committee. Design direction, page count, and what the business does and doesn't sell. Three people signing off on one colour is how a three week project turns into a two month one.
The projects that moved quickest had the same two things going for them. One person could say yes, and the photographs were already sitting on a hard drive. The auto body shop had a folder of real repairs and an owner who answered the same day, and it went from the first entry in my log to live in three. That one is the outlier and I am not going to pretend otherwise: it launched on ten pages and kept growing after, which is a different promise from a forty page site going up at once. What it does show is that when the photos exist and one person decides, the calendar stops being the constraint.
What slows a project down is rarely dramatic. Usually it's a shoot nobody has booked, or a warranty everybody knows and nobody has written down, or a GoDaddy login registered to a former employee. Sometimes it's a launch of the client's own that the new site has to wait behind, which is the right answer and still adds weeks to a calendar.
Does moving an existing website take longer than starting fresh?
Moving a site that already ranks runs on roughly the same calendar as a new one, with one extra job inside it. Every address you already have gets written down first and pointed at its replacement, because the rankings you're worried about live on those addresses and nowhere else. All seven projects in the table above were moves, off Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, Square Online and Pixieset, so that's the version of this work I do most and the one my figures for how long it takes are drawn from.
Your current site stays live the whole way through. The switch itself is a single day: the DNS points at Netlify, Squarespace or Wix stops serving anybody, and your customers never see a gap. What that costs, and what a rebuild does and doesn't move, is the what a rebuild is quoted at page.
How long until a new website starts showing up on Google?
Live and found are two different dates, and only the first one is on my calendar. A site can go live in three weeks and still be nowhere on the search that brings you work, because search runs on a clock of its own and it's a much slower one. About six months is what I tell a local business to expect for meaningful movement, with some technical wins landing in weeks and the competitive terms taking longer than that.
What ships with the site is the structure that lets it rank at all: one search per page, headings that match how people ask, schema, internal links, and a sitemap a search engine can read. What earns the ranking is the work after launch, month after month, which is the baltimore seo company half of what I do. It's also the reason your website gets made inside a monthly plan and never billed as its own project.
Launch is a date on a calendar. Getting found is the months after it.
Give me the list of things somebody could hire you for and I'll give you a page count and a date.
Grab 30 minutes with WillisWho's telling you this, and where the dates came from.
Twenty five or so websites, more than 20 of them on Squarespace, plus years on Wix and WordPress before I ever charged anybody. I'm a Squarespace Circle Gold member and I'd still put a small business on the platform when that's the right call. That history is what the numbers on this page are worth: I have made a website quickly on a template and I have made one slowly on code, and I have watched the same project stall for a reason that had nothing to do with either.
Every date on this page came out of a project record I keep for my own sake, not for this page. An inventory capture is stamped when it runs, a cutover gets logged the day it happens, and the client roster records the same two dates independently. That's why the start marker is what it is: it's the first date I can point at rather than the first date anybody felt like the project began.
If you want the longer version of who is behind these dates, that's the who I am and how I got here page. The businesses themselves are on marketing clients with live links, so you can open one and judge the work rather than the timeline.
Website timelines, the questions owners ask me.
How long does it take to make a website?
Making a website takes an evening at the fastest and a few months at the slowest, and the gap between those two is what you're really asking about. Filling in a template on a website builder yourself is a weekend. A professional small business website with a page for each service you sell is usually quoted at four to eight weeks, website design and copy included. My last five custom website projects ran 3, 25, 32, 48 and 50 calendar days from the first entry in my own project log to the day the domain pointed somewhere new. The three-day one launched on ten pages and kept growing after; that is the trade.
How long does it take to build a website from scratch?
Building a website from scratch takes weeks and not months when the decisions get made early. The design direction is settled before any page is coded, so the pages go up one at a time against a look nobody is still arguing about. On my last five, the time it takes ran between 25 and 50 days. A typical custom website is live well inside the first 90 days of a plan, and the ones that sit at the top of that range almost never sit there because of the coding.
How long does a one-page website take?
A one-page website is the quickest thing I make, and how quick comes down to how ready your words and photos are. When the copy exists and the photographs are already on a hard drive somewhere, there is very little sitting between the first conversation and a live page. When neither exists, the writing and the photo shoot are the schedule, and that is true whether the site is one page or fifteen.
How long does an ecommerce website take?
An ecommerce website takes longer than a service website, and I don't publish a number for it. Product counts, payment flows and inventory systems change the job enough that any range I gave you would be a guess. Every client I work with is a local service business selling time and expertise, so if you're selling products online, say so on the first call and I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person for it.
How long does it take to design a website?
Designing a website happens at the front of the project, and settling the web design there is most of the reason a site takes weeks. You see the layout, the colours, the type and how each page is put together, and you sign off on the custom design before any code ships. Reopening that after the pages are coded is what turns a three week project into a two month one, so the website design conversation happens once, properly, at the start.
How long does it take to build a website on Squarespace?
A Squarespace website can be live the same week, and that speed is an honest reason the platform suits a lot of businesses. Pick a template, drop in your images, write the pages, publish. I've put more than 20 small business websites on Squarespace and I'm a Circle Gold member, so that's not a backhanded answer. What takes the time on any platform is the writing, and no template shortens that. If you're weighing whether to stay on it, the squarespace alternatives page covers where people go and what the move involves.
How long does it take to build a website in WordPress?
A WordPress website takes about as long as any other professional site to make, and then it keeps asking for time forever, which is the part worth planning around. Installing it and picking a theme is quick. Writing the pages takes what writing always takes. After launch, somebody has to own core updates, plugin updates, backups and security every single month. If nobody in the business is going to own that list, the wordpress alternatives are sorted by the reason people leave.
What makes a website project run late?
Website projects run late on decisions, access and permission far more often than on the coding. Take the four slowest on my own list: one sat finished for weeks and went live at 50 days because the business had a launch of its own to get past, one took 48 waiting on a price list the owner was willing to publish, one is still waiting on a domain and profile access, and one is still waiting on photographs of finished work. Not one of them was waiting on pages.
How fast do you need my photos, copy and logins?
Photos, logins and anything only you can answer are needed in the first week, not the fourth. The four logins are hosting, the domain registrar, the analytics property and the tag container, and all four are easier to sort out while your old site is still up and still paid for. If a photo shoot has to happen, book it as the project starts. Everything I can do without you runs in parallel, so the handful of things I can't do without you are the ones setting your date.
How long before a new website starts showing up on Google?
A new website shows up for your own business name within days and takes months for the searches that bring you work. About six months is what I tell a local business to expect for meaningful movement, with some technical wins landing in weeks and the competitive terms taking longer than that. Launching and being found are two different dates, which is why the website is made inside a monthly plan that keeps publishing pages afterwards instead of ending on launch day.
How much does it cost to build a website?
A small business website usually runs $3,000 to $10,000 bought as a one-time project. I price it the other way around: the website gets made inside a monthly plan that starts at $800 a month, so there's no separate website invoice to find room for and the site keeps growing after it launches. The full breakdown of what a small business website costs sits on its own page.
How difficult is making a website?
Making a website is technically easy and it's hard to do well, which are two separate problems. Any website builder will put pages on a screen in an afternoon, and the web development side of it is beginner friendly now in a way it was not ten years ago. What takes skill is knowing which pages to make, what each one has to say to somebody deciding whether to call you, and how to structure it so a search engine can tell what it's for. That's the part people hire out, and it's the part that takes the weeks.
Curious what your own date would be?
Call or text me with what you sell and how many services you'd want a page for. Plenty of these calls end with a smaller site than the owner expected, and a smaller site is a shorter calendar.
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