Next month. That's what the email says. Then I open the attachment. Twelve pages. Nobody has written the homepage. How long does a custom website take for a business? Four to eight weeks if it's actually a website. Months if I have to log in to finish the job.
What it costs is a different post. Whether it is even a website is a different post. This is the date. I treat this as business websites. I start the weeks after the brief I write before I quote, not after the first Slack. If they need an account to finish it, stop. That date is how long a first version of a web product takes.
What people mean by how long a custom website takes
They want a date they can drop on a calendar invite. Sometimes that date is a conference. Sometimes it's Q4 because the room went quiet. I only cut against a week when a stranger can actually do the thing. Send the form. Book the call. The week the homepage looks done in Figma doesn't count.
Two weeks is a theme with your logo. I can make it look like a company. You find out at the stand when the form lands in someone's Gmail and nobody owns the list. Five pages in a quarter usually means you snuck a login into the brief, or four people still haven't picked a homepage. A real custom site is neither of those. Name who lands, and what they finish before they leave.
How long a custom website actually takes to build
I quote weeks on five pages. Agencies quote a quarter because four people have to look at the homepage. You might still not have anyone who can change a line after launch. If people come back tomorrow and log in, this table is the wrong one. That job is a product. The receipt is how much a web product costs.
| What they asked for | Weeks | What you actually get |
|---|---|---|
| A theme sold as custom | 1 to 3 | Your logo on someone else's layout. Looks finished until you try to change a line. Fine if you're testing whether anyone wants this. Don't put that date in a launch email. |
| A custom marketing website | 4 to 8 | Pages built for this business, live, that a stranger can use. No account. Fast enough on a phone. That's the date I write for most of this work. |
| A content-heavy custom website | 8 to 14 | Twenty service pages that aren't one layout with the heading swapped. Google has to be able to crawl them. A blog plugin on Friday doesn't do that. |
| Ecommerce, booking, or a CMS the business runs | 10 to 16 | A catalogue and checkout can still be a website. The day staff live in an admin, you're on a product clock wearing a storefront. I say which after I see who opens it on Tuesday. |
Four to eight weeks is the marketing site, live. If someone quotes you three weeks, you're buying a theme. If it's a quarter and nobody logs in, the brief still has a shop in it. That shop is Shopify or a custom store before it is a twelve-week brochure. The price for those weeks is how much a custom website costs. The consulting site in selected workhad to rank. It did not start as next month plus twelve templates you'll write later.
What makes a custom website take months
Six weeks on five pages that work beats a Q4 date that slips. The templates are not what ate the weeks. The copy didn't exist. Then someone forwarded a catalogue in week three. That's what I own on this kind of job. I don't hide a store inside a brochure and call it the same date.
| What happens | What it does to the date |
|---|---|
| The words still aren't written | Six weeks becomes eleven. I quoted a five-page site with a finished Figma. The copy arrived in week five. You cannot launch pages that have no sentences. Lorem ipsum is a theme with better spacing. |
| Inventing the look during the build | A finished Figma, with permission to decide where the file is silent, cuts weeks. "Make it feel premium" on a blank page is a second project inside the first. Colours in a PDF aren't a path through the site. |
| A shop or a login in week three | Four weeks becomes a quarter. Someone forwards a catalogue. Checkout is not a toggle on a marketing site. Name it in the brief or it waits. Building it inside the brochure date is how neither ships. |
| Four people have to agree on every page | Roughly twice as long. I have sat on a homepage headline for a week because four people had to see it. The pages weren't slow. The email thread was. One person who can say yes. That's it. |
If the site is already live and ranks, this is not an eight-week blank calendar. That's keep WordPress, or rebuild, or a takeover. Speed you were going to "add later" is already costing you. I don't start the weeks until that's on the table.
When a custom website timeline is the wrong answer
I won't take eight weeks of deposit to sit on a blank repo next to a site that's already live. Sometimes you needed a one-pager. Sometimes you already rank. I'd rather say that than stall.
You needed a one-page site
You're still checking if anyone wants this. Eight weeks of custom templates is a stupid way to find out they don't. One honest page, a way to talk to you. Days, not a quarter. Spend the custom weeks when the offer has somewhere to land.
The website already ranks
People already find you. The words work. Starting over for a launch month is how you pay twice. I start from the live URL. That is a redesign, or starting over. A rebuild is earned when the template is the product, not because someone sold a new coat of paint.
You said website and meant a product
Login. They come back tomorrow. That is not a website date. Five pages shouldn't take two months. A product will. Don't buy brochure weeks for a customer area.
I write the week a stranger can do it without asking you. If that week is months away, this wasn't a website.
Send the date. Send the pages. Tell me what you're building. I'll tell you which row you're on.
