"How long will it take?" is usually the second question people ask us, right after "how much will it cost?" And, like cost, the honest answer is that it depends. But "it depends" isn't very useful when you're trying to plan a launch, so in this article we'll give you real timeframes and walk through exactly what happens at each stage of a typical project.
[Two Pixels team: adjust the timings and stages below to match how you actually work. A transparent process is a genuine selling point, so the more specific and accurate this is, the better.]
The short answer
For a typical small business website of around five to ten pages, you're usually looking at six to ten weeks from kick-off to launch.
Here's a rough guide for different types of project:
- Simple one-page or landing page site: 2–4 weeks
- Small business website (5–10 pages): 6–10 weeks
- Larger website with CMS, blog and integrations: 10–16 weeks
- E-commerce website: 10–20 weeks
- Complex custom build: 4–6 months+
Those timeframes assume content and feedback flow reasonably smoothly. We'll explain what can speed things up or slow them down at the end.
Our process, week by week
Here's how a typical eight-week small business website project runs at Two Pixels.
Before we start: proposal and booking
Before the clock starts, we'll have an initial conversation about your business and what you need, then send over a proposal with a clear scope, cost and timeline. Once you're happy, we'll agree a start date and take a deposit to secure your slot.
It's worth knowing that most agencies, us included, often have a waiting list of a few weeks before a new project can begin. If you have a hard deadline, get in touch early.
Week 1: Discovery
Everything starts with understanding your business properly. This is the most important stage of the whole project, and the one that saves the most time later.
In the first week, we'll typically:
- Run a kick-off session, in person or on a video call, to talk through your goals, customers, competitors and what success looks like
- Review your existing website, analytics and search performance, if you have them
- Look at competitors and websites you admire
- Gather your brand assets, logins and any existing content
What we need from you: your time for the kick-off session (usually one to two hours), plus access to your branding and any existing accounts.
Week 2: Structure and content planning
With a clear understanding of your business, we map out the website's structure.
- Sitemap: a list of every page and how they connect
- Wireframes: simple, low-detail layouts for key pages, showing what goes where without worrying about colours or styling yet
- Content plan: what needs to go on each page, and who's writing it
Getting the structure right before design begins means we're not moving whole sections around later, which is where projects tend to lose time.
What we need from you: feedback on the sitemap and wireframes, and to start work on your content if you're writing it.
Weeks 3–4: Design
This is where your website starts to take shape visually.
We'll usually design the homepage first, because it establishes the overall look and feel: typography, colour, imagery style, buttons and spacing. We share it with you, gather feedback, and refine it.
Once the homepage direction is agreed, we design the remaining key page templates, applying the same visual language consistently. We'll always show you how pages look on mobile as well as desktop.
Most projects include two rounds of revisions on the design. [Two Pixels team: adjust to match your offer.]
What we need from you: clear, consolidated feedback within a few days of each design being shared. This is the stage where quick, decisive feedback makes the biggest difference to your timeline.
Weeks 5–6: Development
With designs signed off, we build the website. This includes:
- Building every page so it works properly across phones, tablets and desktops
- Setting up the content management system so you can edit the site yourself
- Adding forms, animations, integrations and any other functionality
- Adding your content to every page
- Setting up SEO foundations: page titles, meta descriptions, headings, image optimisation and structured data
During this stage, we'll share a staging link, a private version of the site you can click around on, so you can see progress as it happens.
What we need from you: all final content, if it isn't already with us. Missing content at this stage is the single most common reason projects slip.
Week 7: Testing and review
Before anything goes live, we test thoroughly:
- Across different browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge)
- On different devices and screen sizes
- Every form, link and button
- Page speed and performance
- Accessibility basics, such as colour contrast, alt text and keyboard navigation
We also ask you to review the full site and let us know about anything that needs changing, from typos to small tweaks.
At this point, we'll also run a training session showing you how to update your site, add blog posts, swap images and so on, so you're confident managing it from day one.
What we need from you: a thorough final review, and a clear sign-off when you're happy.
Week 8: Launch
Launch day. We'll:
- Connect your domain to the new site
- Set up redirects from your old website's pages to the new ones, to protect your search rankings
- Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console
- Check analytics and conversion tracking are working
- Do a final round of live testing
We typically launch early in the week rather than on a Friday, so any small issues can be picked up quickly.
After launch: support
The work doesn't stop the moment you go live. We include [X weeks] of post-launch support to fix anything that crops up, and we'll check in on how the site's performing. After that, you can manage it yourself, contact us for ad hoc help, or join one of our care plans.
What can speed things up
If you're working to a tight deadline, these things make the biggest difference:
Having content ready early. If your copy and images are ready before design starts, we can design around real content rather than placeholders, and development can move without waiting.
One decision-maker. Projects move fastest when there's one person responsible for gathering feedback internally and giving us a single, clear response.
Quick feedback. Turning feedback around within a day or two, rather than a week or two, can shave weeks off a project.
A clear brief. Knowing what you want the site to achieve and roughly what should be on it saves time in discovery and reduces revisions.
Launching in phases. If there's a hard deadline, we can often launch a core version of the site on time and add further pages or features afterwards.
What slows things down
And here's what most commonly causes delays, in our experience:
Waiting for content. By a long way the most common cause of delays. Writing website copy always takes longer than people expect.
Late involvement from key people. A director or partner who sees the design for the first time at the end and wants major changes can set a project back by weeks.
Scope creep. New features or pages added mid-project. These are often great ideas, but they need to be planned in, and they add time.
Lots of revision rounds. Feedback that keeps changing direction, rather than refining it.
Technical access. Not having logins to the domain or existing hosting when it's time to launch. Tracking these down can take surprisingly long.
Third parties. Waiting on a booking system provider, payment gateway approval or another supplier.
Common questions about timelines
"Can you build my website in two weeks?" Sometimes, for a very small site where content is ready and decisions are quick. For most projects, rushing means cutting discovery or testing, and those are the stages that stop problems later. We'll always tell you honestly what's realistic.
"Will my old website stay live while you build the new one?" Yes. We build on a private staging site, and your current website stays exactly as it is until launch day. Visitors won't see anything until we switch over.
"How much of my time will it take?" Expect a couple of hours for the kick-off, then an hour or two at each review stage, plus whatever time you spend on content. Writing copy yourself is the biggest time commitment, so plan for it, or ask us to handle it.
"What if I'm away during the project?" Let us know upfront and we'll plan around it, or you can nominate someone to give feedback in your absence.
"Is e-commerce much slower?" Usually a bit, mainly because of product content, payment setup and testing checkouts. The more products and variants you have, the longer it takes to add and check them all.
Why not just go faster?
You might see adverts for websites built in a few days. For some needs, a quick template site really is fine. But for a website that's genuinely built around your business, needs to bring in customers and will represent you for years, the time spent on discovery, planning and testing is what makes the difference.
A rushed website that doesn't work well is more expensive in the long run than one that took a few extra weeks to get right.
Ready to plan your project?
If you've got a launch date in mind, or you're just starting to think about a new website, get in touch. We'll talk through what you need and give you a realistic timeline, and tell you honestly if we think your deadline is tight.
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