“How long will this take?” is usually one of the first questions in a discovery call, and it’s a fair one but the honest answer is always “it depends,” which isn’t very useful on its own. Here’s what the timeline actually looks like on our end, and what makes it move faster or slower.
Discovery call: about 2 days
This is where we figure out what the site actually needs to do goals, audience, must-have pages, and any specific requirements. It’s quick because it’s mostly a conversation, not production work.
Proposal and scope: about 2 days
We put together a clear quote and scope based on that conversation. This step moves fast when the goals from discovery were specific; it takes longer if we’re still working out exactly what’s included.
Design: 3 to 5 days
Wireframes and visual direction, built for your sign-off before any code gets written. This is one of the stages most affected by how quickly you can review and give feedback a design that sits unreviewed for two weeks adds two weeks to the timeline, even though the actual design work took days.
Development: 1 to 3 weeks
The build itself, and by far the widest range a five-page brochure site and a WooCommerce store with custom plugins are very different builds. Custom functionality, complex integrations, and large product catalogs all add real time here.
Review and launch: 2 to 4 days
Testing, revisions, and a controlled go-live. Like the design stage, this moves at the speed of feedback fast reviews keep this tight, and unresponsiveness stretches it out even when there’s not much left to fix.
What actually determines your timeline
Two things move the needle more than anything else: how clear the scope is going in, and how quickly you can review and respond at each stage. A simple site with fast feedback can be live in under three weeks. A complex build, or one where feedback takes a week each time, can stretch to two months or more not because the work itself takes that long, but because of the gaps in between.
If you want a realistic timeline for your specific project, that’s exactly what a discovery call gives you a real number, not a guess.
“The build itself rarely determines the timeline. How fast you review does.”
