How long does it take to build a custom website?
The honest answer: anywhere from 5 days to 8 weeks, depending on what you're building. Here's the breakdown of what determines the schedule.
Starter site (3–6 pages): 5–10 business days
Same-day intake review. Design proof in 48 hours. Build, polish, and launch on a custom domain inside two weeks.
What can speed it up: clear branding, ready-to-use copy, existing logo and photography.
What slows it down: redoing the brand mid-build, hunting for stock photos, indecision on copy.
Professional site (booking, payments, admin portal): 2–4 weeks
Adds time for the booking flow design, payment-processor wiring (Square/Stripe), email templates, and the admin portal.
Most slowdowns here come from third-party setup — confirming Square/Stripe accounts, getting domain emails verified, gathering existing customer data to import.
Enterprise platform (accounts, dashboards, AI): 4–8 weeks
Real software with user accounts, role-based dashboards, multi-user editing, AI features, and integrations.
Schedule depends on how many integrations and how custom the workflows are. We scope this carefully during intake so the timeline is locked in writing before we start.
What's never on the critical path
Hosting setup, SSL, and domain wiring (we do these in parallel).
SEO foundations (built in from day one).
Pre-launch testing on real devices (overlapped with content polish).
Quick questions
Can you rush a build?+
Yes. Most rushes turn around in 24–48 hours for content updates and 5 business days for full Starter launches. Rushes carry a small premium because they jump the queue.
What's the most common reason builds run late?+
Copy. Specifically, customers who are still writing their service descriptions or about-page bio when the build is otherwise ready. We provide a copy template at intake to head this off.
Do I see the site before it launches?+
Always. Every Bizfloo build runs on a live preview URL throughout the project. You see every change as soon as it's pushed, and the site only goes to your real domain after you sign off.
Related
Want a website like the ones in this article?
Tell me about your project — I'll send back a plan and a quote within 48 hours.
Start the intake