A straightforward business website takes four to eight weeks from first conversation to launch. A single landing page can be done in a week. Ecommerce runs eight to sixteen weeks depending on catalogue size. Those numbers assume the client answers emails — and that assumption is where almost every overrun comes from.
Where the weeks actually go
Week 1 — questions. What the site is for, who it's talking to, what a good month of enquiries looks like, what's wrong with the current one. Skipping this is how you get a beautiful site that generates nothing.
Weeks 2–3 — design. Homepage and one inner page, enough to agree the direction. Not twelve mockups. If you can't tell from two pages whether it's right, more pages won't help.
Weeks 3–5 — build. Templates, responsive behaviour, forms, analytics, speed work. This runs in parallel with content, which is the bit that stalls.
Week 6 — content and review. Your text, your photos, your amends.
Week 7 — launch. DNS, SSL, redirects from the old site, Search Console, a final pass on phones.
The one thing that delays nearly every project
Content. Not design rounds, not technical problems — the words. "We'll add the text later" has delayed more launches than every bug I've ever fixed. A client who sends copy in week two launches in week seven. A client who's still writing the About page in week ten launches in week fourteen, and it isn't the developer's fault.
Two ways out: write it early, or pay someone to write it. Both work. Neither is "we'll sort it nearer the time".
What genuinely justifies a longer timeline
Ecommerce with a real catalogue. Bookings or payments that talk to something else. Migrating a large site where every old URL needs a redirect — skip that and you throw away years of search rankings on launch day. Multiple decision-makers, honestly: three people who must agree adds weeks, and it's better to plan for it than pretend otherwise.
Can it be done in a week?
A single page, yes, properly. A full site in a week means a template with your logo dropped in and your text pasted where the placeholder was. That's a real product with a real use — testing an idea before committing — but it's a different thing from a designed site, and it should cost a different amount.
What we won't do
We won't promise a date that depends on content we haven't received. You'll get a timeline with your deadlines in it as well as ours, because half the schedule is yours. Agencies that quote a launch date without asking who's writing the copy are quoting a date they don't intend to hit.