The honest answer is two to six weeks of our work, and somewhere between that and never, depending entirely on you. That's not a dodge. It's the single most important thing to understand before you start, so let me explain where the time actually goes.
The build is the fast part
People assume the code is the bottleneck. It almost never is. A clean Starter Presence site is two to three weeks of build. A branded site with content and search setup is four to six. That part is predictable because we've done it many times and it's mostly a known quantity.
The unpredictable part is everything that happens between us asking you a question and you answering it.
Where projects actually stall
Every slow project I've ever seen stalled in the same three places.
Materials. We need your logo, your photos, your existing copy, your list of services. The project where someone sends all of that in week one finishes in three weeks. The project where it trickles in over two months takes two months, and none of those extra weeks were ours.
Decisions. "Which of these two homepages?" is a fast question to answer and a slow one to avoid. Projects don't usually die from hard decisions. They die from easy decisions left open because everyone's busy.
The disappearing client. This is the real one. Not a bad business owner — a good one, slammed running the actual business, who goes quiet for three weeks because a truck broke down or it's harvest or someone quit. Completely understandable, and it adds exactly three weeks to the timeline.
Why we don't start the clock until you're ready
We don't start the timeline the day you say yes. We start it the day we have your deposit and your first round of materials. That's deliberate, and it's in your favor.
It means there's no pressure to have everything perfect on day one, and it means the quoted timeline is honest rather than a number that quietly slips while we wait on you. A four-week project that starts in March and a four-week project that starts in June are both four-week projects. The start is whenever you're actually ready.
How to make it as fast as possible
If you want the short version of the whole timeline: gather your materials before you start, not during. One folder. Logo, photos, the names of your services and the towns you serve, your hours, and any text you already have, even rough. The single biggest lever on how fast your site ships is how complete that folder is on day one. We can write the words and design around them. We cannot guess your hours.
The realistic expectation
For most small-business owners reading this: budget a month. Plan for three to five weeks from "go" to live, assume one of those weeks will get eaten by your actual business, and don't promise a customer the site by a specific date until it's actually in front of you.
If you've got a launch you're trying to hit, tell us the date in your brief and we'll tell you honestly whether it's realistic before you commit to anything. Our full process is laid out here if you want to see each step.