A website typically takes three to six weeks to build, and an online store six to ten. A store adds a product catalog, a payment gateway and a checkout, all tested before money runs through them. What moves either date most is content, photography and approvals, and how fast they come back from the client.
How long does it take to build a website?
Three to six weeks for a straightforward business site, from the first discovery conversation to launch. That window covers a discovery week to lock scope, a design pass, development, mobile testing on devices and a launch check, not just the visible design work most timelines mention.
A five-page brochure site for a single-location business sits at the short end. A larger site with a booking system or several distinct service pages sits toward the long end.
How long does it take to build an online store?
Six to ten weeks. A store adds a product catalog, a payment gateway and a checkout flow on top of everything a website already needs, and all three get tested end to end before launch, with live transactions, not one sandbox run.
A five-product store with simple variants sits near the six-week end. A four-hundred-SKU catalogue with sizes, colours and a data import from an existing system sits near the ten-week end, because the catalogue work alone is a project inside the project.
What determines the launch date?
Four things, and all four sit with the client, not the builder: how ready the content is, how the revision rounds are structured, how early integrations get flagged, and how fast a single named approver turns pages around. Content and photography readiness is the biggest lever of the four.
- Content and photography readiness, the single biggest lever on the date
- A fixed, agreed number of revision rounds, each with a deadline attached
- Integrations flagged in week one: payment processor, CRM migration, existing domain, outbound email authentication
- Catalog size and complexity, for a store specifically: variants, sizing charts, an inventory feed to migrate
A landscaping company with one contact form and a folder of finished photos moves through the schedule at the pace it plans for, because nothing is waiting on a decision. A boutique launching two hundred SKUs, with product copy still being written in week four, moves much more slowly, and that gap grows week over week because every stage after content depends on the stage before it.
What happens in the discovery week, before any screen gets designed?
Discovery locks scope before design starts: which pages the site needs, what each page has to do, who is using it and on what device, all written down before anything gets drawn. That written scope is the reference point both sides come back to later.
It keeps a straightforward build straightforward, and it keeps two different needs from getting treated as the same wireframe. A dentist's office needing a booking form synced to a calendar and a roofer needing an estimate request with a photo upload both look like "a form field" on a first pass. They are two different builds, and catching that in week one is far simpler than in week four.
Why does mobile testing take time?
Because many visitors arrive on a phone, so the design and build happen mobile first, then get tested on devices. A menu that works with a mouse still has to work under a thumb, since that is where a visitor may meet it, standing in a parking lot and deciding whether to call.
Content management handover happens in this same stage, so the client can fix a typo or swap a photo directly, on their own schedule. Whether the site runs on WordPress or the store on WooCommerce or Shopify, the handover covers the same ground: what the owner can edit alone and what needs a developer.
Why does a store take longer than a site?
Because a store's checkout has to handle money changing hands, and that gets tested end to end before launch. Product pages are also built to be found by search engines, since a four-hundred-SKU catalogue that search engines cannot crawl is a catalogue that mostly sits unseen.
Picture a store running a Friday-night sale, as a hypothetical example: traffic spikes and carts fill fast, which is when a checkout needs to already be proven, not still being trusted for the first time.
Why do some website projects take much longer than this?
Almost always because scope changed mid-project without being written down again, content arrived late in pieces rather than all at once, or feedback rounds stacked up with no fixed number attached. Each is a known, preventable delay: the same four levers from earlier, working against the schedule instead of for it.
PMI’s Pulse of the Profession 2024 puts average scope creep across the projects it surveys at 29 percent, which is why unwritten scope changes are the first thing to control. Scope changes get written down again before they are built, so both sides agree on the new plan before work starts on it.
What a faster timeline means
A fast timeline is a good sign when the speed comes from the client's side being ready. A three-week build with finished copy, agreed revision rounds and every integration flagged up front is the same work as a six-week build, done in the time it takes when nothing is waiting on an unmade decision. Testing a checkout or migrating a CRM properly needs its own time regardless of the calendar.
How can you keep your own project on schedule?
Have photography and copy finished before the discovery week ends, not promised for later. Agree a fixed number of revision rounds, each with a deadline and a specific question attached. Name one approver who can say yes, so a decision does not wait on a committee to meet.
And ask, before signing anything, whose name the domain, hosting and analytics accounts will be registered under, since untangling that after launch can eat a week that should have taken an afternoon. Each of these is a small thing to arrange in advance and a large thing to fix mid-project.
A build like this is scoped in detail on the Websites & Ecommerce page. A separate post on this blog covers what each of Devodin's five services does. Once a site is live, an optional care plan keeps it from quietly decaying: a plugin goes unpatched, a certificate lapses, a contact form stops sending without anyone noticing until a customer mentions it weeks later. Common questions about scope, ownership and timeline are answered on the FAQ page.
How does the timeline change by sector?
The stages are the same, but the integrations differ. A healthcare practice usually needs a booking form tied to a real calendar, a home services business needs an estimate request with photo upload, and an ecommerce and retail store sets its timeline by catalog size. Flag those in the discovery week and the dates hold.
Before you brief anyone, how to choose a web design company covers what to ask. The wider set of guides is under Websites & Positioning.
