The time it takes to develop a website ranges from 150 to 500 hours. The website creation process will go through several stages if it is built by a technical partner. The Discovery Phase, Design Phase, Development Phase, and Website Improvement Phase. Take this free 10-question assessment and learn how your website can begin to realize its potential.
Most of these sites took less than 100 hours to code, perhaps because this is the most common type of website we work on. For the 133 websites that we sold as 40-hour projects, I analyzed how much time we actually spent on them (see histogram). In reality, we often spend more than 40 hours and there is an even distribution between 40 and 100 hours of total time spent. Keep in mind that this often includes a few additional hours spent on free requests for additional reach.
To conclude, expect a 6-8 page template website to take 40-100 hours to complete, and think twice before you start requesting changes or getting angry about minor imperfections. A typical website will take at least 14 weeks from start to launch. This includes 3 weeks of discovery, 6 weeks of design, 3 weeks of initial development and 2 weeks of modifications. It could take a lot longer if you wait until the end to start writing content.
As the heart of your website, your homepage design acts as a general template for the rest of your site when it comes to the themes, navigation, design and communication of your brand's main message. Before moving on to designing the infinite number of pages that will be part of your website, focus on perfecting your home page. But what does a realistic timeline look like? What steps are part of the website development process and how long does each take? What are your options when it comes to designing and implementing your site and how do they affect the total time required? For example, if you're a small business looking to create a simple website that brings your message and brand online, a quick comparison and contrast of several smaller website development companies may be all you need to select one and start the process. If you own or manage a larger business, there may be several levels of management involved in the decision, which could extend this stage by several weeks.
If you can't wait that long, or if you don't have the budget to hire a professional website design company, you can go for do-it-yourself website development. Here, tools like CMS Hub can help you quickly create and optimize new websites, along with flexible themes that allow you to easily create and connect pages for a seamless experience. Modern websites often use several programming languages, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more. For a relatively simple website to be coded from scratch, an experienced programmer should expect to spend between four and six weeks of time, approximately eight hours a day, on the project.
I'm adding executive presentation content and creating graphical content on the clock (it's a simple website with only five menu options). Here's what you need to know about how long it actually takes to build a functional website from scratch. For the vast majority of people who want to create a website, using some type of website creation software or service is the best option. To simplify the discussion, let's look at the time it takes to create a typical “brochure” website without any advanced functionality; only six different page templates will be developed from custom web designs.
CMS engines such as Drupal, Shopify or WordPress help reduce development hours and reduce the cost required to create a website. For example, an e-commerce website will take around 1000 hours to create, while a social media website can take 2000 hours or more. Wix has introduced a simple method to quickly and easily create websites without needing any coding knowledge. As mentioned above, the average time to create a website using WordPress is around 5 weeks or 200 hours, while creating a custom website takes 240 hours minimum.
If you're about to embark on creating your own website, take a minute to stop and evaluate what your goals are for the website. To find out if the project is a “40 hour” project or not, it is first important to review the scope and requirements. For example, if you're a small business looking to create a simple website that brings your message and brand online, a quick comparison and contrast of several smaller website development companies may be all you need to select one and start the process. When you start looking at website builder templates, you'll find several options, and this would also be true for a custom site.
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