Web design FAQ: what owners ask before they sign

TL;DR: This web design FAQ answers what owners ask before they sign: what each phase costs, how long a build takes, who owns the code and the hosting, and what happens if you stop working with us. Prices are published here, and every figure comes from a named project.

What this includes

Most pages called an FAQ exist to fill a section of a site. This one is written to be used in a meeting, before you commit to a number. Every question below was asked on a real first call, and the answers are short because they are facts rather than positions. Where a subject deserves more than three sentences, the answer points at the page that carries it, starting with how a page is planned around the one thing it asks.

• What we charge for each phase, published on this page instead of sent after a form
• How long each phase takes, and what makes a build land at either end of its range
• Who owns the code, the design, the domain and the account where you read your numbers
• What happens to the addresses that bring you visitors today when the site changes
• The ecommerce development questions that come up most when a store is replaced
• What we will not promise, and what it means when a supplier does promise it
• Who writes the plan, who reads the work before it ships, and where the studio is
• How to send a question this page does not answer, and when the reply arrives

Every answer here passes one test: you can check it yourself, in the account where you read your own numbers.

How it works

Answers arrive at three speeds: by email, inside a paid week, and inside the first phase of a project. Which one you need depends on whether the question is general or specific to the site you run now.

1. By email, within one business day. Write to us with the system you have and the number you want to move. You get a written answer, not a request to get on a call.
2. Discovery, 1 week, $2,500. The week where a general answer becomes your answer. We read the site you run against the visitors it gets: which pages earn visitors, which earn enquiries, and what the gap costs you. You end it with a written verdict and a price. It is the same week as the week that measures the site you run today.
3. Architecture, 1 week, $2,500, credited against the build. The decisions behind the price you were quoted: which pages exist, what each answers, and what the work will not include. It is the document we are held to.
4. Design and build, 2 to 10 weeks, from $5,000. A release goes out every week, reviewed on a live address you open on your own phone rather than on a picture of it. Pages and tools decide where in that range you land.
5. Checks and launch, 1 week, included. Every address that brings you visitors today is listed next to the address it becomes, then completed by hand from a phone. The switch happens outside your busiest weeks, with a way back.
6. Care, monthly, from $1,500, 30 days notice. Monitoring, content changes and small fixes, stoppable by you at any time. It is the only part that repeats, and it locks nothing in.

Phases are billed one at a time, so nothing is owed for work that has not started. If the honest answer is that your site needs three repairs rather than a replacement, Discovery says so, and that is cheaper than a build nobody needed.

What it costs

These are the prices of each phase, published the way the rest of this site publishes them. Your scoped quote fixes the exact perimeter, the price and the timeline, and it does not move after that.

• Discovery: $2,500 for 1 week. A written verdict on the site you run, its visitors and the path they take.
• Architecture: $2,500 for 1 week, credited against the build. The plan, the price and the timeline, in writing.
• Design and build: from $5,000, over 2 to 10 weeks depending on scope. Pages and tools, not hours, decide the total.
• Checks and launch: included in the build. The address list, the checks on real phones, the staged switch.
• Care: from $1,500 a month. Monitoring, content changes and small fixes, with 30 days notice either way.

Two things move the price more than anything else, and you can check both before you call. The first is how many pages you actually need: most sites we read have three or four kinds of page wearing a dozen titles, and merging them lowers the build. The second is how much content already exists. A catalogue with real photographs goes live at the short end of the range; a site where every word has to be written with your team takes longer, and we say so in Architecture rather than halfway through the build.

There is no quote form here, because you cannot decide without a number. You are buying the work, not the hours.

Proof

Food By Box sells 2,500 products from a storefront we rebuilt around its catalogue. Google's speed score for the site reached 95, and monthly visits moved from 20,000 to 500,000 over 24 months. Every address that carried traffic was listed before the switch and still worked after it.

On an independent artist's shop in Florida, the same shop loaded in a little over one second on a phone, down from 4.8 seconds, and nothing it ranked for was lost in the move.

Those numbers are worth more than a paragraph of adjectives because they are measured the same way for everyone. how Google's own speed test is counted is public, so you can run it on your own site this afternoon. the named projects, with the numbers each one moved are published one by one.

The architect who runs the work answers here. Michael Agnassia writes the plan for each project and reads it before it ships, after 15 years in ecommerce, which is why who writes the plan and reads the build sits on the about page with the studio at 78 SW 7th Street in Brickell. what a page written for a reader looks like to a search engine is a page that answers the question in front of it, not one that lists questions to fill space.

What we cannot promise is a position in Google or a sales figure, and a supplier who promises either is selling something nobody controls. What we do put in writing is the measurement, in an account you own: which pages exist, what each asks the visitor to do, and where you count it.

Questions

These are written as a question with a short answer, because that is what Google expects a question and answer block to look like. Every question is visible at once and its answer opens underneath, which is the trade-off between a long visible answer and a collapsed one.

What does this web design FAQ cover on price?

Discovery is $2,500 for one week, Architecture is $2,500 credited against the build, the build starts at $5,000 over 2 to 10 weeks, and Care starts at $1,500 a month. Nothing is billed by the hour.

How long does a project take, and what makes it longer?

A store build runs 6 to 12 weeks end to end: 1 week of Discovery, 1 week of Architecture, 2 to 10 weeks of build, then a week of checks. Content that does not exist yet, and tools nobody has documented, are what push a project right.

Who owns the code, the design and the domain after launch?

You do, on final payment. The domain, the hosting account, the site's files and the account where you read your numbers are in your name from the first release, with written instructions to run them without us.

Who hosts the site, and what does it cost me every month?

You do, on your own account. We set up the publishing, the monitoring and the way back if something goes wrong, and we document how to operate them. Your monthly bill is your hosting, plus Care if you keep us.

What happens if we stop working together?

Care stops with 30 days notice either way, and the handover includes the files, the accounts and a written guide to running them. There is no lock-in clause and no licence you have to keep paying.

Will a new site lose the rankings we already have?

Every address that brings you visitors today is listed next to the address it becomes, then checked before the switch and again after it. On the Food By Box rebuild, every address that carried traffic was kept.

Which ecommerce development questions come up most before a store is replaced?

Three, in this order: what the platform costs to run each year, what happens to the orders during the move, and who ends up owning the shop. what a store build covers that a brochure site does not answers the first two.

Can we keep our own developers in the build?

Yes. Some clients keep their team and use us for the plan and the move, then take the work back in house. The plan is written to be handed to another team.

Do you build on templates or page builders?

No. Pages are built for the content they carry, with a limit written into the scope on how long a page may take to appear on a phone. That is where the numbers in the proof section come from.

Do we have to be in Miami to work with you?

No. The studio is at 78 SW 7th Street in Brickell, we work US Eastern hours, we work on site across South Florida, and we work in English and Spanish. Clients outside Florida get the same weekly release online.

What will you not promise us?

A position in Google, a sales figure, or a launch date that survives a scope change nobody wrote down. What is promised is written into Architecture, and Architecture is signed before the build starts.

How do we send a question that this web design FAQ does not answer?

Write to the address on our contact page and the reply arrives within one business day. A question worth answering gets added here, so the next owner reads it instead of asking it again.

Next

• the five phases and the price attached to each one: what every week includes, published
• book the week that answers your own case: Discovery, 1 week, $2,500, and a written answer at the end of it
• the studio address and the email: anything this page has not answered, replied to within one business day

Sources

• Google Search Central on question and answer structured data
• Nielsen Norman Group on accordions and complex content
• web.dev on how speed is measured on a real phone
• Google Search Central on content written for a reader