A standard business website takes 3 to 6 weeks from kickoff to launch. A small brochure site can be 2 to 3 weeks; an e-shop or a multi-language site with custom features is 6 to 10 weeks. The single biggest cause of delay is not development — it is content that is not ready.
The stages
- Discovery (2–4 days): goals, audience, structure, and what the site must do.
- Design (1–2 weeks): layout and visual direction, reviewed and revised.
- Build (1–3 weeks): pages, responsiveness, forms, integrations, speed.
- Content load and QA (3–7 days): real text and images in place, testing on real devices.
- Launch (1 day): DNS, analytics, final checks.
Why content is the bottleneck
Development can move fast. Waiting three weeks for the "About" text, product descriptions, or photos cannot be sped up by the developer. Projects that hit their date are the ones where content is written in parallel with design, not after the build.
How to keep it on schedule
- Agree the page list before design starts and do not add pages mid-build.
- Assign one decision-maker on your side. Feedback by committee doubles every review.
- Prepare photos and text early, or agree who is writing them and by when.
- Book the launch date at kickoff so it is a commitment, not a hope.
A fixed timeline is a feature
Siren Web Studio sets the delivery date at the start and scopes the work to hit it, rather than billing open-ended hours while the date drifts.
See how projects are scoped.