When you embark on the website creation journey, you inevitably ask yourself how long it’s going to take. Here’s a breakdown of all the factors involved!
Budget: the primary factor in website development time
Website development time depends primarily on the budget you allocate to it. Beyond that, the complexity of the project determines its duration — which is, more or less, directly tied to budget. An e-commerce site will require significantly more time than a business showcase site. However, if you spend an equivalent budget on both, they may require similar amounts of time — because part of a showcase site’s budget might go into more advanced animations and design work, for example. The larger the budget, the more time the agency or freelancer will invest in developing your site properly.
To help you plan, service providers use what is called a TJM (daily rate). This corresponds to 8 hours of work per day for a given fee in euros. Ask your web creator for their TJM. If it equals €400/day, that means for €2,000, it will take them 1 week (5 days) — since they’ll spend the amount of time that the budget allows. Then, the question becomes one of their availability. If the person or agency can start your project right away, you’ll have the exact production timeline.
Note: Beware — the rate of a professional reflects their experience and knowledge. A low TJM doesn’t mean a bargain; it often means the opposite. You can’t imagine how much money and time an inexperienced person can cost you. Longer delays, lower quality work. You may even need to hire an expert to fix the problems, start over, and push the launch date further and further back.
Other factors influencing timeline
As a general rule, if you work with a single freelancer to create your site, the time spent is naturally going to be higher. That said, here are the main elements that can be included in a website project and influence the timeline:
- Creating a brand identity from scratch (logo, colors, etc.)
- Undefined scope (specifications that change as the project progresses…)
- SEO (organic search optimization)
- SEA (paid search advertising)
- …
How long does a typical business (showcase) website take on average?
Creating a showcase site generally takes a few weeks of work. It’s important to note that good organization between the client and the developer is paramount — it directly impacts delivery speed. If everyone works together efficiently, a showcase site can undoubtedly be delivered in less than two weeks.
Again, if the budget is large — for example, a 3D showcase site — the time required can multiply tenfold very quickly.
If you want to build the site yourself from scratch and do it properly, expect to invest several years.
How long for a complex technical website?
Again, it comes down to budget. In any case, a complex technical site can easily take 3 to 9 months to build. The good news: the site can go live once it’s functional, without necessarily having all planned features ready from day one. Additional functionality can be integrated progressively while the site is already live and accessible.
Estimated time at créateur2site.fr
To best estimate the time needed to build your site, it is far preferable to share your project and budget with us. This way, we can determine the timeline as precisely as possible based on everyone’s availability — since you can also extend the development time by being slow to provide the required materials and deliverables. If available and for the minimum budget, you can typically count on just over one week of production time.