The honest answer is: it depends on how much of the timeline is actually in our hands. A website build has two clocks running - the time we spend designing and building, and the time spent waiting on content, feedback and sign-off. The second one is usually the longer of the two, and it's the one most agencies don't mention upfront.

For a straightforward business site, our own build time is typically a few weeks once a brief is locked in. That covers design, development, content going in, and testing across devices before launch. A bigger build - a full product catalogue like Aktron's, or an online store - takes longer, mostly because there's more content to organise and more moving parts to test properly before it goes live.

What actually slows a build down almost never has to do with the build itself. It's waiting on logo files, waiting on product photos, waiting on a decision about wording on the homepage. None of that is a criticism - businesses are busy, and a website usually isn't the only thing on anyone's plate that week. But it's worth knowing going in, because “how long will it take” is really two questions: how long will we take, and how long will you take.

If timing matters - a launch date tied to an event, a busy season you need to be ready for - say so at the brief stage. We'll structure the project around it instead of finding out it mattered three weeks in.