SwansonX
See my work
Website design for new and existing business owners

Your business deserves a real website, designed for you, not picked off a shelf.

I'm Sean. I build fast, custom websites for businesses, at agency quality and solo-developer prices. From $100, live in days.

See my work See pricing

Text me anytime: (218) 818-1023. Skip the email if you like. I read and answer every text myself.

  • Fixed price, agreed up front
  • You get the source code
  • Reply within 24 hours
The HydroPeak website: a dark hero headed The dirt isn't permanent over a photo of a technician soft washing a set of stone steps, with a free-quote button and a job card reading 480 PSI
HydroPeak Pressure washing · built end to end See the work
Five businesses at a time

I'll build your homepage for free.

Not a mockup and not a slide deck. A real homepage for your business, live on a URL you can open on your phone and show people. If you like it, we finish the rest of the site at the normal fixed price. If you don't, keep the link. There is nothing to cancel and I won't chase you.

How the free homepage works Start mine

“What an absolute pleasure to have my website done! It was fast, easy, efficient and cost effective! Sean was always right on top of things and replied to my questions almost immediately. I would definitely recommend him/them to anyone who is interested in this type of service! 5 stars for sure!”

Kelly M., Be Bold Balloons
Sean Swanson, founder of SwansonX
Who's building it

Just me. No account managers, no outsourcing.

I'm Sean Swanson, a Minnesota-based designer and developer. Every site on this page was designed and coded by me, personally, at my own desk.

More about me →
Where are you right now?

Two kinds of business owner, one straightforward fix

Most people who call me are in one of these two spots. Both are easy to sort out.

You have no website yet

You're getting your first customers, and every one of them googles you before they call. A real website is the fastest credibility upgrade you can buy.

See how a new business website works →

You built one yourself, and it shows

It loads slowly, it fights you every time you edit it, and it doesn't look like the business you actually run. Upgrading a DIY site is the most common job I do.

Upgrade my DIY website →

What you get

Small business website design, done properly

Everything needed to get your business online and keep it there: build, hosting, and someone to call when it needs changing.

Custom website design

Designed around your business, never dragged out of a template library.

Fast turnaround

Most single-page sites go live inside a week of getting your content.

Hosting, done for you

Domain, hosting and SSL set up and pointed at your name. No nameserver hunting.

Website care plans

Backups, security and monthly edits handled by me, not you.

Search-ready from day one

Proper titles, descriptions and a sitemap, so Google can find you.

Looks right on a phone

Designed for the screen most of your customers will actually use.

After the website

Most businesses outgrow their website

Year one is usually just the site. After that, people start asking for the things a website cannot do on its own.

A booking form that writes to a real database instead of an email you have to retype. A dashboard that shows what came in this week without you adding it up. An internal tool that replaces the spreadsheet three people edit at once, or the software you pay $200 a month for and use two features of.

I quote those the same way as the website: one fixed price, in writing first. No new agency to find, no brief to write from scratch. I already know how your site works, because I wrote it.

Things people have asked me for, or that I would build tomorrow

  • Job scheduling. The week in one place instead of on a whiteboard.
  • Quote tracking. So you can see which ones you never heard back on.
  • Customer records. Yours, exportable, not locked inside someone's CRM.
  • Inventory counts. Read straight by the website, so the site is never wrong.
  • Automated review requests. Sent a few days after the job is finished.

Ask me about something you're paying monthly for →

Agency quality, solo developer price

Why not just use a website builder?

You can, and plenty of people do. Here's the honest comparison so you can decide for yourself.

  DIY builder Design agency SwansonX
Upfront cost $0, then $16-$46 every month $3,000-$10,000+ From $100, once
Time to launch Your weekends, indefinitely 6-12 weeks Days
Truly custom design Template-bound Yes Yes
You get the source code No, locked to the platform Sometimes Always
If you stop paying Site vanishes and you keep nothing Varies Site comes offline, but the code is yours
Who you talk to A help centre article An account manager Me, directly
No mystery

Exactly how your site gets built

Ordinary, industry-standard tools, not anything homemade. You get the source code, so you're never stuck with only me.

  • Hand-written codeNo page builder, no plugin pile-up, so it loads in about a second.
  • Hosted on VercelThe same global infrastructure large companies use.
  • Supabase for dataBookings or orders, in an open-source database you can export any time.

More detail on the stack →

Illustration of a website built from hand-written code, a database and cloud hosting
Recent work

Sites I've built, front to back

Every one of these is a whole site, not a template with the colours changed. Open any of them and click around, then read how it was put together.

Comic book seller

ZedePool Comics

Live2026

A comic-book seller who runs live auctions on Whatnot. Search the shop's name and, until now, nothing useful came up, because Whatnot profile pages barely register in Google. One hand-written page fixes that, carries a custom wolf logo with an animated sting, and sends every visitor to the same button.

  • Static HTML
  • Vanilla JS
  • Logo design
  • Vercel
Read the case study See ZedePool Comics live
  • One page, one actionEvery button on the page says Follow on Whatnot. No contact form, no newsletter, nothing that competes with the follow.
  • Owns its name in searchOrganization schema, a canonical URL, a full Open Graph set, robots.txt and a sitemap. The signals a Whatnot profile page does not send.
  • A logo with a stingA custom wolf logo, picked from four concepts, then animated as a short clip that plays in the hero and stays still for anyone who asked for less motion.
Local service business

HydroPeak

Concept build2026

A marketing site for an invented Charlotte pressure washing company, built the way a real trade business would need it - eighteen prerendered pages covering every service and service area, a filterable photo gallery, drag-to-compare before-and-after sliders, and a three-step quote request. The photography is real; the company is not.

  • Next.js
  • React 19
  • Tailwind v4
  • Motion
Read the case study See HydroPeak live
Creative studio

Nocturne

Concept build2026

A concept site for a fictional design studio, built as a pure front-end craft piece - preloader, trailing cursor, masked line reveals, sticky stacking cards, a scroll-lit manifesto and a count-up timeline. No framework and no runtime dependencies, around 15 kB gzipped.

  • Vanilla JS
  • CSS
  • Vite
  • Motion
Read the case study See Nocturne live

See all 26 projects

The ceiling

This is the top of what I can build

Nocturne is a studio site I designed and built to find out how far the detail goes: a preloader, masked line reveals, stacking cards and a count-up timeline, every effect hand-written, no framework and no runtime dependencies. Almost no small business needs a site like this. It is here because the same hands build the ones that do not.

Read the case study See Nocturne live

How it works

From first message to live site in four steps

No jargon, no long forms, no project-management software to log into.

We talk

A quick chat about your business, your customers, and what the site actually needs to do. Free, no obligation.

I design

You get a real design of your real site: your words, your photos, your colours. Not a stock mockup.

You review

Tell me what to change in plain English. We go back and forth until you're genuinely happy with it.

We launch

I handle the domain, hosting and SSL, put it live, and show you how everything works.

Affordable website design

Straightforward pricing, no surprises

One fixed price between $100 and $600, agreed before I start. An optional care plan if you'd rather never think about it again. I work with almost any budget. If $100 is a stretch right now, tell me the number you can do and I will tell you what it buys, usually a smaller site now and the rest when the business can pay for it.

$100 A one-page site, with your words and photos ready One page is not one small page: About, Services and Contact live on it as sections you scroll through. Design, build, a contact form wired to your inbox, SEO setup, launch and a walkthrough. For a new business that is usually the whole job.
$600 Five pages, with the works A page per service for local search, a gallery or a menu, a booking or quote form, and the Google Business Profile that decides whether you show up in the map results. No website costs more than this unless you are selling online.
$49/mo The care plan, if you want it Hosting, domain and SSL, backups, monitoring, an admin panel, and 3 hours of my work every month, tracked by me. Optional, month to month, and you keep the code if you leave.

See what decides the price

Website builders charge $16-$46 a month and you still make your own edits. The care plan is $49 and includes 3 hours of my work a month, tracked by me, so it costs about what a builder does, with a person inside it. It is month to month and you can stop it whenever you like. What the care plan covers.

Running ads or a funnel?

Just need a landing page?

One focused page beats a five-page site for paid traffic every time: one headline, one offer, one call to action.

$100 one-off, and no monthly plan.
A year of Vercel hosting is included, or I’ll zip you the source code instead.

Get a landing page quote See one I built
  • Built around one clear call to action
  • Loads fast, so you don’t burn ad spend
  • Form or booking wired straight to you
  • Tracking ready for Meta or Google Ads
  • A year of Vercel hosting, or zipped to you
Questions

The things people ask before hiring me

How much does a website for a new business cost?

A one-page site is $100 and a five-page site is $600, and everything else lands in between. Either can run on the $49/month care plan afterward: hosting, maintenance and 3 hours of work a month included, tracked by me. You get a fixed quote before any work begins. If you'd rather see the work before you spend anything, I'll build your homepage for free first.

What if my budget is less than $100?

Tell me the number. I work with almost any budget, and a smaller number usually buys a smaller site now, with the rest added when the business can pay for it. If the honest answer is that a free Google Business Profile would serve you better than a website this year, I will say that instead of taking your money, and the free homepage is there whatever your budget is.

Is one page enough for my business?

For a new business, usually yes. A one-page site is not one small page: About, Services, Contact, your photos, your prices and your reviews all sit on it as sections you scroll through, and the menu jumps you straight down to each one. A visitor gets everything in one place without clicking around, which is exactly what you want when someone is checking you out on their phone. Separate pages start earning their keep when you want a page per service for local search, and that is what the five-page build is for.

How fast can I get a website for my new business?

Most starter sites go live within a week of me receiving your content; multi-page builds usually take one to two weeks. Tell me your deadline and I'll be straight about whether it's doable.

Do I have to pay monthly?

The care plan is month to month. Cancel any month, no contract and no cancellation fee, and you keep the source code, so the site can go to any developer you like. The build itself is a one-off. If you want me hosting it and looking after it, that is what the $49/month care plan is for. If you'd rather not have a monthly cost at all, say so before we start and I'll quote the build on its own and hand you the code.

What does the $49/month care plan actually include?

Hosting, your domain and SSL, backups, monitoring, an admin panel you can write and edit from, and 3 hours of my work every month, tracked by me, so you always know where you stand. A website builder alone is $16 to $46 a month and you still make your own edits. Small edits under ten minutes don't touch those hours at all. The care plan, explained in full.

What if I already have a DIY website?

That's genuinely useful. It tells me what you like and don't. I'll rebuild it properly and move your domain across with no downtime. More on DIY upgrades here.

Do you only work with businesses in Minnesota?

I'm Minnesota-based and love working with local businesses, but the whole process works over email and video calls, and I work with clients across the US.

Can I edit the website myself afterwards?

Yes, and I'll show you how. The care plan comes with an admin panel for your text, photos and blog posts, and a drag-and-drop editor if you'd rather move things around by hand. If you'd rather not touch any of it, email me the change instead and it's done.

Where I work

A web designer in Brainerd, working across Minnesota

I'm based in Brainerd, and most of the businesses I build for are Minnesota small businesses, around the lakes, down in the Twin Cities, and everywhere between. The work itself happens over email and video calls, so being outside the area (or outside the state) doesn't change the price or the timeline.

Brainerd and the lakes area

  • Brainerd
  • Baxter
  • Nisswa
  • Pequot Lakes
  • Crosslake
  • Breezy Point
  • Little Falls
  • Aitkin
  • Crosby
  • Staples

Twin Cities metro

  • Minneapolis
  • St. Paul
  • Bloomington
  • Brooklyn Park
  • Plymouth
  • Woodbury
  • Maple Grove
  • Eagan
  • Eden Prairie
  • Coon Rapids
  • Burnsville
  • Blaine
  • Lakeville
  • Minnetonka
  • Apple Valley
  • Edina
  • St. Louis Park
  • Roseville
  • Shakopee
  • Chanhassen

More on website design in Brainerd and Baxter, or in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Somewhere else in Minnesota, or somewhere else entirely? Still fine. Tell me where you are and I'll quote it the same way.

Let's get your business online.

Tell me what you do and where you're at. I'll reply within 24 hours with honest advice and a fixed price, whether or not you end up hiring me.

Get my free quote Email me directly