Open with a real website, and nothing you don't need yet.
The first ninety days are the ones you'll never get back. Nobody's heard of you, so every enquiry matters more now than it ever will again — and that's exactly when you have the least time and the least money to handle them properly.
- Website, card and logo, $699
- Live in about two weeks
- Domain and profile in your name
Everything you need to open, for $699.
One price, agreed in writing, covering the things a business genuinely cannot open without. It is for businesses under a year old, or not trading yet — that is the whole reason it costs what it does.
A one-page website
Everything a new business actually needs on one page that scrolls: what you do, who it's for, your area, your hours, your prices if you want them on there, and a form that reaches your inbox. Not a thin page — a complete one.
Business card design
Print-ready, matched to the site, yours as files you keep. The thing you hand somebody at the moment they ask what you do.
A logo and branding
If you need one. Colors, type and a mark that works at the size of a favicon and the size of a van. Already have a logo you like? Keep it — this part is optional and the price is the same either way.
3 months of Site Care, free
Hosting, domain and SSL, backups, monitoring and small edits. After the 3 months it's $49/month, cancellable any month with no fee. Nothing charges automatically.
And if you stay
Stay past the 3 free months and the first custom tool you have built is 20% off.
By then you will have run the business long enough to know what the tool should do, which is the only point at which it is worth building. How a build works →
Been trading a while? This one is not for you, and I would rather say so than take the money. A custom site starts at $1,495 and a landing page at $1,195.
Three things arrive at once, and they're related.
You're doing the work, not answering the phone
In a new business the owner is also the crew. The enquiry arrives while your hands are full, and someone who hears nothing back from a company they've never heard of simply moves to the next name on the list.
You have no reviews yet
Nothing to point a stranger at, which makes the website the only proof you exist. It has to do the job a recommendation would normally do.
Everything costs money you haven't made yet
This is the real reason new businesses end up on a builder subscription they'll still be paying in five years. Not preference. Cash.
A website nobody replies from is a brochure. A tool with no customers to put in it is a hobby. So the order matters, and for a brand-new business the order is almost always the same one.
In this order, and not all at once.
A real website, from $1,495
Your pages, your words, a contact form wired to your inbox, the SEO foundations, and your Google Business Profile set up in your name. Hand-built, not a template. You get the source code. Half up front to book, half on launch.
Or a free homepage first, if you'd rather see the work
I build one real homepage, free, live on a link you keep whatever you decide. No card, nothing to sign. It counts toward the full site if you go ahead. How that works →
Then run the business by hand for a while
This is the part nobody sells you. You don't know your own process in month one, and software built around a guess is worse than a spreadsheet. Do it manually, badly, and write down what annoys you.
Build the tool once you know what it has to do
When the workarounds have become the job, that's the moment a custom build pays for itself rather than being an expensive guess. From $2,995, quoted in writing. What that involves →
Keep it running, if you want someone to
Site Care is $49/month for a website. The Partner Plan is $300/month once there's software to look after. Both cancel any month, no fee. All prices →
Three reasons not to buy anything from me yet.
You haven't got a customer yet. If you've never sold the thing to anyone, spend the next month selling it by hand, badly, to people you know. You'll learn what your website should say, and you'll find out whether the business works at all. That's worth more than anything I can build. Come back when you have proof.
You want to see the work before you spend anything. Fair, and there's a better door for that: I build a real homepage for free, live on a real address, 5 businesses at a time. If you like it, the full site is still here and the homepage counts toward it. If you don't, you keep the link.
The budget genuinely is zero. Then don't borrow to buy this. Read the guide to building it yourself instead, which is free and doesn't end in a sales pitch, and put the money into whatever actually gets you customers this month. I'd rather you came back in a year with a working business than started with a debt and my invoice in it.
What people ask before they open.
How long does a site take?
What do you need from me?
Do I own the domain?
What if I can't afford it yet?
Should I buy software too?
Do you work with nonprofits?
Tell me what you're opening.
No pitch back, no call to book. Within 24 hours you get a fixed number in writing, what I'd do first, and an honest note if I think you should wait.