How long a website project really takes — and what makes it slip
A fair website project timeline for a UK service business is 7–15 working days from a clean brief to a live launch. Most projects that overrun don't overrun in the design phase — they overrun in the three quiet gaps where nobody is technically waiting on anyone. Here's the honest breakdown of where time actually goes, and how to protect the schedule.
The seven stages, in real time
Every Project Pixel build moves through the same seven stages. Rough working-day estimates for a Pixel Ten-scale site — smaller packages compress, bespoke builds expand.
- 01Deposit and kickoff — day 0 to 1.
- 02Brief and content collection — day 1 to 3 (the biggest variable).
- 03Sitemap and copy pass — day 3 to 5.
- 04Design in browser — day 5 to 8.
- 05Build, integrations and analytics — day 7 to 11.
- 06Client review and revisions — day 11 to 13.
- 07Pre-launch QA, DNS and go-live — day 13 to 15.
Where a website project timeline actually slips
Three specific gaps eat weeks and none of them are 'design took longer'. They're every project's honest slowest steps — and every one is solvable before you start.
- 01Content: photos, testimonials and page copy arriving in dribs. Fixed by writing copy against a supplied outline in the first week, not the last.
- 02Approvals: a two-line email that sits in an inbox for four days. Fixed with a nominated single decision-maker and a review window everyone agrees to.
- 03Third-party access: domain registrars, hosting, analytics, CRM logins. Fixed by pulling every login into a single doc on day one.
What compresses the timeline (and what doesn't)
More designers rarely speeds a small site up — coordination overhead eats the gain. What genuinely compresses a website project timeline is scope discipline (no mid-flight page additions), copy signed off before design starts, and a single point of contact on your side. Skipping SEO, skipping analytics or skipping QA doesn't save time either; it moves the work to the fortnight after launch, usually badly.
How to plan around a launch date
Working backwards from a real launch date — a conference, a funding round, a Google Ads start date — is the cleanest way to run a project. Count 15 working days back for a standard build, plus a week for content-gathering. Trying to sync a launch to a Friday afternoon rarely works; midweek launches leave a full day for surprises and warm handover to whoever is on support.
Ongoing work starts on launch day, not launch day plus one
The healthiest sites are the ones where SEO content, monthly hosting and small iterative changes are already agreed on the launch call — not an afterthought once the build is 'done'. A launched site with no ongoing plan is the single biggest waste of the money you spent building it.
A realistic website project timeline isn't decided by the designer's speed. It's decided by content, decisions and access. Sort those three before day one and 15 working days is generous, not tight.