FAQ
Questions, including the awkward ones.
If yours isn’t here, call me and ask. I’d rather answer it in two minutes than have you guess.
Money
Price, payment and ongoing costs
Why is it only $800 when agencies quote thousands?
Because the job is genuinely smaller than agencies price it as, and my costs are low. There’s no office, no sales team, no project manager, and no discovery workshop to bill for. The hosting I put you on is free. I run this part-time, so the $800 doesn’t have to cover a payroll.
I also use AI tooling for the repetitive parts of a build, which is a real part of the efficiency. The honest trade-off is that I’m newer at this than a fifteen-year-old agency, and I take one project at a time.
Is $800 really the whole price?
For the standard five-page build, yes. The only things that add to it are listed on the pricing page before you start: a sixth page is $100, a one-week rush is $200, and revisions beyond the two included rounds are $50/hour. GST is added where it applies.
You will never get an invoice for something we didn’t discuss first. That’s the entire point of a flat rate.
How and when do I pay?
$400 to book your build slot, $400 when the site goes live and you’re happy with it. E-transfer or cheque, and you get a proper invoice either way.
You see the finished site on a private link before the balance is due. You’re not paying the second half for something you haven’t seen.
Is the hosting really free, or free for a year?
Genuinely free, indefinitely. Your site is a set of static files served by Cloudflare Pages, whose free tier includes unlimited bandwidth and permits commercial use. There’s no trial period and no card on file for it.
The one recurring cost is your domain name — roughly $15–25 a year, paid to your registrar, not to me. Business email, if you want you@yourbusiness.ca, is about $8/month from Google or Microsoft.
Why no monthly maintenance plan?
Because a five-page static site doesn’t need one, and I’m not going to invent a reason to bill you monthly. There’s no database to back up, no plugins to update, and no software that goes out of date and gets exploited.
When you do need something changed, it’s $50/hour with a one-hour minimum, and I’ll quote you the time before I start. Most clients spend under an hour a year.
The work
Scope, timeline and what you need to provide
How long does it take?
About two weeks from deposit to live, assuming you can get me your text and photos in the first few days. If you can’t, that’s completely fine — we just start the clock when you’re ready rather than me chasing you.
A one-week rush build is available for an extra $200, subject to my having a slot.
What do I actually need to give you?
Less than you’d think. A rough sense of what your five pages should be, whatever text you already have (bullet points are fine — I’ll shape them), any photos of your work, your logo if you have one, and your contact details and hours.
If you don’t have photos, I’ll use decent stock imagery and I’ll tell you plainly which images are stock. If you don’t have a logo, I’ll set your business name in good type, which is honestly fine for a lot of trades.
What if I need more than five pages?
A sixth page is $100, and the same for each page after that. If you need fifteen pages we should talk, because at that size a different approach probably serves you better and I’ll say so.
My honest advice: most small businesses are better with five pages that are genuinely up to date than fifteen that are half-finished.
What if I don’t like what you build?
Two rounds of revisions are included, and you see the site on a private link before anything goes public and before the balance is due. In practice, the written scope we agree in step two means there aren’t many surprises by then.
If we get to the first draft and it’s clearly not working between us, I’ll return your deposit and we’ll shake hands. I’d rather do that than argue.
Can you redo my existing website?
Yes, and it’s the same $800. Rebuilding an old site is usually easier than starting from nothing, because the text mostly exists already.
One caveat: if your current site has a store, a booking system, or customer logins, I can’t carry those over — that’s outside what I build. Call me before you assume either way.
Do you build online stores, booking systems or logins?
No, none of them, and this isn’t modesty — it’s deliberate scope. No e-commerce, no payment processing, no customer accounts, no databases, no stored customer data.
Keeping that line firm is what makes the flat price honest, the timeline real, and the site something that won’t break or get breached. If you need those things, tell me on the first call and I’ll point you toward the right tool or person.
Trust
Ownership, risk and the things you should ask
Who owns the website and the domain?
You do, completely. The domain is registered in your business’s name, on your card, at a registrar you control. The hosting is on your own Cloudflare account, with me added as a member you can remove in two clicks.
This is worth checking with anyone you hire, not just me. A surprising number of small businesses find out years later that their old web developer owns their domain and won’t release it.
What happens if you get too busy, or quit?
Your site keeps running, because it doesn’t depend on me. It’s static files on hosting registered to you, with a domain in your name, and a handoff document listing every account and login.
That’s the honest answer to “you’re a one-person part-time business, what if you disappear?” — I’ve set it up so that my disappearing is an inconvenience rather than a disaster. You could hand the folder to any developer.
Can I move to another developer later?
Easily, and I’ll help with the transition rather than make it difficult. The site is plain HTML and CSS — no proprietary builder, no licensed theme, no framework anyone has to learn. Any competent developer can pick it up and edit it.
What if the site goes down or the form stops working?
Call me and I’ll sort it out. Realistically it’s very unlikely: there’s no server to crash and no software to break. Cloudflare’s uptime is far better than anything I could offer, and better than most agencies’ hosting.
The most common real-world failure is a domain that expires because a renewal email went to an old address. Your handoff document tells you exactly how to avoid that.
You’re newer at this. Why should I take the risk?
Fair question, and I’d ask it too. Here’s what I’d offer against it: the price is fixed and written down before we start, half of it isn’t due until you’ve seen the finished site, everything ends up owned by you, and there are three complete example builds on this site you can click through right now and judge for yourself.
You can also judge this website. It’s the same kind of thing I’d build for you — open it on your phone, or run it through Google PageSpeed Insights.
Will my site show up on Google?
I set the technical foundations up correctly: proper page titles and descriptions, a sitemap, fast load times, mobile-friendly layout, and local business markup so Google understands what you do and where you are. I’ll also set up and verify your Google Business Profile at no charge, which for a local business matters more than almost anything on the site itself.
What I won’t do is promise rankings or sell you ongoing SEO. Anyone guaranteeing you the top spot for a competitive search is not being straight with you.
Do you work outside Edmonton?
Yes — anywhere in Canada, at the same price. I’m in Edmonton and happy to meet locally if you’d rather do it in person, but the whole process works fine over phone and email, and most of it does.
Still wondering
Ask me the one I didn’t answer.
Call and ask, or send it in writing. Either way you’ll get a straight answer, including “no” if that’s the honest one.