How long does building a website take: Should we expect 4 weeks or 4 months?

We had a similar site built in Berlin last year for our 6-person architecture studio. The contract said 6 weeks, but it took a solid 14 weeks. The agency delivered the designs in 3 weeks, but we spent 5 weeks just reviewing, editing, and handing over the bilingual text. Our own internal bureaucracy ate up almost half the timeline.

Unless there's a custom API integration outside the bilingual setup and lead forms, the pure coding phase takes at most 10-15 business days. Even on something like WordPress with a custom theme build, QA included, the dev work shouldn't exceed a month. Delays almost always happen while waiting on sign-offs for DNS cutovers, corporate email migrations, and form deliverability testing.

Do the agencies' proposals clearly specify revision terms and who is responsible for content entry? If you are providing all the copy and translations and the agency is just laying it out, 4 months is way too long. But if German copywriting and localization are handled by the agency, that timeline starts to make sense.

If you want to keep the timeline tight, do these before you even sit down with an agency: 1) Finalize the site map, 2) Gather all team bios and headshots in a single drive folder 3) Have your German service descriptions drafted. Hand over all the materials up front and they won't go past 8 weeks.

people promising delivery in 4 weks usually just install a demo tweak the colors and call it a day. then the forms dont work mobile layout breaks and you end up waiting another 2 months for fixes. like dont rush it but 4 months is definitely stringing you along.

An agency asking for 12.000 EUR and quoting 4 months sounds like a capacity management issue to me. If they're juggling 10 different projects at once, yours will just sit on the back burner. Propose adding a strict delivery deadline and penalty clauses for delays into the contract, and watch how quickly that timeline drops to 7 weeks.

The process typically follows this timeline: 1) First two weeks for wireframes and site architecture approval, 2) Weeks three and four for UI design and visual identity, 3) Weeks five and six for coding and mobile responsiveness, 4) Final two weeks for content migration, legal pages, and form testing. An 8-week total is ideal.

We made a similar mistake three years ago. The agency promised a 6-week delivery, so we signed the contract. By week six, the design was ready, but taking team photos, drafting the German service copy, and ensuring tax compliance took us a full two months. In the end, the site went live in the fifth month, but that wasn't on the agency at all—it was completely down to our own lack of preparation.

Yes, thats exactly how it is with website build timeline. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later as both sides remember it differently.

Good luck with that.

This thread is archived.

It's rare to find an explanation this clear.

Could you elaborate on that? When making a decision first look at what data you have on hand.

When we decide without measuring, we always end up in the same place. Hope this helps.

I'd appreciate it if you shared the outcome.

Thanks, this was very helpful.

There is something to watch out for. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right.

Most time waste accumulates in tasks waiting for approval.

I didn't know that.

Good call starting this thread.

Correct.