Web design for small businesses
I'm Alex, and I build websites for small businesses. Answer a few questions and you'll get an estimate on the spot — then I build one simple homepage for free, so you can see the direction before you spend a dollar.
Measured on your device, just now. Every site I build is this light — that's what stops people leaving before your page finishes loading.
What you get
Most local businesses don't need anything clever. They need to be findable, readable on a phone, and easy to contact. That's what I build.
Most people looking you up are standing outside your door on a bad connection. The site opens before they give up.
Your hours, phone number, address and services written the way search engines read them, plus your Google listing sorted out.
Photos of your shop, your trucks, your finished jobs. No stock photos of people in headsets.
Messages land in your inbox and you reply straight back to the customer. No login, no portal, no dashboard to remember to check.
If it breaks, goes down, or the domain is about to expire, it's my problem and you don't get an invoice for it.
New hours, new price, new photo — one a month is part of the plan. Text me and it's usually live the same day.
How it works
Nobody should have to hand a stranger hundreds of dollars for something they can't picture yet. So I build one simple homepage first, for nothing, and you decide from there.
The homepage mock-up is free — one version, no changes. If you want the full site after seeing it, half is due before I start and half when it's finished. Your changes and the rest of the pages are part of that build.
What your business does, which pages you need, what colours feel right. At the end you get an estimate for the whole site.
Two to four days later I text you a link. A real working page, kept simple on purpose — enough to show you the direction, not the finished article.
Say no and that's the end of it — you've paid nothing and owe nothing. Say yes and the changes, the polish and the rest of the pages all start.
Half the price starts the build, the rest when you've seen the finished site. Then it goes live on your own domain the same day.
Why it costs less than you expect
That's the whole trick, and I'd rather tell you than have you wonder. Work that took an agency three weeks and a team of four takes me a few days on my own — so I charge a few hundred dollars instead of a few thousand, and I can afford to build yours before you've paid me anything.
You're not getting less website. You're getting the same website without paying for someone's office.
What it costs
A two-page site for a barber shouldn't cost the same as a six-page site with online booking, so there's no flat fee. Here's how the number is put together — the form works out yours in five minutes.
What turns that simple homepage into a real website — your changes, your extra pages, your own domain. Half before I start, half when it's in front of you.
Every site I build is on this. It's what keeps the domain paid, the site online and someone answering when something goes wrong.
Skip this whole column if you just need people to find you and call. Most businesses do.
Only if you've already used your monthly one. Hours, prices, wording, swapping photos. Anything under five minutes I just do.
A page that didn't exist before: a new service, a location, a gallery. Flat price, no matter how long it takes me.
Send whatever you've got, even phone photos. I crop, straighten and compress them so the site stays fast. No stock images unless you ask.
Canadian dollars. Builds are half up front, half on completion; the first half isn't refundable once work has started. No contract on the monthly — cancel any month, and the domain and files are handed over to you free of charge.
Questions I get asked
Never before you've seen your homepage — that part is free. Once you've seen it and want the full site, it's half up front to start the build and half when the finished site is in front of you.
Not once I've started building, no. It pays for work I've already done rather than for the finished site, and a week spent on your website is a week I can't sell to anyone else. The one exception: if I don't deliver what we agreed, you get it back. Up until you pay it, walking away costs you nothing.
You keep the deposit's worth of work as nothing — the site lives on my link until it's paid for in full, so it never reaches your domain. I'd rather that never happens, which is why you see a real homepage before you commit to anything.
Yes. I build one simple homepage from your answers before you've paid me anything. If you don't want it, you say no and we're done — I keep the work, you keep your money.
Not before you've committed, no. The free one is a single version built from your answers — deliberately simple, enough to show you the direction and the standard of the work. Changes, wording, colours and polish are all part of the build, and they start once the deposit's in. Otherwise I'd be redesigning pages for people who were never going to hire me, which is why the free part has to have an edge to it.
The mock-up is a preview sitting on my link. The $399 is what makes it a real website — your own domain, your own email address, a working contact form and your Google listing. Extra pages are $90 each on top.
Because a plain site just has to stay online, and those don't. They run on outside software I pay for, they break in ways a page of text can't, and they cost you real money the hour they stop working. The monthly covers those services and me testing them.
The $39 covers one calendar. Every extra person who takes their own appointments costs me another licence, so I'll quote it rather than guess — tell me how many of you there are and I'll give you the number before I build.
One, and only if you take payments: card processors like Stripe keep a percentage of each sale — about 2.9% plus 30 cents on a Canadian card. That comes out of your takings and goes to them, not me. Everything else your site needs is inside the monthly.
The box with your hours, phone number, photos and reviews that appears beside the map when someone searches your name. For a local business it often matters more than the website. I set it up with you — Google verifies the owner, usually by postcard or a phone call, so you have to be there for that part.
You get an email and thirty days. After that the site comes offline, because the hosting and the domain were being paid for out of the monthly. Nothing is deleted and nothing is held over you.
Any time, free. I move the domain into an account in your name and hand over every file. Another web person can have it back online the same afternoon — it's an ordinary website, not a system only I understand.
Me, every time. I'm a programming student, I build every site myself, and I answer my own phone. No account manager, no ticket queue.
Get started
You'll have your estimate before you finish the form and a simple homepage to look at before you've paid anything. If you'd rather just talk it through, call me instead.
