How long does it really take?

For a classic brochure site, count three to five evenings with a method, and double or triple without one. The difference does not come from the tool: it comes from the round trips you avoid when every request is framed.

What is the total budget?

The tool subscription, a domain name and hosting: a few dozen euros a month. Against that, a freelancer charges 800 to 3,000 € and an agency 2,000 to 10,000 € for the same brochure site, plus monthly upkeep.

Where do I actually start?

Not with “build me a website”. First the frame — the instruction sheet in an empty folder — then a first request that describes the pages you want and ends with “show me the plan, do not write any code yet”.

Build your site with AI, no coding: the guide

You have the tool, you have the time, you have even written your text. What you lack is the order: what to start with, what to ask first, when to stop. So you improvise, you start everything at once, and you end up with plenty begun and nothing finished.

Building your site with an AI and no coding takes five steps: set the frame before the first request, approve a page plan, build page by page, supply every fact and price yourself, then run a checklist before publishing. Count evenings, not weeks — and the frame decides which.

The first-minute mistake

Almost everyone starts the same way: opening the tool and typing “build me a website for my business”. And almost everyone gets the same thing: something impressive, wide of the mark, that they will spend evenings straightening out.

The first request sets the level of everything that follows. Which is why step one is not a request — it is a preparation.

Step one — the frame before the first request

Before asking for anything, install the frame: the instruction sheet that says what the project is and how you want to work, in an empty folder. Fifteen minutes, no code. The full detail is in the framing guide.

That quarter of an hour is the best investment of the project: everything you write there, you will never repeat again.

Step two — the page plan, before any code

Your first real request describes the site, then does the most profitable thing of the whole project: it demands the structure before the construction. You want the list of pages and what each one holds, and you want it before a single line of code exists.

You validate a structure in five minutes of reading, instead of discovering in a half-built site that half is missing. You also refuse, right here, everything that overflows: no blog, no newsletter “while we’re at it”. A short version one that ships beats an ambitious one that never does.

Step three — page by page, one conversation per page

Build in the order of the plan, one page at a time, and open a fresh conversation for each page — it is also what makes your subscription last.

After each page, ask it where things stand — and above all what is still unfinished. An AI asked only for the result answers “done”. An AI also asked what is missing answers honestly.

Step four — the facts come from you, never from it

The site’s copy is about your business: services, prices, hours, address. That information comes from you, in bulk if you like — but never from the AI’s imagination. An AI missing a piece of information completes it with something plausible, and a plausible-but-wrong price on a published site costs real money.

The protective wording: “write using only this information; whatever is missing, mark it [MISSING INFO], invent nothing.” Visible gaps in the text are a good sign — the system is working.

Step five — the checklist before publishing

Publishing is not the tail end of step four, it is a step of its own: every page opens, no dead links, the contact form tested with a real received message, the site readable on your phone, no password in the files, the legal pages in place.

The form deserves special attention: it is the most frequent and most expensive launch bug there is — it says “thank you” and notifies nobody, for weeks.

And before all of that, from the very first evening: the backup net. It is what turns the project’s worst evening into a simple step back.

The honest calculation, to finish

Your alternative has a known price: 800 to 3,000 € freelance, 2,000 to 10,000 € agency, upkeep on top. The AI option costs a few dozen euros a month — and your evenings. How many evenings depends almost entirely on the method above. The full calculation, hourly rate included, is in AI or agency.