Cooks call it mise en place: everything chopped, measured and in its bowl before the stove goes on. A website project works the same way. It can only move as fast as the things it's waiting on: the words, the photos, a login, a yes.
On my plans, a site goes live about 30 days after you finish intake, the questionnaire you fill in after paying. That depends on you too, because I can only build with your content. So here is what to gather before you start. It works whoever you hire, and where my process asks for something specific, I say so.
What the site is for, and who it's for
Before pages or colors, write down three things:
- What you sell or do, in a sentence or two.
- Who your typical customer is.
- Where you are, and whether you serve your town, a region or anywhere.
Then pick the top three things the site should do. My intake offers get calls and leads, sell online, take bookings, show my work, publish content, or something else, and it stops you at three.
The limit is the point: each page should know what it wants a visitor to do next.
The pages you need
List them. My intake's checklist is Home, About, Services, Products or shop, Pricing, Portfolio, Blog, Contact and FAQ, with room for another. Count them, because page count is what sizes a plan: Starter covers 5 pages, Deluxe 7 and Premium 10. An extra page, designed and built, is $250. A blog is set up on Deluxe and Premium; on Starter it's quoted first.
Note anything the site has to do or connect to: a booking calendar, a map, a newsletter signup, a shop, a CRM or a point-of-sale system. My intake tags each feature as included in your plan, a fixed-price add-on or quoted, and connections to other systems are scoped and quoted separately. If you have a current site, write down what's wrong with it and what's worth keeping. Intake asks that too.
The words, or who writes them
Decide this early. Intake asks whether you have the words, have some of them, or want them written. Premium includes copy written for every page. On Starter and Deluxe, copywriting is $150 a page.
If you write them yourself, a plain document is fine. Gather:
- Each service, with a line or two on what it includes.
- Prices, or "from" prices, if you show them.
- Hours, phone number and the area you serve.
- A few lines about you and how you started.
- The questions customers ask you most, with your answers.
My files step takes Word documents, PDFs and plain text: copy, menus, price lists, notes.
Photos: your own or stock
Every plan includes stock photos I source, and intake asks whether you have professional photos, phone photos, or want stock. If you have your own, the files step asks for photos of you, your team, your place and your work. Send the original files if you have them. The files step takes JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF, up to 25 MB a file and 500 MB in all.
What you give me stays yours, and you confirm you have the right to use it. So only send photos you took, paid for, or have permission to use.
Where you can, use your own. Stock fills gaps well, but only you have photos of your actual shop, team and work.
Your logo and colors
Find the original logo file, not a screenshot. My files step takes SVG, PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or PDF, and whoever designed your logo may still have the original. For colors and fonts, hex codes, Pantone numbers or font names are ideal, and a plain description works too.
No logo yet? Logo design is a $900 add-on. A brand kit (a logo, colors, type and social templates) is $2,500.
Your domain, and the login to it
Know four things about your domain: which one it is, where it's registered, whose name it's in, and who has the login. If someone else registered it for you, sort that out first. My guide to domains, hosting and email explains why it should be in your name, and who owns your website has the bigger picture. If you don't have one yet, see how to choose a domain name.
On my plans, the domain is yours from the start. You register it in your own name, in your own account, and point it to Cloudflare, where I set up and manage its DNS records.
If you already have email at that domain, say so up front. When a domain moves to Cloudflare, its email records have to move with it, and Cloudflare's own setup guide says its automatic scan isn't guaranteed to find every existing record, with email records among those to check (Cloudflare docs). If your email already has trouble, why business email lands in spam explains the records involved.
Your Google Business Profile
Your Business Profile is your listing on Google Search and Maps. Find out who owns it and whether you can sign in. If someone else set it up, ask them to make you an owner. When you bring someone in to help, add them as a manager rather than sharing your password. Google says each person needs their own Google Account for that, and that managers can do almost everything an owner can except add or remove users or remove the profile (Google Business Profile Help).
No profile yet? Setting up your Google Business Profile walks through it, or I'll set it up for $150 (add-ons).
Sites you like, and why
Intake asks for three sites you like, "any site, not just your industry," and what you like about each. It also asks for words for how yours should feel (clean, bold, playful, luxe, rustic, techy, warm, minimal) and anything to avoid.
The why is the useful part. "The menu is easy to read on a phone" tells a designer more than a link on its own.
Who decides, and how fast you can answer
Name the one person who approves the design and the words. If two partners both need to say yes, agree now on how you'll settle a split.
In my process, I review your intake and start on your design, which usually takes one to two weeks. You see it on a private preview and click Approve. Two revision rounds are included, and another round is $100. A design left unanswered for 14 days counts as approved, after reminders on day 7 and day 12. If I ask for content or a decision and hear nothing for 30 days, I may carry on with stock photos and placeholder text, or pause. After 90 days without a word, I may close the project.
None of that is meant to rush you. It's there so a project doesn't stall halfway.
The short version
- What you do, who for, where, and the site's top three jobs
- A page list, and any features or connections
- The words, or a decision on who writes them
- Your own photos, or a yes to stock
- Your logo file and colors
- Your domain: where it's registered, whose name, who has the login
- Who owns your Google Business Profile
- Three sites you like, and why
- Your services, prices and hours, in one document
- One person who says yes
Ready to start
My plans are Starter at $2,400 for 5 pages, Deluxe at $4,080 for 7, and Premium at $6,720 for 10, with copy for every page. Each is one build fee, paid in full for 10% off, or half now and half before launch. The care plan is $79 a month from launch day: hosting on Vercel with SSL, daily backups, uptime monitoring, and security and dependency updates.
At /start you create an account, sign a short agreement and pay, then fill in intake and send your files. Intake saves as you go, and you can come back to any section before you finish. Most answers are optional. Files can be added later from your dashboard. From the day you finish intake, it's about 30 days to launch, or 14 with the $500 rush add-on. How a Popproxx project works walks through every step.
If this list is mostly ticked, you're ready. See the plans, or start your project.
