Most of what you'd ask, answered already.

Send me a note about your business, roughly what you need the site to do, and when you'd like it live. The quotes that come back fastest are the ones where you already know your page count, whether your copy and images exist, whether you own your domain, and what you've budgeted — with those four I can usually scope the whole thing in one pass.

A rough sitemap, any brand assets you already have, your domain details, and a budget range. None of it needs to be final. It just means the first call is spent on your business rather than on admin.

Don't send me passwords if your registrar or email provider offers a better option — most of the big ones have a delegate or invited-user function, which gives me the access I need without handing over your login, and lets you revoke it the moment we're done. Where that option doesn't exist — some smaller registrars and IT companies don't offer it — your username and password work fine; just change the password once we've wrapped up. Send me every domain you own, including the one you're currently using, so nothing gets missed, and if you're connecting more than one to the new site, let me know which should be the primary. Tell me who manages your email before we start too, because moving a site without accounting for existing email records is how businesses accidentally lose their inbox on launch day.

Yes. I'm based across Australia and Japan and work with clients in both. Everything runs remotely — scoping, reviews and handover all work fine across time zones. Pricing is in AUD.

It depends on the platform and the size of the build, and the full breakdown by platform is on the Pricing page. Everything beyond the core build is quoted per item before any work starts on it, so nothing appears on an invoice you haven't already seen.

Anywhere from one to six months. The two things that move that number are the complexity of the site and how many people are making decisions — a single decision-maker with content ready is a different project to a five-department sign-off, even at identical scope. Your quote carries a committed timeline based on your actual situation.

Sites can't be transferred from one platform to another, so a move is a rebuild on the new platform. Structured data like products (title, description, price, weight, dimensions and main image) can usually be imported, while categories, tags, downloads and page layouts are rebuilt by hand. Old Squarespace 7.0 sites also need a rebuild rather than an upgrade. If your URL structure is changing, I set up redirects so you keep your search rankings — see what SEO setup includes.

Send it over — a site you love is a great brief. To be honest with you, many showcase sites are built by full agency teams over months with very large budgets, so I won't promise an exact match. What I can do is borrow the ideas and sections that matter most to you and fit them to your budget and platform. Some animated, high-end looks need a custom build rather than Squarespace, and I'll tell you if that's the case.

Yes, this is increasingly common. I review your prototype, then build it properly on Cloudflare, Netlify or Vercel, in a hosting account in your name. Prompt-based builders charge per prompt, can revert to earlier versions unpredictably and are hard to maintain, so the prototype works best as the brief rather than the final product. As a realistic guide, the first draft of a custom build takes at least two weeks.

You should own it — buy it yourself, in your business's name, on your own account with a registrar like GoDaddy. I'm added as the technical contact, which gives me what I need to connect it without the domain ever leaving your hands. Pick something short, easy to spell and close to your business name. If you're registering a .com.au, you'll need your ABN.

1. Let's chat. We start with a call about your business, what you need the site to do, and when you'd like it live. From there, I'll send through a quote based on your sitemap.
2. Gather your content. Before I start designing, I'll need your images and near-final copy.
3. Lock in the scope. We confirm your pages and content together, and that's what your build is scheduled around.
4. Desktop design. I design and build the full site for desktop first. At this stage, please review it on a laptop or desktop. It won't look right on your phone yet, and that's completely normal.
5. Perfect desktop. We use your rounds of changes to get desktop exactly right. Once you've signed it off, we move on to mobile.
6. Mobile optimisation. Now's the time to grab your phone. I optimise every page for mobile, and you get a round of mobile touch-ups.
7. Final invoice. The balance is settled before the site goes live.
8. Handover. The site moves into your account and it's all yours, with full access from here on. Your domain stays with your current provider, like Crazy Domains or GoDaddy. I simply point it to your new site.
9. Go live. Connecting your domain is the very last step. It can take up to 48 hours to show everywhere, so don't worry if it appears for some people before others.
10. Training. Once you're live, we'll do a session on your own site so you feel confident making updates yourself.

Squarespace for simple, low-maintenance sites you'll manage yourself. Shopify where selling is the core function of the business. A custom build where the brief needs more motion, interaction or flexibility than a platform comfortably handles — those get designed in Figma, built in Cursor and deployed to Cloudflare, Netlify or Vercel depending on whether you're optimising for security and long-term ownership, straightforward marketing and forms, or a premium interactive experience. I'll walk you through the trade-offs rather than just naming one.

Yes, within the platforms I work in. Whether that's the right call depends on what you're currently sitting on — if the template is restrictive, or you're fighting it every time you want to change something, starting fresh usually works out more cost-effective than designing around limitations you'll still have afterwards. I'll tell you which one you're looking at before you commit to either.

We can move, but it's a re-quote rather than an adjustment. Each platform is priced differently because the work is different — the design has to be rebuilt to suit how that platform actually functions, custom code rarely carries across, and features that were included on one platform can become paid add-ons on another. Switching after the build has started usually means paying for some of the same work twice. It's worth spending the extra time at the discovery stage rather than deciding halfway.

Two on a one-page site, three on a multi-page build, and your quote confirms exactly which applies to you. Rounds beyond that allowance are billed hourly rather than refused — you're never stuck, it just stops being free.

One consolidated list of changes covering the whole build, sent in one go. Send everything you want changed before I start, because the moment I begin working on your list, that round is closed — anything arriving after that carries into the next round. It isn't about being rigid; reopening a round mid-edit is how three rounds quietly becomes six.

That's normal, and departments piping in isn't a problem in itself — it just needs one person nominated to gather everything and send it as a single list. What costs money is the same feedback arriving three times from three directions. Once your included rounds are used, every further round is billed hourly, so consolidating properly is the cheapest thing you can do.

Five days is the target for getting feedback back to me — beyond that a project loses momentum and starts competing with work that's moved ahead of it. On my side, changes take between one and seven days depending on how complex they are.

A change is a refinement to something already scoped — different colour, reworded heading, moved section. A variation is new work: a change of direction after sign-off, new content, new layouts, extra pages, additional products, or new functionality. Variations aren't part of your included rounds; they're quoted before anything starts, so nothing lands on an invoice you haven't approved.

A defined technical baseline: page titles, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, indexability, an XML sitemap, a robots file, redirects where you're migrating off an existing site, and Google Search Console connected and verified. That's the foundation that lets you rank for what you're already good at. It isn't a ranking promise — nobody can honestly make one, because nobody controls the algorithm or your competitors.

Two separate things worth pulling apart. There's AI in how the site gets built — faster iteration, and AI-generated copywriting and SEO available per page, disclosed as AI-generated in every deliverable. And there's AI in how your business runs day to day: the automations, workflows and tools that sit behind the site rather than on it. That second one is a conversation worth having before the platform gets chosen rather than after, because it changes what the site needs to be able to do.

Five things, in order of impact: a finalised sitemap so the page count and the quote match exactly, images ready to go, copy in near-final form, your logo and brand files finalised, and any non-negotiables — a booking system, plans for where the site goes next — flagged early so the right platform gets chosen from day one. Projects that stay in scope are the ones where the real material exists before design begins.

Connecting points your existing domain at the new site and it stays with your registrar (GoDaddy, Crazy Domains and so on). Transferring moves the domain itself to a new registrar, which is rarely needed and can break email — if you do transfer, have whoever manages your email export the existing DNS records first. After connecting, DNS takes up to 48 hours, occasionally up to 72, to show everywhere, and the security certificate (the padlock) is issued automatically by the platform once DNS settles, so nobody can speed it up. If it's still not secure after that window, I chase the platform's support. Any extra domains you own can all point to your one primary domain; for access, see how we handle domain and email access.

Yes, you review on a private preview link the whole way through — Squarespace and Shopify have built-in addresses for this, and custom builds get a preview URL. If you already have a live site, the new one is built in the background and only replaces it on launch day. New pages stay out of the navigation until then.

Book a call. In an age of AI, a quick call is still the fastest way to keep a build on track — we go through the site together on screen, and nothing gets lost in a long email thread. Before the call, have one person gather everyone's notes into a single list, and review text internally so the call isn't spent on rewording (see what counts as a round). For text changes, send the whole paragraph rewritten rather than just the words that change: copy it from the site, make your edit and paste the full paragraph back. Where a section has several lines in the same font and size, send that whole block. If something looks broken between calls, send a screenshot plus the device, browser and screen size, because layouts adapt per screen and "the text looks off" is hard to reproduce without that. Try a hard refresh first, as cached old versions cause a lot of "it looks broken" moments.

Submissions are emailed to the address you nominate, one address per form, and a backup copy can be stored in a Google Sheet or exported as a spreadsheet. If they stop arriving, it's almost always a company email filter — ask your IT person to whitelist the platform's sending address — or the receiving address has changed. Please tell me which email should receive enquiries before launch.

Supplied by you is ideal — it's what keeps a build fastest and truest to how you actually sound. If you'd rather not write it, AI-generated copywriting and SEO is available per page, and it's noted as AI-generated in every deliverable without exception.

Your own photos are still the strongest option, even in an AI world — they're the thing that makes a site look like your business rather than a template. Where you don't have them, I can generate imagery instead, and that's an added cost on top of the build. The Pricing page has the detail.

I can't start until images and near-final copy are in. It's the difference between designing something once and designing it twice, and it's what keeps your revision rounds focused on design rather than content.

Mobile optimisation is part of the core price, never an add-on, and it comes after desktop sign-off. I build and perfect the desktop site first, and only once you've confirmed desktop is final do I optimise every page for mobile, with one round set aside for mobile touch-ups. Until then, please review on a laptop or desktop — the site will look unfinished on your phone, and that's expected. Images are the part worth raising early — a wide hero shot that looks right on a desktop will crop hard on a phone, so anything with a face, text or a product edge sitting near the frame needs either a second crop or a different photo entirely. I flag those during design rather than after launch.

No — I don't offer logo or branding work. Please bring your finished logo and brand files with you (see what file formats and sizes to send). If you need a new logo, have it finalised before the site design starts, or you end up paying to design the same pages twice.

For photos, send the original full-resolution files, not screenshots or images pulled from a brochure or website, which look blurry when enlarged. Logos are best as vector (SVG, AI, EPS or PDF) or a transparent PNG, and headshots or team photos should be taken with room around the subject so they can be cropped consistently. For video, landscape works best across desktop and mobile; background videos need to be short (under a minute) and play muted, and longer videos are best hosted on YouTube or Vimeo and embedded. Sorting files into a folder per page saves time, and for large files please share a Drive or Dropbox link rather than emailing them.

On Squarespace and Shopify it's a working session on your own site: adding and editing pages, updating content and images, managing products or posts, and where you're selling, walking through the connections your store depends on — product catalogue syncing, sales channel and commerce manager setup, and how to tell when a sync has broken. The line is that I show you how the systems are configured and how to run them day to day; the ongoing management of third-party accounts stays with you. Anything you'd rather hand back to me afterwards is hourly, and plenty of clients do exactly that.

On Squarespace and Shopify, yes — those platforms are built to be client-managed, and the handover session at the end of your build walks you through your own site so you can make your own updates. Custom builds are different: they aren't designed for editing without touching code, so you get a handover call covering how everything is set up, and updates come through me at the hourly rate. If self-editing matters to you on a custom build, a CMS can be added so you manage the content yourself — worth raising before the platform is chosen, not after.

Easiest done on a laptop or desktop rather than your phone. Log into squarespace.com with your account email and password and you'll land on your dashboard — click the website button next to your site's thumbnail. That takes you into the editor, with your site preview on the right and a blue Subscribe button at the bottom of the left-hand panel. Click it and follow the payment prompts; paying annually gets you the biggest discount, and our Squarespace discount applies automatically at checkout. We're notified the moment you subscribe, so we can connect your domain straight away.

Yes, always. You hold full administration access from handover onward, and it stays yours. One thing worth knowing: if the site breaks because of changes made on your end, fixing it is billed hourly — that's a repair, not a defect.

Anything that's a genuine defect against the agreed scope — something not working the way it was signed off — I fix at no charge for 30 days after launch. After that window, and for anything that's a change rather than a defect, it moves to the hourly rate with scope confirmed before I start.

Yes. One-off changes are billed hourly, scoped and agreed before anything starts, with no minimum spend. On a custom build you can add the Care Plan: monthly uptime and contact-form checks, dependency and security updates, DNS and SSL monitoring, an analytics summary, and 30 minutes of small changes each month, at $45 a month or $495 a year (AUD, plus GST). The Pricing page lists it on each custom build.

Either way works. Blog and news setup is a one-off item, and I can upload posts for you per post if you'd rather not touch it. On Squarespace and Shopify most clients do the setup with me and then run it themselves — managing posts is one of the things the handover session covers. On custom builds, a Sanity blog dashboard gives you the same self-publishing.

Analytics is connected as part of every core build, so traffic and referral data is there from launch. Sales data lives in the platform itself — Shopify's own reporting covers orders, products and customers without anything extra. POS systems, Instagram Shop and marketplace connections are integrations quoted per item, and they're worth raising before the build rather than after, because they influence which platform is right in the first place.

Every build includes a handover session — see what's included in the handover. Extra sessions for other team members, or new starters down the track, are easy to book and billed hourly like other support. Sessions run on video call, on your own site, and you're welcome to record them.

No — I do on-site SEO as part of the build (see what SEO setup includes). Ongoing work like backlink building, content campaigns, local SEO management and monthly ranking reports is specialist work, and I'm happy to recommend someone. Analytics is connected from launch so that you, or an SEO specialist, have the data to work from.

Platforms like Squarespace and Shopify update themselves, and occasionally an update clashes with custom code or a third-party widget. If it's a defect against the agreed scope, it's covered free within the 30-day post-launch defect window. After that it's fixed under ongoing support, scoped before I start. Custom builds on Cloudflare, Netlify or Vercel don't change under you in the same way.

It's almost always an iPhone photo saved in HEIC format. iPhones use HEIC by default, and many Windows computers and email apps can't open it. To stop it at the source, the person taking the photos can switch their iPhone to Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible, which saves new photos as JPEG. For files you've already received, a free online HEIC-to-JPEG converter does the job, or open them in Preview on a Mac and export as JPEG — and if you're stuck, send them to me and I'll convert them for you.

Yes. I charge for my time to set them up, and the ongoing cost for each mailbox is billed to your own card on your own account, so the subscription always sits with you. Send me the names and addresses you'd like, and I'll take care of the rest.

Usually because they're sent from a free address like Gmail or Hotmail, or from a domain whose email settings haven't been set up. Sending from an address on your own domain (you@yourbusiness.com.au), with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records in place, tells inboxes your mail is genuinely from you. I can set those up for you.

Yes — small changes are billed for my time, like any other ongoing support. The most affordable way to handle them is to bunch tasks together: keep a running list and send it in one go, rather than one change at a time. For text changes, send the whole paragraph rewritten so I can paste it straight in.

Core builds are fixed-price, so you know the number before anything starts. Anything outside that scope — variations, extra rounds of changes, custom animation, ad hoc requests, post-launch support — is hourly, and always confirmed with you before the work begins.

For a first project together it's 25% to start and the remaining 75% before the site goes live. There's no late fee and no interest — but launch doesn't happen until the final payment has come through, so the timing is entirely in your hands. Where hosting is billed through a third party, that also needs to be settled before your domain can be pointed at the new site.

Directly by you, to the provider, on accounts in your own name. Shopify apps, Google Workspace, your domain renewal and your hosting plan are all ongoing costs of running the business rather than part of the build, and they're itemised and talked through during quoting so there are no surprises later. Software I use to build your site is a separate thing — it's passed on at cost with no markup, for the build period only, and it stops when the project does.

If a page needs its own in-page navigation to jump between sections, it counts as two — regardless of how many URLs it lives at. The material inside it is doing the job of more than one page, so it gets quoted that way.

Hosting and platform fees, domain registration and renewal, third-party app subscriptions, copywriting unless you've added it, image generation or licensing, and anything not listed on the accepted quote. Software used to build your site is passed on at cost with no markup, for the duration of the build. Extra pages, integrations, popups and blog setup are all quoted per item, and nothing gets added to an invoice without being confirmed with you first.

Yes. Hosting, your domain registration and any third-party apps the site relies on sit outside the build price and are ongoing costs to you. We go through all of it during quoting, so you know what's recurring and what it costs before you commit — not after. Your domain is always registered in your name, and third-party accounts are set up in your name too, so you're never locked out of your own business.

Everything outside the core build is quoted per item before any work starts on it. You'll always see the number before you commit to it.

You do, from the moment the final payment clears. I keep the right to access and maintain the site where we've agreed I'm doing ongoing work, and my own reusable components, templates and working files stay mine — but the site itself is yours.

Pausing is fine and it happens — business gets busy, budgets shift, someone needs a decision from a board. The one thing to know is that a paused project releases its place in the schedule, so if I've taken on other work in the meantime, yours picks back up behind it rather than where it left off. If you cancel outright, work completed to that point is invoiced and payable. And if I ever had to cancel — which would only be an emergency — you keep everything I've built at no charge. Nobody ends up paying for nothing.

Probably, yes — I may reference that I built your website. If you'd rather I didn't, just say so and I won't.