Frequently asked questions

Yes — $500 USD covers the entire Starter build. Design, code, mobile-responsive layout, SEO essentials, contact form, 14-day post-launch fine-tuning, walkthrough video on handoff. Every line item is in writing before you sign.

What's not bundled in: domain registration (~$15/yr paid directly to a registrar), hosting (free on Cloudflare Pages at Starter scale), brand identity work, and commercial-licensed stock assets. Each one is quoted separately, never glued in as a surprise mid-project.

Builders are great for hobby pages and personal portfolios. They start to hurt the moment you need three things at once: real performance (95+ Lighthouse without bolting on five "optimizer" apps), a design that doesn't look templated, and the freedom to move hosts without rebuilding from scratch.

Hand-coded files give you actual ownership — they run anywhere, they don't slow down because the platform pushed a new tracker to every account on it, and they don't get more expensive as the vendor raises monthly fees. The trade-off: builders are easier to edit yourself with zero knowledge. Hand-coded means a short walkthrough on common edits, or a quick message to me. Justified when the site is a real revenue channel — overkill for a 3-page hobby project.

A typical Starter, day by day:

• Day 1: structure and wireframe locked from the discovery call
• Day 2-3: visual design — typography, color, layout, your review and sign-off
• Day 4-5: code build, mobile-responsive, performance-tuned
• Day 6: polish, copy refinement, SEO setup, form wiring, cross-browser checks
• Day 7: deploy, walkthrough video, handoff

Honest dependency: the timeline holds if you can review and respond inside 24 hours at each checkpoint. Three days of silence mid-build means three extra days at the end. Most clients hit the rhythm — the few who can't, we plan around upfront.

Three things:

1. A clear conversion goal — what visitors should DO on the site (book a call, buy a product, request a quote)
2. Brand basics — logo if you have one, color preferences, reference sites you love or hate
3. Content — either you draft the copy, or give me bullet points and I draft, or we pull it from the discovery call transcript

Not required to start: a finished logo, professional photography, or a full content marketing plan. Those run in parallel or post-launch. If you're starting from a fully blank brand, scope a separate identity sprint first — trying to do brand and site inside one Starter compromises both.

Yes. Default Starter is static HTML, CSS, and JS — simple edits (a copy change, swapping an image, updating a price) take 5 minutes in any code editor. Handoff includes a walkthrough video covering the 6-8 most common edit patterns.

If you want a no-code editor layer (drag-and-drop text and images without touching code), a Sanity, Decap, or similar CMS integration runs $300-$600 USD on top, depending on how many sections need to be editable. What I never do: lock the site behind a proprietary editor only I can access. Every project is yours to take elsewhere if you ever need to.

One site, two languages, switchable via a button in the nav. Same URL path, same SEO weight — content swaps based on the visitor's choice, and their preference is remembered across visits.

Every line is natively written, never machine-translated. Either you supply both languages, or I draft in EN and a native FR writer reviews — billed at $1 per word of source text on top of the base build. Default for Montréal businesses serving both markets. Google specifically deprioritizes machine-translated content in its rankings, so cutting this corner costs you traffic.

You. Full stop. On handoff you get:

• The full Git repository (or a zip if you don't use Git)
• All Figma design files with editing access
• Hosting account ownership transferred to your name
• Domain registrar access in your name
• Every credential, API key, and configuration documented

No license, no usage limits, no "you're paying for the right to use it." The site is yours the same way a hand-painted sign is yours after the painter walks away. I keep a backup copy for 90 days post-launch in case you need a rollback — deleted after that.

Real answer: the schedule is capped to make this almost never happen. Two builds in parallel max. New starts are quoted with the next available slot, not "we'll start whenever."

If a real emergency hits mid-build — illness, family event — you get an immediate update with a revised timeline, the option to pause and refund the unbuilt portion of the deposit, and a referral to one of two trusted Montréal front-end devs I've worked with (with my project notes handed over so they don't start from scratch). No pretending to be a multi-person team. The upside: no PM relay, no juniors, no contractor in another time zone learning your project mid-build.

Three paths:

1. One-off add-on — quoted hourly or flat depending on size. Most small additions (a new section, a new form, an extra page) run $200-$800 USD.
2. Retainer — $500/mo USD (5 hrs), $1,500/mo USD (15 hrs), or $3,000/mo USD (30 hrs). Cheaper per hour, predictable, cancellable any month.
3. Take it elsewhere — you own the code, hand it to any developer, in-house or external. The codebase is documented for exactly this reason.

I'll never gatekeep your own site to force you onto a retainer. The retainer exists because some clients actively want a recurring relationship — not because it's the only way to keep the site alive.

"No leads" usually hides one of three different problems:

1. No traffic — the site is fine, no one is finding it. SEO foundation is in every build, but SEO compounds over 3-6 months. Paid ads, content, social, or partnerships fill the gap.
2. Traffic but no conversions — visitors land but don't act. Usually a copy or positioning issue, or friction in the conversion path. Fixable with targeted edits to the CTA, headline, or form.
3. Conversions but no revenue — leads come in but don't buy. That's a sales-process problem more than a site problem, but the site can do more to pre-qualify.

I run a free diagnostic at the 30-day mark for any Starter or higher to identify which of the three is happening. What I won't promise: a specific number of leads per month. Anyone promising that without seeing your industry, offer, traffic source, and conversion rate is making it up.

Every one-time build is split 50/50: half at signature (kicks off the project), half on delivery before final handoff (after you've reviewed and approved the staging build).

The deposit locks your slot in the queue and pays for the discovery + design phase. The final 50% is invoiced once you've signed off — handoff (code, domain, hosting access) happens immediately after payment clears.

Retainers bill differently: invoiced at the start of each month, due before the month begins. No long contract — cancel any month with 30 days' notice.

Accepted: Stripe (card or bank), Interac e-Transfer (CAD clients), wire transfer (over $5K USD). Invoices are net-7 by default.

A revision round is one consolidated pass of feedback — you review the work, send all your changes in one message, I implement them in one batch. Then we look again together.

Each tier includes a set number of rounds:

• Starter — 1 round
• Custom Build — 2 rounds
• Pro — 3 rounds
• Enterprise — 5 rounds

What counts: tweaks within the agreed scope. Move this section, tighten that copy, swap this color, resize that image.

What doesn't: adding new pages or sections not in the original brief, redoing already-approved work, or changing direction after sign-off. Those are scope changes and get quoted separately ($200–$800 USD usual range).

Extra rounds beyond the included count are billed at $100/hour, never surprise-billed — you'll always get a quote first.

Anything site-related I can do for you in that time. Common uses:

• Content updates (text, images, products, blog posts)
• New sections or small features on existing pages
• Performance tuning, SEO improvements, bug fixes
• Third-party integrations (analytics, email, CRM)
• A/B test setup and analysis (Growth + Scale)
• Custom automation, API work, redesigns (Scale)

Hours don't roll over between months — use them or lose them. If you go over, I either bill the overage at $120/hour or roll it into next month's allocation, your call.

Not included: full new projects (rebuilds, new product lines, multi-page launches) scope out as a new build. A retainer keeps an existing site sharp and growing — it doesn't replace a build contract.