How long a Canadian website actually takes

A focused marketing site for a Canadian firm — the kind a professional practice, studio, or service company can run without a developer on staff — is usually six to ten weeks if copy, photos, and a single approver arrive on time. That window is the published duration of our custom website launch: information architecture, bilingual routes if you bought them, a CMS your operators can edit, analytics, and a 90-day support window after we flip the domain. It is not a slogan. It is the calendar we put on the quote in Canadian dollars before anyone opens a repository.

The first two weeks are structure, not decoration. We write the sitemap, the one conversion that pays for the work, and the pages that must exist on day one. If two conversions fight each other — a newsletter and a booking, a store and a lead form — we pick one for launch and park the other. SYCGeeks has worked this way from Vancouver since 2015. We would rather ship a site a stranger can finish than a mood board with eight competing calls to action.

Weeks three through six are design and build on the stack your operators can actually keep. For many professional firms that is WordPress with a locked-down set of blocks. For teams that already live in Git and want a design system that will last, that is Next.js. We do not pick the stack because it is fashionable. We pick it because someone on your side will change a phone number in February without calling us at +1 (672) 200-7924.

The last stretch is content, bilingual review if French is in scope, legal pages, and launch. That stretch is where honest calendars slip. Code is rarely the reason. A privacy page that still says “we may share data with partners” without naming them, a price list living in a spreadsheet, or a partner who “just wants to see one more round” will add a week faster than any missing component. If you want the short end of six to ten, assign one person who can say yes in writing.

Every project we accept gets a workflow in your merchant dashboard: intake, active, review, paused, launched. You can see the current step without asking us what week it is. If a week slips, we write why in the project notes — waiting on product photos from Jane, legal still rewriting the disclaimer, French labels not signed. Silent calendars are how projects rot. We have watched that happen at other studios. We will not do it here.

Discovery is a conversation on Pacific time, from Vancouver. Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax clients are welcome; the overlap is the only constraint. Book a Square appointment before you have an account if you would rather speak than write. Bring the conversion, the hard date, and the systems you already pay for. We quote in CAD against that brief. We do not start production on a handshake and a Pinterest board.

A hard date that is real — a market in May, a fiscal year, a lease, a college advertising rule — belongs in the first note to admin@sycgeeks.ca. We would rather decline a fantasy timeline than miss a real one. If you need a site in three weeks and you have no copy, say so. We will tell you what can ship and what will wait, in writing, before you pay.

Invoices match the scope you signed. If the brief grows — a second language you did not buy, a checkout, a members area — we write a new number. We do not silently fold extra weeks into the original CAD figure. That is how trust dies, and it is why operators stop answering their agency. You will always know whether you are inside the signed site or looking at a published add-on.

The delay we see most is not engineering. It is waiting for the words and pictures that make a Canadian page honest. Service descriptions still in a partner’s head. Headshots from 2019. A fee schedule that finance has not signed. Legal pages copied from an American template that mention CCPA and a California address. We can build the templates. We cannot invent your prices or your professional constraints.

Assign one approver. A committee of five that “all need to weigh in” will add two weeks to a six-week site, every time. The approver should be the person who can change a headline without a second meeting. Put their name in the brief. If they go on leave in week five, name the backup before we start, not the Friday before launch.

Send what you already have in the first week: the current site, the PDF you hand people, the Square item names, the Google Business hours, the French phrases you already use on voicemail. Screenshots of the page that fails beat adjectives. “Make it modern” is not a brief. “This booking form loses people after the phone field” is a brief. We price and schedule against the second kind.

If content is late, we do not pretend the code calendar is still honest. We pause the workflow, write the blocker in the dashboard, and restart when the file arrives. A site launched on placeholder Latin and stock handshakes trains your team to live with a draft. We would rather hold the domain cut than publish a Canadian business that looks unfinished in both official languages.

Ecommerce, appointments that take a card, and a custom API add weeks because they touch money and other people’s systems. Our ecommerce system is quoted at eight to fourteen weeks. A custom API platform is six to twelve. A first mobile app with a shared API is twelve to twenty. None of those durations hide inside a marketing-site quote. If someone told you the shop “just plugs in,” they were selling a theme, not a Canadian checkout.

Square, Stripe, or a warehouse feed will not be rushed into a Friday deploy because a campaign starts Monday. Tax rules — GST/HST by province, shipping to some provinces and not others, a product that is taxable in Ontario and exempt in another case — need a written decision before we wire checkout. We test a real CAD order and a refund before launch. A demo card in US dollars is not a test.

If you need a public site this quarter and a store next quarter, say that in the brief. We will ship the marketing site on the six-to-ten-week path and open the store as a second phase on the same project record. You keep the history. You do not start a new thread with a stranger. Care members pay about 25 percent less on published add-ons when that second phase is a scoped change to a live product.

Do not hide the API in week eight as “a small feed.” If partners, a mobile app, or a warehouse must read and write your catalog, that is a product with versioned routes and webhooks. We will tell you on the quote. Inventing a second system of record because Square already holds inventory is how Saturday double-sells happen. We connect to the system you already pay for, or we write down why we will not.

If English and French must both be correct on day one, the calendar includes a language pass, not a plugin weekend. French is not thinner English. Buttons that fit “Book” may not fit “Prendre rendez-vous.” Legal sentences change length. We design the switch so people keep their place, and we test forms in both languages before launch. A checkout that fails in French is a Canadian product bug, not a translation ticket for later.

If you only have English on day one, we can still structure the French routes and ship a complete first language. We will not publish a machine dump and call it a second site. An extra language pass after launch is a published add-on — typically one to two weeks, about 25 percent less if you are on care. Plan that in the first quote if Quebec or a federal audience is already on the 90-day horizon.

Name the reviewer who can sign French. It is often not the same person who signs English. A bilingual associate in Montreal and a managing partner in Vancouver will disagree about tone. That disagreement belongs in week two, not the night before a domain cut. If nobody on your side can sign French, say so. We will not invent a voice for a regulated profession.

PIPEDA and WCAG work are also on the critical path, not a PDF after launch. Forms need labels, contrast, and a keyboard path. The privacy page must say what you collect and why, in the language of the page. Chat and analytics are still personal information. Health, legal, and financial clients should send college or insurer rules in the brief so we design for them in week one instead of retrofitting in week nine.

We choose Next.js or WordPress after we meet the operators, not after we meet the homepage reference. If your office manager will update hours, bios, and PDFs, WordPress with a small set of blocks is often the honest tool. If your team already ships in Git, wants a design system, and will not log into a classic editor, Next.js with a structured CMS is the honest tool. A stack that impresses a developer and terrifies the person who writes your fees is a failed project at month four.

Core Web Vitals are part of the build, not a later SEO package. Large images, a font file from five foundries, and a chatbot that loads before the heading will fail on a phone in a Broadway building with average wifi. We ship retina crops, one H1, readable URLs, and templates that stay fast after your team adds a third paragraph. If the homepage needs a 12-megabyte hero to “feel premium,” we will say no and show you the same story at a size a phone can hold.

Hosting, the Canadian domain, and SSL are in the launch, not a surprise invoice. We do not leave you with a staging URL and a handshake. The 90-day support window that ships with a website launch is for defects — a form that drops French submissions, a redirect that 404s the old blog — not for a new members area you thought of at the party. New scope is a quote on the same project.

If you already have WordPress and it is a graveyard of abandoned builders, say so. Rebuilding on a clean set of blocks can still fit six to ten weeks if we are not also migrating ten years of untagged posts. If you already have a Next.js app that only the last contractor understood, send the repository in the brief. We would rather inherit a real system than invent a second one beside it.

Launch is a status change, not a party. We cut DNS, confirm SSL, place a test enquiry, and watch the first real one land in the inbox or the Square calendar. If you take bookings, the appointment must appear in your dashboard, not only in email. Email-only confirmation is how people double-book a Tuesday. Pacific time is the clock on our appointments; say so on the site if your clients are in other provinces.

GST/HST on our invoice is not the same problem as GST/HST on your checkout, but both need a grown-up before launch. If the site sells anything — a deposit, a gift card, a download — decide the provinces and the tax behaviour in writing. If the site only collects leads, say that too, so we do not leave a fake “Buy” on a service page. Canadians notice when a price is missing or when a dollar sign looks American.

Have someone at the business who can answer admin@sycgeeks.ca and the studio line on launch day. We work weekdays, Pacific time. If production is down — checkout, the form, the domain — call +1 (672) 200-7924. That line is for heat. A typo in a footer can wait for the notes field. Mixing those two is how urgent work gets lost in a thread about kerning.

After the cut we stay on the 90-day window for defects. You will see what we changed. If you want a second page, a language you did not buy, or a checkout change, that is an add-on on the same launched project: extra page one to two weeks, language pass one to two, checkout change two to three. We reopen the record. We do not ask you to explain the business again to a new account manager.

A launched site without someone watching hosting and the form is a weekend problem waiting for Monday. Monthly care is $450 CAD. Yearly care is $4,500 CAD — two months included versus paying month by month. Both cover hosting watch, small copy and dependency updates, one reserved studio hour, and a note in the dashboard of what changed. Buy it at checkout or add it later. The reserved hour is for small honest work, not a new marketplace.

More work after launch stays on the same project. If it fits the reserved hour, we do it there and log it. If it changes what you bought, you pay the published CAD add-on — care members about 25 percent less — and we set status back to active. Eight reserved hours exist for work bigger than the monthly hour and smaller than a new build. We will not silently fold extra weeks into care. If you are unsure which bucket you are in, ask. The answer is a sentence.

If you already know the date that matters, write admin@sycgeeks.ca with the conversion, the deadline, the languages, and Square, Shopify, or WordPress if you already pay for them. If you would rather talk, book time — no studio account required. If production on an existing site is down today, call. Those are the three doors. We will not spend a discovery hour guessing the product while the calendar burns.

A useful first sentence is specific: “We are a two-location clinic in Vancouver and Burnaby, we need English and French service pages, we book on Square, and the college site must mention us by November.” That is enough to price a six-to-ten-week site or to tell you the store is a second phase. A messy brief is fine. An invisible one is not. The calendar starts when the facts are in the room, not when the logo files arrive.

Week one is intake: the signed CAD scope, access to the current domain and analytics, and a 90-minute working session on Pacific time. We leave with a one-page sitemap and the conversion written as a sentence a stranger would understand. Week two is architecture: URLs, the CMS model, and the list of pages that are launch versus later. If French is in scope, the route plan is in this week, even if French copy arrives in week five. Waiting to “add language later” is how you ship a folder tree that cannot hold Quebec.

Weeks three and four are the first templates: home, a service page, contact or booking, and the legal shell. You approve in the dashboard, not in a 40-comment PDF. Weeks five and six fill the remaining pages and the CMS training. Your operator should change a heading and a phone number in front of us before we call the build done. If they cannot, we picked the wrong stack or we have not finished the handoff.

Weeks seven to ten are the honest buffer for content, bilingual review, redirects from the old site, and launch. Firms that arrive with copy in week one often launch near week seven. Firms that discover their fee list is a rumour in week six launch near week ten, or they pause. Neither is a failure if we wrote why. A failure is a silent week while five people “circle back.” Put the week-by-week in the partner meeting now, with names next to each file you still owe.

If the signed scope is a store or an API, keep this picture for the public site and add a second picture for money. Checkout, tax, inventory, and webhooks have their own approvals — often finance and a Square or Stripe owner who is not the marketing partner. Those people need calendar invites in week one of that phase, not a forwarded Slack the Friday before you want to take a card. We will not pretend a marketing-site week-by-week can carry a processor. The dashboard will show two stretches of work on the same project, with the phase named in the notes.