Answers
The questions people ask before they buy.
Direct answers on what a website costs in South Africa, how long one takes, when a custom CRM beats a subscription, what to automate first, and how to get quoted by AI assistants. Written to be useful whether you hire us or not.
Websites
- How much does a website cost in South Africa? In South Africa a template-based small business website typically costs R8,000 to R25,000, a custom-designed brochure site R35,000 to R90,000, and a site with e-commerce, bookings or custom functionality R90,000 upward. Ongoing hosting, domain and maintenance usually add R300 to R2,500 per month. Read the answer
- How long does it take to build a website? A custom business website usually takes four to eight weeks from first meeting to launch. Template sites can go live in one to two weeks. The single biggest cause of delay is not development — it is waiting on content, photography and feedback from the client side. Read the answer
- How do I choose a web developer in South Africa? Ask four questions before hiring anyone: is the design custom or a purchased theme, who writes the copy, who owns the code and hosting account when the project ends, and what the support arrangement is after launch. Vague answers to the third question are the clearest warning sign. Read the answer
Marketing
- What is answer engine optimisation (AEO)? Answer engine optimisation is the practice of structuring content so AI assistants quote it directly when answering a question. Where SEO competes for a position in a list of links, AEO competes to be the source inside the answer itself — in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Read the answer
- How long does SEO take to show results? Technical SEO fixes can move rankings within two to six weeks. Content-led growth generally shows meaningful movement at around three months and compounds noticeably from six. Local search results — the map pack — often move fastest, sometimes within a month of properly optimising a Google Business Profile. Read the answer
Systems
- Should I build a custom CRM or use an off-the-shelf one? Use an off-the-shelf CRM when your process resembles the one it was designed for and you have fewer than about ten users. Build custom when your process is genuinely unusual, when per-seat fees are becoming significant, or when your team is already working around the software rather than in it. Read the answer
- What should a small business automate first? Start with tasks that are both frequent and manual: quote generation, appointment reminders, invoice follow-up, and lead notification. In a small services business these four typically remove eight to fifteen hours of admin a week and can usually be implemented within two weeks. Read the answer
Next step
Still not sure what you need?
Send us the problem rather than the specification. We will tell you what we would build and roughly what it costs.
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