How long does a hospitality brand and website project actually take?

A single-page site with an identity already in hand takes about two weeks. A full identity plus a real multi-page website, written and launched, takes about five. Add a 90-day growth period on top and you're looking at roughly six weeks to launch, then three months of ongoing work after that. Those are the three real timelines behind my own Brand Spark, Full Launch, and Launch + Growth tiers — not estimates, the actual weeks each one runs.

The work itself splits into two acts, which is where most of that time actually goes:

Prep — discovery, brand strategy, and identity design. This is the thinking, before anything is built: what the place actually is, who it's for, what the mark has to carry. Rushing this stage is the single most common reason a rebrand ends up needing a second rebrand within a year.
The Pass — web design, development, copywriting, and launch. The handoff to something real: a site a guest can actually find, read, and book from.

The single biggest variable inside either stage isn't the design work — it's how ready your own material is. A business with its photography, menu text, and a clear sense of who its guest actually is moves through Prep in days, not weeks. A business that's still deciding those things while the project is running will always take longer, whatever the tier.

The full Prep to Pass breakdown covers what happens at each of the seven steps. If you already know roughly when you need to be live, say so in the Discovery Brief — it's one of the first things I ask, precisely because it changes how the first few weeks get planned.

Published 26 September 2026 · More from the Journal →