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Website Design & Build

AI-accelerated websites, custom-built to last.

Three tiers, one standard. AI tooling means custom-coded sites ship faster than builders take to customise: weeks instead of months. Core Web Vitals green from launch. SEO baked in. Code you own forever, not rented from a platform.

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The context

Most SMB websites are leaking money in two ways.

The first leak: bloated builder platforms. Wix, Shopify, Webflow, Squarespace get you live fast, then bury you in 3 to 5 MB of template overhead, monthly platform fees that climb every year, and a template ceiling that limits what your site can actually do. Page speed suffers. Rankings suffer. Conversions suffer. The bill goes up regardless.

The second leak: traditional agencies. Eight-week timelines stretch to six months. Custom code that gets handed over and never updated. Logins to platforms nobody at the agency answers calls about anymore. Twelve months in, the site is slow, the agency has moved on, and you are paying again for the next round.

Upgraded does neither. AI-accelerated custom code ships in weeks. You own every line. We stay to help the site earn back its cost over the next five years.

Why AI-built

Why custom AI-built beats Wix, Shopify, and Webflow.

Builder platforms made sense in 2015 when custom code was slow and expensive. In 2026, AI tooling has flipped that. Custom-coded sites ship in less time than a Wix theme takes to customise, weigh a fraction of what builder pages drag around, rank higher, and get cited more often in AI search overviews. Plus you own the code instead of renting templates that get more expensive every year.

  • Ships in weeks, not months

    AI accelerates strategy, design, and code in parallel. Most builds ship in two to eight weeks. A traditional agency takes six months for the same scope.

  • Loads in kilobytes, not megabytes

    Custom code ships at 180 KB. Wix and Shopify pages routinely hit 3 to 5 MB of template overhead. Google rewards the difference. So do buyers waiting on a page to load.

  • Code you own, not code you rent

    No platform fees forever. No domain hostage clauses. No template ceiling. Migrate hosting or extend the stack any time without rebuilding from scratch.

  • Cited in AI search overviews

    Clean structured data is how Google's SGE, Perplexity, and ChatGPT search pick what to surface in AI answers. Custom code does this right; builder platforms mostly cannot.

What it is

What an AI-accelerated build actually is.

Every Website Design & Build engagement runs on the same AI-accelerated foundation, regardless of tier: strategy, design, and engineering are handled together from the first week, not sequenced as silos. AI tooling compresses the rounds of drafting, iteration, and code production that used to stretch projects across months. Design sees the content model. Engineering sees the design as it is drawn. SEO is baked in, not bolted on. The result is a site that ships in weeks rather than months and does not need a post-launch rescue project.

What that buys you in practice: Core Web Vitals in the green on every device, a page weight in kilobytes rather than megabytes, structured data on every page that AI search engines can actually parse, a content model a non-technical team member can edit without breaking the site, and a build that survives the next CMS update without falling over.

We do not do discount builds on a template editor. We do not do bespoke six-figure agency work either. We do the middle: serious, performant, scalable SMB websites that are properly designed, properly engineered, AI-accelerated where it matters, and priced fairly.

Pricing

Three tiers. Same standard of work.

Pick the tier that suits your business today. Upgrade later if you grow into it. All tiers include hosting and SSL, all tiers have a 12-month monthly payment option, and all tiers carry the 50% buyout clause on early cancellation.

Essentials

From $2,500

or $229/month

For sole traders and new businesses. Professional, fast, live in three weeks.

  • Up to 6 pages, built on the Upgraded starter framework
  • Your brand, your copy, your colours applied properly
  • Mobile responsive, accessibility basics, semantic HTML
  • SEO foundations: metadata, structured data, sitemap, robots config
  • Contact form with email notifications
  • CMS set up so you can edit content yourself after launch
  • Hosting and SSL included for 12 months

Timeline

Live in 2 to 3 weeks from sign-off.

Best for

Sole traders, new businesses, and any business owner who needs a credible professional site fast.

Not a template builder. Not a five-minute job. We still apply a studio eye to typography, hierarchy, and brand fit. The framework gets you live quickly; the polish is what makes it feel like yours.

Start with Essentials

Studio

Most popular

From $6,000

or $549/month

For established businesses that want a site built to rank, convert, and hold up for five years.

  • Custom design, drawn for your brand from first principles
  • Unlimited pages, sitemap shaped around how buyers actually search and decide
  • Full SEO setup: keyword strategy, on-page optimisation, schema markup, internal linking
  • Performance engineering: Core Web Vitals in the 90+ range, image pipeline, caching, hosting tuned to suit
  • Contact, booking, or lead-capture forms with CRM wiring if you use one
  • CMS setup with a content model that matches how you actually update things
  • Accessibility audit against WCAG 2.1 AA before launch
  • Launch checklist: redirects, analytics, search console, performance baseline
  • Hosting and SSL included for 12 months

Timeline

6 to 8 weeks from sign-off.

Best for

Established businesses replacing an underperforming site. Businesses that need the site to do the work of a salesperson, 24/7, for the next five years.

Book the Studio tier

Partnership

From $8,500 + $450/month

or $1,299/month

For businesses ready to treat the website as a core business asset, not a one-off project.

  • Everything in the Studio tier
  • Plus strategy and planning up front: a written strategy document covering positioning, audience, content pillars, and conversion model
  • Plus the Ongoing Partnership from day one of launch: monthly optimisation, content updates, SEO refinement, performance monitoring, small builds
  • Plus priority support: 24-hour response on anything urgent
  • Plus quarterly strategy reviews: what is working, what is next, what to spend on
  • Same person through the whole relationship

Timeline

8 to 10 weeks to launch, then ongoing.

Best for

Founders treating the site as infrastructure. Businesses with the budget to do it properly once and let it compound.

After the first 12 months, the monthly option rolls into the standard Ongoing Partnership rate ($450/month) on the same terms.

Talk about the Partnership

Best for

Who Website Design & Build suits.

  • Businesses launching their first proper website
  • Businesses replacing a site that is slow, hard to update, or underperforming in search
  • Teams moving off a template-based platform that has started to limit what they can do
  • Founders who want a website treated as a long-term business asset

Not best for

An honest block about fit.

  • Businesses who just need a one-page splash or a Linktree replacement. There are cheaper tools for that.
  • Anyone expecting a "design my logo, write my copy, take my photos" all-in-one service. We focus on strategy, design, and build.
  • Businesses looking for the cheapest possible site. Essentials is the lowest tier we do properly, and it's $2,500.

Pay monthly

No upfront, no lock-in traps.

Every tier has a monthly option on a 12-month term. The monthly includes everything the upfront version does, plus hosting, SSL, and domain (where applicable) for the duration. Content updates included (2 per month on Essentials, 4 on Studio, unlimited on Partnership).

If you need to cancel within the 12 months, you close out with 50% of the remaining months. No lock-out, no losing your domain. Most "leased website" providers charge 100% of the remaining term and hold your domain hostage; we chose not to.

After 12 months the monthly drops to the standard Ongoing Partnership rate ($450/month), and you can cancel anytime with 30 days notice.

The process

From first call to live site.

Timelines below are Studio-tier. Essentials compresses to 2 to 3 weeks total. Partnership extends to 8 to 10 weeks.

  1. Step 1

    Discovery call, week 1.

    A 30-minute chat. No pitch. We listen, we ask questions, we tell you if we are a fit.

  2. Step 2

    Strategy and scope, week 2.

    Written scope document. Sitemap, content plan, technical approach, fixed timeline, fixed price. Nothing moves until you approve it.

  3. Step 3

    Design, weeks 3 to 4.

    Wireframes first, then high-fidelity design. Two rounds of feedback. You see the work in progress.

  4. Step 4

    Build, weeks 4 to 6.

    Development runs in parallel with the last design approvals. Staging link from week 4.

  5. Step 5

    Launch and handover, week 7.

    Launch checklist, go live, recorded CMS walkthrough. First month of Ongoing Partnership included free.

Questions

Common ones about the build.

For anything broader, see our full FAQ or email hello@upgraded.au.

  • What platform do you build on?

    +

    Most Essentials and Studio builds are Astro with a headless CMS, hosted on Netlify or Vercel. Some clients prefer a self-manageable Wix Studio or WordPress site, which we also build. We pick the platform on the discovery call based on who is editing the site day-to-day.

  • Can I edit the site myself after launch?

    +

    Yes. Every build ships with a CMS configured for your team, and a recorded walkthrough of how to use it. If you would rather we handle updates, the Ongoing Partnership covers that.

  • What if I need more than 6 pages on Essentials?

    +

    Extra pages are $200 each, added at any point during the build or after launch. Or step up to the Studio tier where page count is unlimited.

  • Do you do ecommerce?

    +

    Yes, on the Studio and Partnership tiers. Shopify, Wix Studio ecommerce, or custom builds on Stripe depending on the complexity. Essentials is too lean to do ecommerce properly.

  • What if I already have a website?

    +

    Then Website Design & Build probably is not the right starting point. Look at Website Optimisation & SEO Foundations instead (from $2,500), or Strategy & Digital Advice (from $950) if you want a plan before deciding.

  • How quickly can you start?

    +

    We usually have 1 to 2 discovery calls a week and can take on 1 to 2 new projects a month. If a tier is urgent, ask on the call; we will tell you the next available start date.

  • Do you offer refunds?

    +

    The upfront tiers are non-refundable once work has started, because the first two weeks are strategy and design that gets delivered to you. The monthly option has the 50% buyout clause for cancelling mid-term.

  • Can I upgrade between tiers later?

    +

    Yes. Essentials to Studio is a common path once a business grows into it. We credit 50% of the original Essentials fee toward the Studio upgrade if it happens within 24 months of launch.

Recent builds

What a finished site looks like.

Two recent Upgraded builds for Australian businesses, with the brief that produced them and the numbers since launch. Read the full case study or visit the live site.

Girl Gut website homepage, built by Upgraded
Girl Gut website on mobile

Wellness Built May 2026

Girl Gut

Girl Gut needed a custom ebook generator to scale content production and a website to replace Wix, which was slow, restrictive, and limiting what the business could actually build.

90s
from weeks to 90 seconds
1.3s
page load speed (vs 4.8s typical)
300%
improvement in productivity
“It supports the way I do business, not the other way around.”
Read the case study View live site (opens in new tab)
Roof Werx website homepage, built by Upgraded
Roof Werx website on mobile

Roofing Built March 2026

Roof Werx

Roof Werx needed an entirely new website as a crucial part of a rebrand, with the goal of driving leads through an optimised workflow and broadening the reach of the business.

760%
increase in web traffic
7/wk
new commercial enquiries
72
regions covered
“Nathan made it clear that SEO wasn't an afterthought, it was baked into every decision, from site structure and page speed to keyword targeting and metadata.”
Read the case study View live site (opens in new tab)
Gut Girl Podcast website homepage, built by Upgraded
Gut Girl Podcast website on mobile

Podcasting Built February 2026

Gut Girl Podcast

Gut Girl Podcast needed a custom website built to a tight deadline that combined technical excellence with distinctive visual design reflecting the founder's brand.

  • Built to a tight deadline without compromising on technical quality or design.
  • Integrated technical build with thoughtful visual design input across every page.
  • Website includes everything Georgia-May needed without scope creep or delays.
“He put together everything I needed and wanted with ease, efficiency, and in the tight timeline I needed it. I'm very grateful for his technical help and visual design input on every aspect of my website.”
View live site (opens in new tab)

Start here

Ready to start?

Book a 30-minute discovery call and we'll recommend the tier that fits. If none of them do, we'll say that too.

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