Website design and care

Stop overpaying
for your website.

You pay once. You own the files and the domain. After that the only number is twenty-five dollars a month, and only if you want me to keep the thing running so you never have to think about it again.

Built bySusan Brearley
BackgroundTwenty-seven years in systems engineering at IBM
AlsoWriter, editor, and director of a 501(c)(3)
MethodHand-written HTML and CSS. No page builder, no plugin stack.
HostingStatic files on Netlify. Nothing to patch, nothing to break.
TurnaroundLive in days, not months
MaintenanceMine, not yours
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Why this is different

One person, first call to last deploy

You will not be handed to an account manager. The person who writes your copy is the person who writes the code, points the domain, and answers the phone when something looks wrong on a Saturday.

I spent twenty-seven years in systems engineering at IBM, back when a system going down was somebody's actual emergency. The habits from that work are the reason your site stays up and your certificate never lapses.

I am also a working writer and editor, which matters more than it sounds like it should. Most small business sites are not badly built. They are badly written. The page says what the owner does without ever saying why anyone should care.

Words are the part I am best at, and they are the part that decides whether a visitor calls you or closes the tab.

Turnaround

Live in days, not months

An agency will quote you six to twelve weeks. I work in focused sessions and most sites go live within a week of the day your content reaches me. Your photos, your hours, your service list, whatever you already have. That last part is the honest catch, because the calendar starts when the content arrives, not when we first talk.

Not your job

What you will never have to do

  • Pick a template, then find out it cannot do the one thing you needed
  • Learn a page builder you will open twice a year
  • Install, update, and un-break plugins
  • Buy the same domain twice because the first account went dark
  • Resize your own photos and logo files
  • Hear from a customer that your contact form stopped working
  • Renew hosting, certificates, or anything else with an expiry date
  • Wait three weeks for somebody to change a phone number

Included

What gets built

  • A home page that says what you do in one screen
  • Service or product pages built to grow as the business does
  • An about page written to be quoted by other people
  • A working contact form that reaches your inbox
  • Newsletter signup wired to your list
  • Mobile layouts, because that is where your customers are
  • Your hours, location, and phone where search engines look for them
  • Your domain pointed correctly, with the certificate handled

Selected builds

The work

Nonprofit institute

gardenofneuro.org

A 501(c)(3) with programs, a board, donors, and a mission that had to read clearly to all three at once. Rebuilt from the ground up after the original site was stranded in an account nobody could reach.

Visit site
Publisher

gardenofneuro.com

The publishing arm of that same nonprofit. Donor pages, an author pipeline, a growing catalog, and a cohort program, all living together without becoming a maze.

Visit site
Author, series fiction

alfredine.com

One published collection, four series in progress, and a set of pages that already work for books nobody can buy yet. Built so nothing needs a redesign when the next one lands.

Visit site
Writer, editor, publisher

susan-brearley.com

My own. Three audiences arriving at one front door, each looking for something different, none of them made to hunt for it. You are reading it now.

See the home page

Amazing work, flexible, custom, exactly what I wanted. A polished, professional website with images and a custom logo—and I didn't have to learn any technology. I am inspired to write more just so I can see my work on my new website! Never been more motivated.

Lynne Fredine, author of the Handsome Harry Adams novellas

Straight answer

When I am not the right fit

If you need a store with hundreds of products, inventory counts, and shipping rules, use Shopify. If you need online booking with calendars, deposits, and reminders, use the platform built for your industry. Those systems do things a hand-built site should not try to imitate.

And if you want to redesign your own pages every few weeks, pay the monthly fee to a platform that lets you. I would rather say that now than take your money and have you work it out later.

And when I am

Where those platforms stop

Most businesses do not need any of that. They need a site that explains what they do, proves they are real, and gets the phone to ring. Those sites change a few times a year, which means you are renting software every month to do a job that was finished on day one.

Platforms also hand you a blank template. They do not write your copy, and the copy is the whole difference between a page people leave and a page people act on.

And the site is yours. Static files and a domain in your name, portable to any host, rather than a page that exists only for as long as somebody else's company does.

What it costs

Two numbers, no surprises

One time

The build

$1,200

One time, site is yours

Design, writing support, every page, your domain connected, and the site live. Roughly sixteen hours of work at a fixed price, which means the meter never runs and the number never moves. You own the domain and the files.

If the price is the obstacle, say so in your note. I have room for that.

Founding rate: the first five clients pay $795. When the fifth is booked, the rate goes.

Ongoing

The care plan

$25

Per month, cancel anytime

Hosting, certificate, uptime, and one content update a month. New staff, new prices, new photos, a seasonal change. You send it, I post it.

An update is anything that takes thirty minutes or less, and it does not roll over. Extra updates are $35 each. Anything larger runs at $75 an hour, quoted before I start.

For comparison

RouteFirst yearWho maintains it
This$1,500 first year, $300 afterMe
General site builder$192 to $276You, from a blank template
Custom web studio$1,500 to $4,000 and upThem, at their hourly rate

Site builder figures taken from the vendors' own pricing pages on August 7, 2026, and cover the range from cheapest annual plan to most expensive monthly plan. Studio figures are typical published ranges and vary widely by scope.

If you write books

There is a version of this page for authors

Series pages, book pages that work before the book exists, and a bio shaped by someone who has read a few hundred of them. Same price, same care plan, different set of problems.

See the author page

Get started

Tell me about your business

Send what you do, who you do it for, and where people find you now. I will tell you what I would build and what it would cost, with no obligation on either side.

I read every message. You will hear back within seven days.

Message received. I will be in touch.