Everything people ask before they commit

Fair question, and the honest answer is that you are comparing two different things. Squarespace's $23 rents you a template that thousands of other businesses are also renting, and nobody touches it but you. Our $100 includes hosting, but the bulk of it is a person: security patches, backups, monitoring, and real edit time every month on a site that was designed only for you.

Put bluntly: if you have the evenings and the patience to run it yourself, use a builder — genuinely. If you would rather the website was simply handled, that gap of about $77 a month is what handled costs.

Maybe not, and we'll say so. On the first call we look at your current site, and if three fixes will do it, that is what we will tell you rather than sell you a rebuild — and we will do those three fixes on a care plan without a build fee at all. Clear signs you do need a rebuild: it takes more than three seconds to load on a phone, you can't update it yourself, it doesn't work properly on mobile, or you're embarrassed to send the link to someone.

No — small businesses are the entire reason LR Forge exists. One- and two-person operations are exactly who we are set up for, and the Spark tier exists precisely so a sole trader can get something genuinely custom without a five-figure budget.

We're based in Benicia and cover roughly an hour in every direction — Vallejo, Martinez, Concord, Fairfield, Napa, Walnut Creek, down into Berkeley and Oakland. Anywhere in that radius we'll come to you, because twenty minutes walking round your shop tells us more than an hour on a video call.

Outside that, we work remotely and it goes perfectly well. The only thing you lose is the in-person visit.

A website doesn't create demand — it converts it. If people are already searching for what you do, a fast, clear, trustworthy site turns far more of them into calls than a slow confusing one. What we commit to is the part we control: a site that loads fast, reads clearly, works on a phone, and asks for the call. We'll set up analytics and go through the numbers with you at 30 days so you can judge the rest for yourself.

What we won't do is promise you a specific percentage. Anyone who does is guessing.

Three things, and they're all checkable. Our prices are published rather than hidden behind a discovery call. We don't use themes or page builders, so no two sites we make look alike. And we'll talk you out of things you don't need, in writing, before you have paid us anything.

There are two numbers and we always give you both. Spark is $800 to build, then $100 a month. Anvil, which most businesses land on, is $1,200 then $175. Bespoke — stores, bookings, multiple locations — is $1,900 then $300.

Across the first year that is $2,000, $3,300 or $5,500 including twelve months of care. After year one you are only paying the monthly. Every figure, add-on and inclusion is on the pricing page.

The monthly is the catch, and we print it in the same size type as the build fee so you can judge them together rather than discover one later. The build fee on its own does not cover our time on a project. The care plan is what makes the arrangement work for us, and it is what puts a properly built site in reach this month instead of next year.

The upside for you is that we are still being paid next month, so it is our problem if the site stops working. A studio paid once has every incentive to stop answering the phone.

The published prices assume the care plan, because that is the arrangement we recommend and the one the build fee is priced against. If you would rather own it outright and handle hosting and maintenance yourself, we will quote a build-only price instead — it is meaningfully higher up front, and we will tell you plainly what you would be taking on. Ask on the first call.

Beyond those two numbers there are no hidden fees. No setup charge, no per-change billing inside your included time, and your monthly rate is fixed for 24 months.

You keep it. The design and the code are yours and the domain is in your name from day one. Give us 30 days' notice and we export the whole site, hand over every file and login, and help you point it at hosting of your own. No exit fee, and we will not hold your domain hostage.

What stops is the hosting we provide, the maintenance, and the monthly edit time. There is no minimum term, so you can do this in month two if we have disappointed you.

Ten to twenty business days — two to four weeks — for any tier. The clock starts when we have your content and the deposit, not when you first email us. The single biggest cause of delay is waiting on photos or approvals from your side, so we tell you exactly what we need and when we need it.

Revisions are included in the build fee: two full rounds on Spark, three on Anvil, and on Bespoke as many as you need inside the build window. If you need more time than the window allows, your first extension — two extra weeks — is free, no questions asked. We would rather extend than rush you into signing off something you are not happy with.

Past an extended window we bill time at $95 an hour, and we tell you before that clock starts rather than after. In practice the free extension is plenty.

Genuinely new work — an extra page, a feature nobody mentioned — is quoted separately and never started without your written yes.

Less than you'd think. An hour-long interview call, your logo if you have one, any photos you already own, and about two hours total spread across the project to look at things and say yes or no. We write the words and chase everything else.

Not at all — it's what we expect, and it's why copywriting for every page is included in every build. For photos we'll either direct you through a phone shoot — which comes out far better than people expect — or bring in a local photographer for around $400.

No. We build on a private address and only switch the domain over once you've approved everything. The changeover takes minutes and we do it at a quiet hour for your business. Your existing links keep working, so your search ranking holds.

Constantly. You get a private link from week two and you can watch it come together, click around it on your own phone, and send notes at any point. Nothing launches until you say so.

You own it outright, care plan or not. The domain is registered in your name, the code is yours, and every login is handed over at launch. The monthly buys hosting, maintenance and our time — it never buys us ownership of your website. If you move to another developer you take the whole site with you, and we will help with the transfer at no charge.

Either, whichever you prefer. Anything you told us you'd want to change regularly — hours, prices, menus, photos, staff — gets built so you can edit it yourself without touching code, and that never touches your included time. You get a recorded walkthrough at hand-off.

Most clients end up doing the small things themselves and sending us the fiddly ones. That is exactly how it is meant to work.

Fast hosting, SSL, domain renewal, daily backups kept 30 days, security patches and uptime monitoring. Then the part most care plans quietly leave out: real change work. Thirty minutes a month on Spark, an hour on Anvil, three hours on Bespoke.

Anvil and Bespoke also get a written speed and SEO check every month, and Bespoke gets a call. Unused edit time rolls over for one month, so a quiet January becomes a two-hour February.

Anything that breaks because of how we built it, we fix free for as long as you are on a care plan — not for 90 days, for the whole time you are with us. That is the single best reason to be on one, and it is the part of this arrangement we think you should judge us on.

Response times are 48 hours on Spark, 24 on Anvil and same-day on Bespoke. Off a care plan it is $95 an hour, billed in fifteen-minute increments so a five-minute fix costs you five minutes.

Every build ships with the technical groundwork: page titles, descriptions, local business markup, a sitemap, fast loading, and your Google Business Profile connected properly. That's what gets you eligible to rank locally. Competitive national terms are a longer game and a separate conversation — we'll be honest about which one you're in.

Send it through your client account and we'll quote it. Small things come out of your monthly time at no extra cost. Bigger things — a new page, a booking system, a shop — are quoted as one-time work, and adding a major feature may move you up a tier, which we tell you before you agree to anything.

Because the site is built cleanly rather than stacked with plugins, none of this means starting over. Existing clients get first call on our schedule.