One person, start to finish.
No account manager, no handoff to a junior, no offshore team. You text the number, I pick up. I write every line of the code that ends up on your domain.
An honest letter, no retainer attached
A website is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
I'm Will Porter, based in Victoria. I build small, fast, hand-coded websites for the businesses on the streets I grew up on. One flat fee, paid once, live in a week. Hosting is optional and month-to-month, cancel any time. The rest of this page is the math.
Most of the websites for small businesses in Victoria were built on a Squarespace template in 2017 and have been quietly costing the owner $30, $40, sometimes $380 a month ever since. They look like every other site on the street, they load slowly on a phone, and the owner has lost the password. That is the default. I think the default is bad.
The businesses I grew up next to deserve something hand-made. A site that loads in under a second on a phone. A site that looks like the business itself, not a SaaS dashboard. A site that the owner pays for once, owns forever, and never gets a renewal email about. You don't have to rent your website.
So I built a small practice around the opposite idea. One person on the file. One phone number. One flat fee. No retainer in the contract. The mockup is free, you only pay if you say yes, and if you ever want to move the code somewhere else, it's yours to take. The math is on the rest of this page.
Five principles in plain print
Hand-coded, no templates.
No Squarespace, no Wix, no WordPress, no theme marketplace. Plain HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Faster to load, easier to change, impossible to confuse with the salon next door.
One flat fee, paid once.
$500 for a one-pager, $800 if you also need booking. That is the entire bill for the build. No renewal, no upgrade tier, no "advanced" plan.
Hosting is optional.
$40 a month if you want me to keep it online, back it up, and do small edits whenever you ask. Cancel any time. If you'd rather host it yourself, take the code and go.
You own the work.
The code, the domain, the inbox, the photos. All of it is in your name from day one. I am a contractor. I am not a landlord.
The budget
Three lines, flat fees, no fine print.
The whole price book, on one page, in one table. Mockup is always free. You only pay if you say yes. Everything else is optional and month-to-month.
Code
Line item
What's included
Turnaround
Price (CAD)
A.01
One-pager The default
Hand-coded single-page website, mobile responsive, your domain pointed, your photos, your inbox forwarded. Live in about a week of green light.
~ 7 daysfrom yes
$500Flat, once
A.02
With booking Salons, barbers, services
Everything in A.01, plus an online booking flow. Fresha, Square, or a tidy form, depending on what your business actually uses. No double-entry.
~ 10 daysfrom yes
$800Flat, once
B.01
Hosting & edits Entirely optional
I keep the site online, handle backups, and make small content edits whenever you text me. Cancel any time. If you'd rather host it yourself, the code is yours.
Monthlymonth-to-month
$40/ moOptional
C.00
Mockup before you decide How I start every project
A real working draft of your site, sent to you at a temporary URL in about two days. If you don't like it, you owe me nothing and we shake hands.
~ 2 daysbefore commitment
$0Always free
Total possible spend, year one: $500 build, $0 hosting if self-hosted. Or $980 if you take the $40 hosting tier all twelve months.
Compare against the local incumbent ↓
Exhibit A
After two months of a subscription site, a Victoria business has paid more than my entire build.
Cumulative cost over 24 months. Will Porter, $500 paid once on Day 1 and never again. The typical Victoria subscription web builder charges $280 to $380 a month, forever. The lines diverge fast.
Will Porter · $500 flat, paid once
Subscription web builder · $330/mo midpoint, recurring
Month 2
$660 in fees
already more than Will's entire build
Month 12
$3,960 in fees
roughly eight Will Porter sites
Month 24
$7,920 in fees
sixteen Will Porter sites, same business
Source: published rates from three Victoria subscription web design providers, retrieved May 2026, range $280 to $380 per month for a standard small-business site, midpoint $330 used in chart. Will Porter pricing as published on this page. CAD throughout. Chart shows cumulative outlay only, exclusive of optional $40 hosting tier with Will Porter.
Standing figures
The practice, by the numbers.
A small operation with a small budget and a clear shape. All true at time of writing, May 2026.
Templates used
0
Zero, ever. Every site is hand-coded from a blank file. No theme marketplace.
People on your file
1
Just me. Same phone number from first message to launch and after.
Standard turnaround
7days
Mockup to live. Two days for the first preview, the rest for revisions and ship.
Retainer required
0
None, ever. Hosting is month-to-month if you want it. Cancel any time.
The schedule
From first text to live site in seven days.
A working draft in two days, one round of revisions, then it ships. You see the work before you commit to anything.
Day 1 · 15 min
Tell me about your business.
Phone, text, or a coffee at your counter. Hours, services, the photo you wish people saw first.
Day 2–3 · free
You get a working mockup.
A real site at a temporary URL. Text the link to a friend. If you don't like it, you owe me nothing.
Day 4–6 · iterate
One round of revisions.
Colour, copy, photo swaps, services. Quick turns, usually same-day. Once you say go, I ship.
Day 7 · launch
I point your domain.
Site is live, inbox forwarded, you own the code. Invoice for the flat fee, paid once, done.
Q.01
What if the mockup isn't what I had in mind?
One round of revisions is built into the flat fee. If after that you still don't want it, you owe me nothing and we shake hands. That's the deal, plainly.
Q.02
Do you do bigger sites? Multi-page, online store?
Right now I focus on one-pagers because they're what most small businesses actually need. If you need something bigger, I'll be honest about whether I'm the right person, and refer you on if not.
Q.03
What happens after the summer? You go back to school.
I'm in Victoria May through August and back at Western University from September. Email replies stay same-day either way. The site itself is a static HTML file hosted on Vercel, which means it stays up even if I'm offline for a stretch. The code is yours from day one, so if you ever want to hand it to another developer or move it off my hosting, nothing is locked in.
Q.04
Why is it so much cheaper than a subscription builder or an agency?
One person, hand-coded from a blank file. No team, no offshore handoff, no agency overhead. The price is what the work actually costs, not what a studio with rent and account managers would charge on top.
Q.05
Can I see the work?
The site you're reading is the work. If this page reads as careful to you, that's what your site will read like too. I have a few private mockups I'll happily text you if you want to see another tone.
Free mockup · no commitment · two-day turn
Tell me about your project.
A short brief is enough to start. The business name, what you do, and what you'd like the site to do. I'll send back a real mockup at a temporary URL inside of two days, no obligation, nothing to sign. If you like it, we talk about the rest. If not, no hard feelings. Yours, Will. Reachable any day, including during the school year
Phone · Text
236.562.2822
Usually same-day reply
Email
porterthewill@gmail.com
Usually within the day
In person
Victoria, BC
Happy to meet in person