Frequently asked questions

Most Houston agencies quote $5,000 to $25,000 and bill hourly. Graphcast charges a flat rate: a one-page site or a full business site, priced up front before we start. You approve the number first, and it does not change unless you change the scope. Call us and we will give you the exact figure for your project in one conversation.

The standard schedule is 50% to start and 50% at launch. If that does not fit your cash flow, raise it on the first call — we would rather agree a workable schedule up front than have an invoice go quiet three weeks later.

No. Three costs sit outside the package price and are named rather than buried: domain registration (roughly $12 to $20 a year, paid to your registrar in your name), hosting after launch (free if you host it yourself, or the optional Care Plan), and anything added mid-project that was not in the agreed scope — which you approve in writing before it is built.

A one-page site is typically live in about a week. A full business site with up to six pages takes two to three weeks. The only thing that slows a project down is waiting on photos and business details, so we send you a short checklist on day one.

Your logo files (or the go-ahead to design one), photos of your work or storefront, your services, hours and service areas, and one person who can approve the design. We send a short checklist on day one. Waiting on that checklist is what delays projects, not the build.

Two, in every package. A round means you gather everything you want changed and send it in one pass. If a third round is genuinely needed we quote it flat before doing it, rather than letting an open-ended tweak cycle stretch the timeline.

Thirty days of free fixes for anything not working as agreed. After that, edits are on demand or covered by the optional Care Plan at $49/mo, which also handles hosting, SSL, backups, updates and uptime monitoring.

Yes. The domain, the files, and the content are yours. No lock-in, no hostage fees. If you ever want to move it or maintain it yourself, we hand everything over.

No. At launch you choose: we hand over the files and help you set up your own hosting for free, or we run everything on the optional Care Plan — a flat monthly fee that covers hosting, SSL, backups, and small text or photo edits whenever you need them. Cancel anytime and we hand everything over. Most clients pick the Care Plan so they never think about it again, but it is never required.

You keep it. The domain is in your name, the files are yours, and the site is static HTML that runs on almost any host. We hand everything over and help you point the domain at your new host, free. There is no proprietary builder to be locked into and no exit fee.

Yes. If your current site is slow, looks dated on a phone, or never sends you leads, we rebuild it on a modern stack and keep your domain and Google rankings intact. Redesigns are priced flat like everything else, and we handle the migration.

Yes — page copy is included in every package. We write it from a conversation and your notes, then you review it like anything else. What is not included is photography and ongoing blog production; those are quoted separately if you want them.

On-page SEO fundamentals are built into every site: unique titles and descriptions, clean structure and headings, schema markup, an XML sitemap, fast pages, and a Google Business Profile that matches the site. That is the foundation. Ongoing SEO campaigns — monthly content, link building, rank tracking — are a separate service, and no honest version of either guarantees a ranking.

You can, and for some businesses it is genuinely fine. What the builder will not do: claim and align your Google Business Profile, write pages around the searches Houston customers actually type, keep your hours and phone number consistent everywhere, or answer the phone when something breaks. You also still have to do it yourself, and most owners we work with started with a half-finished builder site for exactly that reason. If a DIY tool fits your situation, we will say so on the first call.

The Google Business Profile is your listing on Google Maps and in the local results: hours, reviews, photos, directions. The website is the property you own: your services, your pricing, your proof, your lead form. They work together. The profile gets you seen, the site closes the job. We set up both.

A Google Business Profile gets you on the map, but Google trusts profiles that link to a real website, and customers who compare two businesses usually pick the one with its own site. Facebook pages bury your info under an interface you do not control. A one-page site fixes both, and it is the cheapest thing we sell.

Yes. Graphcast Web Design serves small businesses throughout Houston and the Greater Houston Area, including Tomball, Cypress, Spring, Katy, The Woodlands, and nearby communities. Meetings are available remotely or by appointment. The work itself is remote-friendly, so a business further out in Texas or beyond is entirely workable — what Houston buys you is local knowledge of how customers here search, and the option of meeting in person.

Graphcast is a service-area business, so there is no storefront to walk into. Meetings happen by phone, by video call, or in person by appointment around the Houston area. We do not publish an address because we do not have a public one, and inventing one would be worse than saying so.

The developer who builds your site. There is no account manager layer, no offshore build team, and no handoff after the sale. That is also why replies are usually same-day.

Small businesses, mostly one to twenty people: trades and contractors, shops, restaurants, nurseries, service businesses, and people opening their first location. The Business Site at $1,950 is the common fit. If you need a forty-page site with a content team behind it, we will say on the first call that we are not the right studio.