One of the most common questions our web designers in Pattaya, Thailand are asked on a daily basis is just how long does it take to build a website in Thailand? It’s almost impossible to give an exact timeframe because every single website we design are unique in so many different ways.
For example, let’s say you own a real estate agency in Pattaya and would like a website designed to advertise property in Pattaya for sale and rent, your property portfolio might consist of 1000+ properties. If you require a website design company in Pattaya to upload 1000 properties to your new website, there is a good chance each individual property might include 10 images per listing. Not to mention property descriptions, property features etc. Not only will the job be a very expensive one when you consider the time it would take for a web designer to do this, it would also be very time-consuming and thus almost impossible to give an exact timeframe to carry out the design and construction of the website.
If you are in the nightlife or entertainment industry in Pattaya and you require a website design built for your bar, then you can almost guarantee that the time to build your website from start to finish, will be considerably lower than the time it would take for the real estate business website. It’s highly likely that a bar in Pattaya with an online website will simply need a home page, contact page with a map, an image gallery showing staff and customers having a good time as well as a few other pages such as around town, possible accommodation for rent etc.
So the bottom line is the time it takes to build certain websites will naturally depend on the type of business the site is for. But there are other factors that can contribute to the construction time, and we will discuss these further.
Building websites in 2004 vs 2021
When we first started building websites in Pattaya back in the year 2004, we were hardcore, 100%, professional coders who built only custom websites starting from completely blank pages. These were the good old days when mobile phones were nowhere near as advanced as they are today, meaning most people still browsed and searched online via laptops or desktop PC’s. They were primarily the days of HTML, PHP, JavaScript and CGI. These were the 4 main computer codes/languages that we used to build websites.
The biggest issue with building sites in those days were how to get the site to look good, function correctly, and fit well on different PC sizes. Not all screen sizes were created equal. With screen sizes, we don’t mean the display size with respect to inches, we are referring to pixel size. Pixels are still a measurement of size. So for argument’s sake, and just for a basic understanding, a laptop screen 8 inches wide, while half the size of a 16-inch laptop screen can still have the same pixel size such as 1366×768 (width/height).
So let’s say most people were viewing a website on a screen size of 1366×768 pixels and you wanted the width of your website to fit their screen, you would then set your website to be 1366 inches wide. But what happens if someone opens your website and are viewing on a screen with a pixel size of 1920×1080? They would see space to the left and right of the screen if the site had for example been aligned centre of the page. In that blank space might be a background image or a simple background colour to enhance the design of the website.
But what would happen if the screen size they were viewing the website on had a screen resolution of 640×480, they would get an awful, ugly scroll bar at the bottom of the page which would be a big no, no!
So how does this fit or relate the timeframe to construct a website design today? It’s very relevant because since 2004 for example, when we first established our web design company in Pattaya, mobile phones and tablets are now the main source of device used to browse online. This made raw programming so much harder because now you had an infinite number of devices all using different pixel sizes. This made website design so much harder to achieve because now you needed your website to work well on every device.
This is where and why website templates became so popular and why a great deal of website designers in Pattaya, and in fact, worldwide, stopped programming the old-fashioned way and rather used website templates to construct websites for their clients.
Website templates vs custom designs
As discussed in this article already, we took great pride in the fact we built custom websites using raw programming skills. But as time passed, we had to start using web templates in some form or the other. The reason was very simple, most website template designs have been built by large web development teams who have programmed the code in such a way that they are responsive and auto adapt to fit the screen or device the end user is browsing on.
Furthermore, every time your mobile phone is updated or a new device is released, then the same web development team who built the template will automatically update it or fix any bugs to ensure it continues to work across all browsers and devices. If you were to hire a web design team in Pattaya for example to build you a custom website like this, then expect to pay in excess of 1,000,000 Baht.
The time, the manpower, the skill and the expertise to build custom websites nowadays so that your website works across all devices is absolutely noting like before. It would cost you an arm and a leg and you would need to be a big player in the market to afford this such as Sony, Marvel, Tesco etc. These firms pay tens of millions of baht for this privilege.
I can tell you now that in the past, it was quicker and easier for me as a lead web programmer in Pattaya to build a custom website using raw web code than it is now using a template and redesigning that template to fit the style and appearance that each client requests. The main advantage, however, is as explained above and that the general code will always be updated to improve its functionality across all devices without effecting the design that you created using the templates built in design tools.
While we would love to go back to building sites the old-fashioned way, we simply need to design and build websites that are mobile friendly, responsive, modern and work across all devices and this is why we now use themes developed for this purpose.
The conclusion on website construction time
There are other factors that come into play when discussing the time it takes to build websites in Thailand. For example:
- Waiting for the text and images for the site from the client
- How many changes the client requests
- Types of features needed such as image slideshows, online contact forms, booking systems, automated booking systems, online payment facilities and more.
This article has covered the most important factors to consider when it comes to the time it takes to build a website in Thailand, and why it’s almost impossible to give a timeframe on how long it takes to build a website. In general, however, we can confirm that on average we spend around 1-3 weeks on building professional website designs in Thailand for clients both locally and abroad.
Would you like to know more? Contact us today to get a price quote to see how we can help you and your business get online.
I used a Web design company in Thailand to build my website last year and I was very disappointed because it took 3 months for them to show me the 1st draft and I paid 50000 Thai baht in advance and then the company disappeared and didn’t answer any of my emails. I then visited their online website and found it did not exist anymore and that made me so angry and upset because of so much money lost.
I have to say thank you for your company because you helped me with my situation and it didn’t cost as much money and also I got to see the 1st draft in 3 days not 3 months like quoted by another business.
Thank you for everything
I asked many Web designers in Pattaya and Bangkok how long and how much it would take to build me a custom website and I got so many different answers from them ranging from 4 weeks to 4 months.
I know one company who built over 4000 websites for customers from all around the world and the majority of those websites took less than 100 hours each to code. This company although they coded themselved they used templates for every single website which is why it didn’t take more than 100 hours to build.
There are some services that have a drag and drop builder website where they claim you can set up your website in 5 minutes however with no technical skills this can still be quite difficult to do.
You have to also consider that these theme customizations require many man hours which is why for a custom site most websites will start from $3000.
I have asked many Web developers in Thailand how long does it take to code a website and so many of them also give me different time scales I guess based on the level of skill.
Also I think most people dont understand that a small website with half as many pages as a big website can take 4 or 5 times the amount of time to build because you may be a perfectionist and require many changes.
I think the experience level will also Dictate how long it takes to build a website in Thailand because you have Junia developers senia developers and also middle developers in the middle.
People also have different expectations on quality we know that because when we buy products for different prices we generally think the most expensive product means it has better quality materials or has been design with better craftsmen and I think this relates to time and money in website design also.
I forgot to mention that there are other aspects that can dictate the speed of a website being created such as making sure the website is optimised for all browsers and devices, fast and smooth animations, making sure the website loads fast and instantly, with easy maintenance and an easy to use and easy to navigate admin backend.
I think the bottom line is that you can develop a website quite quickly or give a guideline as to how long it might take to design a website but I think many people or many designers can rush too quickly and make mistakes which is why it’s advisable to not rush a website design.