Implementation
A fixed scope, a fixed price and a written schedule.
Your Board and your funder can approve it before any work begins.
When Implementation fits
Some work has to be committed as a single figure before it can start.
The scope, the price and the dates go in writing before work begins — because the people approving the spend have to account for it afterwards.
- A restricted grantwith defined deliverables
- A tenderthat requires a fixed quote
- A capital budgetapproved for a specific financial year
When a fixed project is the right structure
Three situations account for almost every Implementation project. If one of them describes you, this is the right route.
Responding to a tender
Your procurement process requires a defined scope and a fixed quote before a supplier can be selected. You need a document your evaluation panel can score.
Restricted or grant funding
Your funding is tied to named deliverables and dated milestones. You need to report against what was promised, not against what evolved.
Board-approved capital budget
The website has been approved as capital expenditure for a defined period. Finance needs a figure that will not move.
In each case the value of a fixed scope is not the price. It is that the price stops being a question your Board has to keep revisiting.
What is included
Included
- Governance scoping
- Requirements drawn directly from the roadmap produced by your Blueprint Audit, not from a generic discovery process.
- Design in Figma
- Hi-fidelity design of every template, with defined states, not flat pictures of a homepage.
- Development in Webflow
- Built on the Lumos framework, so the structure is documented and any competent Webflow developer can maintain it.
- Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA
- Built in from the design stage. Colour contrast, focus order, keyboard operation and semantic structure are decided before anything is drawn, not corrected afterwards.
- Performance to a 90-plus Lighthouse standard
- Verified on the live site before launch, not on a local build.
- Machine-readable structure
- Schema markup, semantic headings, clean URLs and the technical structure that lets search engines and AI answer engines read your content and cite it accurately.
- CMS structure and training
- Your content model, built so your team can publish without a developer, with a recorded walkthrough for whoever inherits it.
- Documentation and handover
- Written as the work happens and transferred at launch.
Not included
- Programme and campaign copy
- Photography and illustration
- Translation and localisation
- Third-party platform fees
- Domain registration and hosting subscriptions
- Ongoing maintenance after the settling-in window
These are not gaps in the service — they are the things that belong to you. The next section sets out what to budget for, and roughly what it costs.
What you need to have ready
The exclusions above are the things that belong to you, and knowing that early is what keeps a project on schedule. Here is what to budget for separately, and roughly what it costs.
- Copy for every page
- The single most common cause of delay. Drafting is no longer the hard part; AI will get you a serviceable first pass. The hard part is that someone inside the organisation has to supply the real figures, check the language about the people you work with, and have the authority to approve it. Allocate that time and name that person before we start. AI-drafted copy that nobody has verified is worse than late copy — funders can tell, and invented numbers are a governance problem, not a writing one. How to use AI tools for website content without damaging credibility
- Photography
- If you have a usable library, we will use it. If you do not, a day of documentary photography is typically £800–£1,500 and is worth more to institutional credibility than most people expect. Stock imagery is a visible signal, and funders read it.
- A named decision-maker
- One person who can approve design and content without convening a committee. Not necessarily senior. Necessarily available.
- Platform subscriptions
- Webflow hosting from roughly $300 a year. Set out in full further down this page.
If any of these are unresolved, say so at the scoping stage. A timeline built on an honest picture holds. One built on optimism does not.
Scoping starts from your governance obligations, not from a wireframe
Most website projects begin by asking what the site should look like. This one begins with what your organisation is obliged to demonstrate, and works backwards.
That means the scope is derived from questions with defensible answers. Can a prospective funder locate your accounts, your trustees and your annual report within two clicks? Does your accessibility statement describe the site that actually exists? Is your safeguarding policy findable by someone who needs it urgently and is not familiar with your structure? When your regulator, your auditor or a journalist looks for something, does the site answer or does it deflect?
Your Blueprint Audit answers those questions about your current site and produces a prioritised roadmap. Implementation builds against that roadmap. The result is that every line in the scope traces back to a documented finding, which is what makes the spend straightforward to justify and straightforward to report against.
A website is the surface on which your organisation is judged by people who will never meet you. It should be built to survive that scrutiny.
How the project runs
Seven stages. Each one lists what I deliver and what I need from you, because a fixed timeline only holds if both sides know their obligations before the work starts.
I deliver
A full audit of your current site against governance, accessibility, performance and credibility criteria, with a prioritised roadmap.
You provide
Access to your current site and analytics, and one conversation with whoever owns the site internally.
Output
The roadmap that everything after this is scoped from.
I deliver
A written scope, a fixed price, a milestone schedule and a dated timeline. In a tender context, this is the document you submit.
You provide
Confirmation of budget envelope, funder conditions and any procurement requirements.
Output
A signed scope. Nothing proceeds without it.
I deliver
Hi-fidelity design in Figma for every template, with accessibility decisions made and documented at this stage.
You provide
One round of consolidated feedback per template, from a named approver, within five working days.
Output
Signed-off designs.
I deliver
A content template for every page, a migration plan for existing content, and a redirect map so no existing URL breaks.
You provide
Final copy and images. This is the stage that determines whether the project finishes on time.
Output
Content ready to build against.
I deliver
Development in Webflow on the Lumos framework, CMS structure, and a staging site you can review at any point.
You provide
Review of the staging site at two defined checkpoints.
Output
A complete site on staging.
I deliver
Accessibility testing against WCAG 2.2 AA including keyboard-only and screen reader passes, Lighthouse verification, cross-browser testing, and a written test report you can file.
You provide
Final approval to launch.
Output
A test report. This is the document your Board will want if accessibility is ever questioned.
I deliver
Migration, DNS cutover, redirect verification, CMS training, and transfer of all credentials, design files and documentation to your organisation.
You provide
Access to your domain registrar.
Output
A live site your organisation owns outright.
Timeline
16 to 20 weeks
An Implementation project typically runs 16 to 20 weeks. Development is rarely what sets the pace. Content is, because it usually involves several people and an approval process, and because writing about your own organisation is harder than it looks from the outside.
A realistic timeline protects both the quality of the work and your Board's confidence in it, so I plan for that stage honestly rather than promising a speed I cannot hold.
Investment
Every Implementation project is scoped and quoted individually from your Blueprint Audit roadmap. The figures below are the bands those quotes fall into, so you can build a budget line before we speak.
| Stage | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blueprint Audit | £2,500 | Required first. Charged separately and not included in the figures below. |
| Implementation | From £10,000 | Scoped from the audit roadmap. |
| Minimum total engagement | £12,500 | Audit plus the smallest Implementation scope. |
| Typical total engagement | £15,000–£30,000 | Where most projects at this scale land. |
Band 1
£10,000–£15,000
A focused rebuild. Around 8 to 12 templates, a single content type, straightforward information architecture. Suits organisations whose problem is credibility and structure rather than scale.
Band 2
£15,000–£22,000
A full institutional site. Multiple content types, a resource or publication library, programme and impact sections, and the governance surfaces a funder will look for. This is where most projects sit.
Band 3
£22,000–£30,000+
Complex requirements. Multilingual delivery, large-scale content migration, integrations with a CRM or donation platform, or a federated structure with country or regional sites.
The price is fixed in writing before work begins and billed against completed milestones, so you are never materially ahead of the work. The scope is agreed in the same document. If a genuine change to scope becomes necessary, I raise it and agree a revised position with you before proceeding, rather than letting the work drift and presenting the bill afterwards.
There is no upper limit stated because scope, not a price list, determines cost. If your requirements exceed these bands, the quote will say so plainly before you commit to anything.
What your procurement process will need
Institutional buyers cannot appoint a supplier on a conversation. Rather than making you request each document as your process reaches it, here is what is available and how quickly.
- Professional indemnity and public liability certificates, current, on request
- Named reference contacts from previous engagements, on request
- Data processing agreement and a full sub-processor list
- Accessibility conformance statement covering both the delivered site and my own working practice
- Standard contract and payment terms, available for your legal team to review before you commit to anything
- Completed supplier or security questionnaires, returned within five working days
- Companies House registration and VAT position
- Evidence of the Blueprint Audit methodology, if your evaluation panel needs to score the approach
If your process requires something not listed here, ask for it. It is faster to send a document than to have a bid stall at an internal stage neither of us can see. Email hello@socialectric.com.
What happens if I am not available
I work alone. That is an advantage in delivery — you speak to the person doing the work, and nothing is lost in a handover between account manager and developer. It is also a legitimate question in procurement, and your Board is right to ask it. Here is the honest answer.
- 01
Everything is registered to you
Webflow, the domain, analytics, every third-party account. All created in your organisation's name from the first day, with your team as owner and me as a collaborator. You would lose a contact, not an asset.
- 02
There is no proprietary layer
The build uses Webflow and the Lumos framework. Both are documented and widely used, and Lumos in particular is a published, public framework rather than a private system of mine. Any competent Webflow developer can take the site over without a handover from me. That is a deliberate constraint on my own leverage.
- 03
Documentation is a contractual deliverable
Handover notes, CMS guidance and governance documentation are written as the work happens and are named in the scope. They are not assembled at the end as a formality, and the project is not complete without them.
- 04
You pay against completed work
Milestone billing means you are never materially ahead of the delivery. If the engagement ended unexpectedly, you would hold everything you had paid for.
- 05
Continuity of the site itself
Because the site is hosted by Webflow under your account, it continues to run whether or not I am involved. There is no server of mine in the path, no build process that only runs on my machine, and no dependency that fails because a person is unavailable.
This is the same standard I audit clients against. It would be difficult to argue that your organisation should not depend on a single point of failure while quietly arranging for you to depend on me.
What you own, and what it costs to run
Everything I build is yours, and nothing about your website depends on me remaining involved. But “you own it” is only half a sentence. The other half is what it costs to keep running.
What transfers to you at launch
Your website
The Webflow project, transferred to your organisation's Workspace with your team as owner.
Your content
The CMS structure and every item in it, yours to manage without a developer.
Your assets and credentials
Figma files, image libraries, access keys, DNS records and documentation, all transferred at launch.
Your code
Webflow allows code export on a paid Workspace plan, so the HTML and CSS can be taken elsewhere if you ever choose to leave. Note the limit honestly: CMS-driven content exports collection by collection, and forms stop working outside Webflow. It is an exit route, not a seamless migration.
What it costs to run
Webflow is a subscription platform. I recommend it because it lets a non-technical team publish confidently without a developer in the loop, which is worth more to most organisations than the licence costs. But you should see those costs before you commit, and in the form your finance team will actually be billed in.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Premium Site plan (required for the CMS) | $25 / month, billed yearly |
| Starter Workspace, includes one full seat | Free |
| Additional Full seat (design and admin access) | $39 / month per seat, billed yearly |
| Additional Limited seat (content editing) | $15 / month per seat, billed yearly |
| Reviewer seat (comment and approve only) | Free |
All figures are Webflow's published list prices as at 27 July 2026, in US dollars excluding VAT. Verify current pricing at webflow.com/pricing before finalising a budget — Webflow restructured its plans in May 2026 and revises them periodically.
≈ $300 / year
One person maintains the site
Premium Site plan only, using the free Workspace and its included seat.
≈ $840 / year
A communications team of four
Premium Site plan, one included full seat for whoever administers it, three Limited seats for content editors.
≈ $2,300 / year
A larger team, ten people with access
Premium Site plan, two full seats, six Limited seats, two free reviewer seats.
Most of your team does not need a full seat
A Full seat costs $39 a month. A Limited seat, which allows content editing and page building, costs $15. Anyone whose job is writing and publishing content needs the Limited seat, not the Full one. Buying the wrong seat costs an unnecessary $288 per person per year, and it is the single most common way organisations overpay for Webflow. I will set the roles correctly at handover and document which person should hold which seat.
Trustees and reviewers cost nothing
Anyone who only needs to read, comment and approve can hold a free seat. Directors, trustees and external reviewers should never be on a paid seat.
Webflow bills in US dollars
Your subscription cost in sterling moves with the exchange rate. It is a small line, but if your finance team budgets annually in sterling, it will vary year to year through no decision of yours. Worth a note in the budget paper.
There is a much larger tier, and you almost certainly do not need it
Webflow's Team plan is $2,500 a month on an annual contract. It bundles advanced governance controls, single sign-on-adjacent features and bulk seats. It is designed for large in-house teams and is not appropriate for most organisations of the size I work with. I mention it only so that nobody is surprised by it later, and I will tell you plainly if I ever think you have genuinely outgrown the standard plan.
After launch
A website is not finished at launch. Programmes change, campaigns come and go, and governance expectations move. Three things happen at the end of an Implementation project.
A 30-day settling-in window
For thirty days after launch, defects and small adjustments are fixed at no additional cost. This covers anything that is not working as specified, plus the minor corrections that only become visible once real traffic and real editors arrive. It does not cover new scope, and I will say clearly which is which rather than letting the distinction blur.
Documentation you own
Handover notes, CMS guidance, a recorded walkthrough of your content model, and the accessibility test report. Enough for your team to run and update the site without depending on me, and enough for a future developer to pick it up without a conversation.
An optional Partnership
Most Implementation clients move into the Monthly Partnership once the site is live, so it continues to be maintained as infrastructure rather than left to age. It is entirely optional, there is no lock-in, and declining it does not affect anything you own. If you would rather manage it internally, the documentation exists precisely so that you can.
Implementation or Monthly Partnership?
Both routes start with the Blueprint Audit. The difference is what the funding requires.
Implementation
A defined project. Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed dates, agreed in writing before work begins.
Choose this when the spend has to be committed as a single figure — a restricted grant, a tender, an approved capital budget.
Monthly Partnership
A rolling arrangement. The build is included as the first phase, and the relationship continues as the site evolves.
Choose this when you want flexibility and a predictable monthly cost, and no external process requires a fixed end date.
If you are not sure which fits, the Blueprint Audit will make it clear. You do not need to decide before we talk.
Every engagement starts with a Blueprint Audit
The audit costs £2,500 and produces a prioritised roadmap of what your site should do and in what order. It stands alone — you are under no obligation to commission anything after it, and a number of organisations have used it purely as internal evidence for a funding application or a Board paper. If Implementation follows, it is scoped from that roadmap.
Questions from NGO decision-makers
Common concerns from Communications Directors and Executive Leadership about investing in institutional website infrastructure.
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