Most clients underestimate the work by about 60%. The reason is they see “AI-built site” and assume the AI does most of it. It does not. Here is the actual breakdown of where the hours go.
Stage 1: Brief intake (5% of time)
Clarifying the brief is fast but non-negotiable. The brief has to specify audience, action the visitor should take, brand voice, example sites, and what “done” looks like. If you skip this stage, you do it three more times later, at three times the cost.
Stage 2: AI generation (10% of time)
This is the part clients overestimate. The AI generation is fast — maybe an hour. The output is a 70% draft. No shipped site has ever started from a 100% AI draft; the AI job is to give you something to react to, not something to ship.
Stage 3: Edit and rewrite (35% of time)
This is the biggest stage and the most underestimated. The AI draft needs: copy rewritten to have personality and specifics, structure adjusted (every site has different needs), imagery replaced or modified, calls-to-action sharpened, legal and compliance text added where required (privacy, terms, affiliate disclosures).
For a 5-page site, expect 12-18 hours of editing. That is not AI time. That is human time.
Stage 4: Build and integration (30% of time)
WordPress install, theme configuration, contact forms, analytics, search console, schema markup, image optimization, mobile testing, performance tuning. None of it is glamorous. All of it is required. Budget 10-14 hours for a clean 5-page site.
Stage 5: Review and polish (20% of time)
Client review, feedback rounds, deployment, DNS, post-launch fixes. Two review cycles is normal. Three means the brief was unclear. This stage is where clients usually ask for “one more thing” — accept that as part of the budget.
The total
For a clean 5-page AI-assisted site: 30-45 hours of work, with the AI doing maybe 8-12 of those hours. The rest is human craft. If a competitor is offering 5-page sites for $300 and claiming AI-built, they are either losing money or skipping stages 3 and 5. You do not want either.