Build $10,000 Websites from Your Sofa with Claude Code

What takes five people three weeks to deliver, you can do in an afternoon. Without programming and without opening the terminal once.

A decent corporate website costs between €3,000 and €12,000. Not because of the code, but because of the three weeks of meetings. Yesterday I built one from my sofa, and I'm going to tell you the whole process, step by step.

I'll tell you the whole process, step by step.

A warning before starting, because there is a lot of "smoke" around this.

This isn't about "tricking people and charging them €5,000."

It's about the fact that the real work of a website (deciding what it says, for whom, and how it looks) is still work. What has disappeared is the slow part: layout, repeating, waiting for the developer, waiting for the designer, waiting for someone to answer an email.

If you do the part that matters well, the result stands up to comparison. And if it stands up, you charge for it.

The question everyone asks: where is this done?

Many people think you need the terminal, that black screen that commands respect. No.

Claude's desktop app has three tabs at the top:

→ Chat, the usual conversation

→ Cowork, tasks with your files

→ Code, build real projects

The Code tab is the same Claude Code agent, but with an interface. You write in plain English and it creates the folders, the files, and starts everything up.

Download it at claude.com/download and log in with your account.

Warning: a paid plan is required. With the free one, you'll run out of limit in half an hour.

STEP 0: AN EMPTY FOLDER

Before asking for anything, a tip that would have saved me two ugly websites.

Create a new, empty folder on your computer. Just for this website.

It sounds silly, but it's what avoids the typical disaster: loose files all over the desktop, Claude touching things it shouldn't, and you not knowing what is what.

One folder, one project. In Claude, you choose that folder and it won't leave it.

STEP 1: THE BRAND FILE

This is the step that almost no one takes. And the one that makes all the difference.

Write a one-page document with the decisions you make and that Claude shouldn't invent.

Six lines:

→ Who enters: "wedding photographer, €2,000 budget"

→ What they feel upon entering: "expensive, calm, low noise"

→ The single action: "book a call"

→ Fonts: two, maximum

→ Colors: three. Background, text, one accent

→ Forbidden: what you don't want to see under any circumstances

Without this file, Claude fills in the gaps on its own. And its default filler is that of a €200 template.

Copy this template and fill in the information :)

1BRAND: [name]
2IDEAL CLIENT: [who they are, what they seek, their budget]
3FEEL: [3 adjectives, none vague]
4SINGLE ACTION: [the one thing they must do]
5FONTS: [one for headings, one for body text]
6COLORS: [background / text / accent, with hex codes]
7FORBIDDEN: gradients, emoji icons, stock photos, 
8everything centered, "innovative solutions"

Save it as brand.txt inside the project folder.

And in Claude, write this:

1Read brand.txt before making any design decisions.
2If something isn't there, ask me.

That last sentence changes things quite a bit. It goes from inventing to consulting you.

STEP 2: GIVE IT A YARDSTICK

Adjectives don't work. "Elegant" means nothing to a model. Images do.

What I do:

→ I go to Land-book, Godly, or Minimal Gallery. All three are free and full of real published websites

→ I choose 3. Not ten. With ten, it mixes everything and a jumble comes out

→ From each one, I capture the homepage and an interior section. Six captures

→ I drag them into the project folder

Avoid Dribbble for this. They are concepts that don't exist, and Claude tries to reproduce impossible things.

And I tell it exactly this ↓

1Use these screenshots as a quality benchmark: look at the
2font sizes, the space between sections, and the rhythm
3of the page. DO NOT copy the structures or the texts.

Without that "do not copy," it clones the first reference and you end up with plagiarism with another logo on top. I've seen it happen.

STEP 3: THE ASSIGNMENT

One single message. Four blocks. No dropping ideas three at a time, which is how everything breaks.

1. What it is: "Single-page website for [X], with these sections: [list]."

2. The copy: Write it yourself. Seriously. It's the only thing Claude can't pull out of its sleeve, because it doesn't know your business or your clients.

3. How to build it: "Use Astro and Tailwind. Static web, no CMS." You don't need to know what it is. It's the combination that loads fast, doesn't break, and doesn't force you to pay anything per month.

4. The limits: "Respect brand.txt. Maximum two fonts and three colors."

You send and wait a few minutes.

What appears will be at 70%. This is normal and it's important that you know it beforehand, because this is where most people get frustrated and quit.

No one publishes the first version. Not you, not me, not the agency that charges €8,000. The difference is that they take two weeks to show you that 70% and you have it on screen in six minutes.

STEP 4: THE POLISHING

Here is the real value, and it's where it's decided if it looks like €500 or €5,000.

The mistake everyone makes is writing "improve it a bit, make it look more professional." That means nothing and the result gets worse.

It's fixed in layers. One message for each:

→ Layer 1, text: "Review all font sizes. Leave a coherent scale. Don't touch anything else."

→ Layer 2, air: "Section by section: double the white space where it looks cramped. Don't touch anything else."

→ Layer 3, motion: "Make elements appear smoothly as you scroll down. 250ms. Nothing that bounces."

That "don't touch anything else" is the important part. If you ask for all three at once, it fixes one well and breaks two.

And if there's something specific you don't like and don't know how to explain? Take a screenshot, drag it in, and describe it in plain English:

"This block looks cramped against the one above."

"This button doesn't stand out from the background."

"This headline takes up too much space on mobile."

You don't need a designer's vocabulary. You need to point. It's exactly what a client does with their agency, only here the response arrives in thirty seconds instead of four days.

The three final checks ↓

Even agencies skip them:

→ Mobile: "Show me all pages at 375px wide and fix what breaks." That's where most of your people come from.

→ Five seconds: show the homepage to someone for five seconds and cover it. If they can't tell you what you do, the headline is useless.

→ The button: is it visible without scrolling? Is it repeated at the very bottom? If not, you've made a brochure, not a website.

STEP 5: PUBLISHING IT

Fifteen minutes and zero euros per month.

The simplest way, without weird accounts or servers:

→ You ask Claude to prepare the final project folder

→ You go to Netlify or Vercel and drag that folder onto the screen

→ They give you an address instantly

→ You buy a domain (between €8 and €12 per year) and connect it from the panel

It's online. No monthly fee, no maintenance, without the €120 per month bill for "managed hosting."

WHAT YOU CHARGE

Now the part that no one tells.

If you do this for others, don't sell "a website." Sell the complete package:

A 45-minute call to extract the brand file, the written copy (not filled with fluff), the website published with its domain, two rounds of changes, and a 10-minute video explaining how to update it.

That is an assignment between €800 and €2,500 depending on the client, delivered in days instead of weeks.

You don't charge for the hours. You charge because the client goes from having nothing to having something that brings them work.

Three errors I see repeated constantly:

→ Asking for five changes in one message. It goes wrong. One per message.

→ Letting Claude write the copy. It comes out correct but empty. The copy is your job.

→ Seeking perfection before publishing. The published website with three defects is worth infinitely more than the perfect one that is still in your folder.

So, what is it that really changes here?

The agency sold three weeks of process. The process was always four well-made decisions:

→ for whom

→ what it should do

→ how it should look

→ what is forbidden

The rest was waiting. And waiting is no longer charged for.

Your first website will take you five hours and look like €500. The third will take you two and look like €3,000. The fifth you'll do half-asleep.

It's a normal learning curve, not magic. Start with your own. It's the best place to make mistakes, because the client is you.

Save this and dedicate a few hours to it.

I assure you that you won't regret it :)