( Website development, New Zealand )
Website development for businesses anywhere in New Zealand
Lychee is based in Auckland and works with businesses across the country. Most of a project happens over calls and shared links, so where you are makes far less difference than most studios imply.
This page is about the part that is easy to worry about and hard to find written down: what a website project actually feels like when the studio building it is a few hundred kilometres away.
( The whole thing, in order )
How a project runs when we never meet
( Before anything starts )
A call, then a number in writing
One conversation about the business, what the site has to do and when it has to be live. You get back a scope, a fixed price and a timeline before any work begins — so the first commitment you make is to a written thing, not to a vibe.
( What you send )
Assets, content, and the awkward questions answered
Your logo and brand assets, the content you want on the site, and any photography you would like used. We help work out what belongs where. Having the content ready is the single biggest factor in whether the timeline holds — it matters far more than where you are.
( While it is being built )
A link, not a slide deck
You see the real thing on a staging URL, not a presentation of it, and early enough that changing your mind is cheap. Feedback goes in one place so nothing gets lost between an email, a text and a call.
( Refinement )
Until it feels right, within what we agreed
Layout, spacing, colour, imagery, wording — we keep adjusting for as many rounds as it takes inside the direction we agreed. Extra pages or new functionality are new work, not refinement, so those get priced separately and only built once you have said yes.
( Launch )
Set up in your name, not ours
Domain, hosting, redirects from the old site, analytics and Search Console — configured in your own accounts so nothing is hostage to us. Then a walkthrough of the editor, so you can change everyday text and images yourself.
( After )
Post-launch support, then it is simply yours
Every package includes a support window after launch for the things that only surface once real people are using it. Beyond that there is no monthly build fee and no lock-in — run it yourself, move it, or keep us around for the technical side.
( The build )
What development covers here
Every technical choice follows what the project needs. In practice that is usually one of these, and it is worth naming them because "development" means very different things to different studios.
A site you can maintain
A content editor for the text and images that change, set up so the parts that should stay consistent cannot be knocked out of shape by accident.
Bookings, payments and ecommerce
One supported system connected properly to the site, with confirmations, calendar integration and a real test transaction before anything goes live.
Integrations with what you already use
The site should feed the systems the business already runs on, not become another place to check. Tell us what those are on the first call.
Motion, interaction and 3D
Built in when it adds something to the experience and left out when it does not. Where it earns its place, it is designed alongside the pages from the start.
Three.js and WebGL work( Honest fit )
Where this works, and where it doesn't
Works well
- Established businesses outside Auckland with a real offer, who have run out of local options they trust and would rather not settle.
- Anyone comfortable giving feedback on a link and a call. That’s genuinely the whole requirement — no project management software to learn.
- Rebuilds, where the content largely exists and the problem is the site around it.
Works badly
- When the site needs photography of your premises, people or product that does not exist yet. That’s a local job and it needs to be booked early, by you.
- When nobody at your end can be the decision-maker. Distance is fine; a decision that takes three weeks to reach is not.
- When the whole site needs writing from scratch. We shape structure, headlines and key wording, but full copywriting is scoped separately.
( The money )
Projects start at $1,500 for a landing page and $3,000 for a full website, with bookings or payments from $4,500 and anything more bespoke quoted by proposal. Same prices wherever in the country you are, agreed in writing before we start.
Full pricing Based in Auckland?( What comes out of it )
Websites we have built
Designed, built and shipped the way this page describes — over calls and shared links, with the whole thing written down as it went.
( Our answers )
Working with us from anywhere
- Do you work with businesses outside Auckland?
Yes. Lychee is based in Auckland and works with businesses across New Zealand.
Most of the project happens over calls and shared links, wherever you are. Nothing about the process assumes you can drive to us.
- How does it work if we never meet in person?
Much the same as if we did. A call at the start to understand the business, a written scope and price, then a staging link you can watch the site appear on.
The parts that would have happened in a room happen on a call and in a document instead, which leaves a written record of what was agreed.
- Is it more expensive, or slower, from outside Auckland?
No. The published prices are the same wherever you are, and so are the timelines — most projects take one to four weeks.
The only thing distance genuinely affects is photography. If the site needs images of your place, your people or your product, plan that early; we can point you at what is needed, but we are not the ones holding the camera.
- What if we do want to meet?
Say so early and we will work it out. Meeting in Auckland is easy, and a call with cameras on covers most of what a meeting was for anyway.
- Can we update the site ourselves afterwards?
Yes. Our standard websites include an editor for everyday text and images, and we will show you how to use it before launch.
That matters more at a distance, not less. You should never have to book time with us to change a phone number.
- Can you rebuild our existing site without losing our search rankings?
We map the old URLs to the new site, put redirects in place, keep important page information intact and submit the new sitemap through Search Console.
Nobody can guarantee rankings. What a careful rebuild can do is avoid throwing away search value the old site had already earned.
Wherever you are, start with a call
Tell us about the business, what the website needs to do, and when you would like it live. We will come back with a scope, a price and a timeline.
Start a project