Questions we're often asked

Whirl is a two-person web studio in Louisville, Kentucky, that builds and hosts custom websites for small businesses and keeps them changing on a monthly Upkeep plan from $29 a month. You see four designs in a private Studio of your own, leave your comments right on the pages, and the one you choose goes live on your domain in a matter of days. After that we keep it running, and when you write to us, one of us writes back.

A website from Whirl has two costs: a build fee we quote for you, and Upkeep from $29 a month. The build fee covers the conversation, the four designs, every round of comments, and the launch on your domain. Upkeep is priced by how often your site changes, with no contract, so you can cancel any time. Write to us and we'll quote your build. The full comparison.

No, there's no contract. Upkeep is month to month and you can cancel any time, and the build fee is paid once. Nothing you've paid for is taken back: the site, the domain and the words stay yours whatever you decide later.

No, you don't need to know anything technical to work with Whirl. You tell us about your business and what you'd like the site to do, and we take care of everything technical: the hosting, the secure padlock, the domain settings and whatever else comes up.

Nothing, or everything. If you have photos, words and a logo, send them and we build from them. If you have only the idea, we start with a conversation and draw from that: we can write the words, and we'll tell you which photos would help and how to take them with your phone.

It takes five steps, and you're in the room for all of them. You tell us about the business and send what you have, and a few days later four designs are waiting in your Studio, a private place of your own. You leave comments right on the pages, in your own words, and we revise and send it back, as many rounds as it takes. When you choose one, it goes live on your domain and Upkeep begins. What to expect, step by step.

Your Studio is your own private place with Whirl, at an address made just for your business, where you and the people you invite watch your website take shape. You see the designs there, leave comments right on the pages, answer our questions and approve each version, and once your site is live it's where you ask for changes, see your visitors and, if you have Slots, update them yourself. Nobody else can see it, and you sign in with a link we email you, so there's no password to remember.

Usually a few days from our first conversation to four designs in your inbox. After that it moves at your pace: each time you send comments, we revise and send it back, and the one you choose is live on your domain in a matter of days.

If you already have a website, we keep what's working, rebuild what isn't, and move you over without downtime. Your old links keep working, and if your current site counts its visitors, that history can come with you.

No. We're in Louisville, Kentucky, and we work with small businesses wherever they are. Everything from the first conversation to the launch happens online, in your Studio and by email, so distance has never been in the way.

Yes. Slots are the parts of your site you update yourself, from your phone or computer, with no code and no waiting on us: new photos in a gallery, holiday hours, this week's specials. You make the change, preview it in place, and put it live when it looks right. Slots come with Standard and Premium, and Basic can add them for $30 a month. Anything else you'd like changed, you send to us and we make it.

Slots are the parts of your site you update yourself, whenever you like: new photos in a gallery, a notice about holiday hours, this week's specials. Make the change from your phone or computer, preview it, and put it live, with no waiting on us. Slots come with Standard (up to four) and Premium (every part of your site that changes), and Basic can add up to two for $30 a month. They never draw from your change credits. We build them in where your site needs them, and adding one later is quoted like any other change.

A change is the everyday kind of update: a price that went up, a holiday announcement, a new logo. Each one uses a change credit, a big one might use more than one, and we tell you how many before we start. You send it from your Studio, or by email on Basic, and we make it.

Upkeep is what keeps your site online, monitored and changing. Every level includes the hosting, the secure padlock, a check on your site every ten minutes, and a Monday email with last week's visitors. Standard adds 4 change credits a month, Slots, the day-by-day view and a yearly Refresh; Premium makes it 12 change credits, a quarterly note and a yearly Redesign session. The full comparison.

Yes, hosting is included in Upkeep. Your site runs on Cloudflare's network, the same one behind many of the biggest sites on the web, with the secure padlock set up for you, and there's nothing to buy separately except the domain, which is yours and usually runs $10 to $15 a year.

Yes, we write the words too. We write a first draft from our conversation, you correct anything that doesn't sound like you, and we keep going until it does. If you'd rather write the words yourself, we'll use them exactly as you give them.

Your site is set up to be found on Google from the day it launches: every page has its own title and description, Google can read who and where you are, the pages load fast on a phone, your old links keep working, and we tell Google about the site at launch, with your own Google account owning its Search Console. Where it ranks is Google's decision, and nobody can honestly promise a position; your home page in your Studio shows what Google has read so far.

Yes. Most people will meet your site on a phone, so every design is drawn for a phone first and then for a bigger screen, and every release is checked on a phone before it goes live.

Yes. A contact form sends enquiries straight to your email, with a spam check in front of it, and your phone number, if you show one, is one tap to call. If you already take bookings or orders somewhere, like Square or Calendly, your site sends people there and your Monday email counts how many went.

We check your site every ten minutes, from its own address, so if it stops answering we know within minutes and get to work; you don't have to notice first. Your Monday email says plainly whether it was down that week and for how long, and never says everything is fine unless every check that week agreed.

The yearly Refresh is included with Standard: once a year, two new directions for the look of your site. Keep what you have, or pick one and we apply it. Premium makes it a Redesign session: your year in numbers, and four new directions like the ones you started with. Ask whenever suits you and we'll suggest a quiet month.

If none of the four designs is right, tell us, right on the pages and in your own words, and we draw more. There's no limit on rounds and no extra charge for them, because they're part of the build fee.

Yes, as a tool, and we'd rather say so than hide it. AI helps us with the parts of the work you never see, which is part of why a custom site from Whirl costs what it does. What you do see, the designs you choose from, the words that sound like you and every decision about your site, is made in a conversation between people, and when you write to us, one of us writes back.

Yes, every site Whirl builds counts its own visitors from the day it goes live, and every Monday you get an email with last week: how many people came, where they came from, which pages they read, and how many took a step toward you, like calling or opening your booking page. Standard and Premium add a day-by-day view in your Studio, where you can mark a day with what happened and see what it changed, ask your own questions of your numbers, and download the whole record. It counts people without ever knowing who they are. Everything your analytics shows.

No, you don't need Google Analytics, because every site Whirl builds counts its own visitors from the day it goes live, with no cookies and nothing for you to install or learn. Google's own side of it comes from Search Console, which we set up for your site at launch, and Standard and Premium show those counts beside yours: how often your site appeared in a Google search, how many people clicked, and what they searched for.

No, Whirl's analytics uses no cookies and stores nothing on your visitors' phones or computers, so there's no cookie pop-up to ask about it. The address a visit comes from is never kept, and a visitor is told apart from the others for one week at a time without our knowing who they are, so nobody can be followed from one week to the next.

Yes, on Standard and Premium you can ask your own questions in your Studio, built as a sentence one tap at a time, like how many people came from Google and then called you, week by week since a day you marked, or how many of every 100 who scanned your flyer went on to your booking page. Every menu holds only what your own site has seen, the answer is drawn as bars, a line or a pie, and a question you keep comes back in your Monday email with the latest answer.

Mark the day in your Studio with a few words, like “posted the sale on Instagram”, and on Standard and Premium the page sets the week after it beside the week before, once enough people have come to say so honestly. When we put a new version of your site live, that day is waiting for you to mark too, so you can see what a change to the site did.

Yes, when someone follows a link to your site from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude or Gemini, Whirl counts that assistant by name, beside Google search, Facebook and the rest, so you can see whether people are finding you by asking an AI. They're in your Monday email with every other source, and on Standard and Premium you can ask about all the AI assistants together as one.

Yes, a flyer, a business card or a sign can carry a QR code of its own that opens its own address on your site, so every scan shows up in your numbers on its own. Ask us and we'll set one up for each piece, and on Standard and Premium you can see what the people who scanned it did next.

Yes, on Standard and Premium you can download your website's data any time, as one spreadsheet file for any two dates you pick, with every day in between: the people, the pages they viewed, where they came from and each step they took. It opens in Excel or Google Sheets, and it's ready to hand to an AI assistant of your own if you'd like to ask it something our questions don't.

Yes, Whirl can build analytics around your business when the everyday view isn't enough, like a step that matters to you counted on its own, a report for your team, or an answer to a question our menus don't ask yet. We built every part of our analytics ourselves, from the counter on your site to the questions you can ask it, so tell us what you'd like to know and we'll quote it.

For busier sites, yes: we're building experiments into Premium, with the results explained in plain words. Ask, and we'll tell you whether your site gets enough visitors to tell the difference.

If your current site counts its visitors, that history can be brought into your weekly record so it reads as one continuous story. It's an optional add-on, so ask about it when we first talk.

If you enjoy building things and have the evenings for it, a site builder can be a fine choice, and we'll tell you so. Whirl is for the owner who would rather hand it to someone: we design it, build it and keep it running, you still change the parts that change from your phone, and you own the result outright, so it is never locked inside a builder's account.

No. We build each site as plain, fast pages with nothing to log into, update or patch, which is why they load quickly and are hard to break or break into. You never see that side of it: you change your site from your Studio, and we handle the rest.

No. Whirl is two people in Louisville, and the person who designs your site is the person who answers your email. There's no account manager in between and no handoff to someone you haven't met. Who you'll be talking to.

You own the website: the domain, the words, the photos and the design are all yours, even if you stop paying for Upkeep, and we hand everything over properly if you ever leave.

You need a domain, and it stays in your name. It usually runs $10 to $15 a year and is not part of the build fee. If you'd rather not deal with buying one, we'll register it for you and bill it at cost.

Yes. The domain is in your name, and the words, the photos and the design are yours, so if you leave we hand over the site's files and everything that went into them, and point you or your next studio at how to put it up elsewhere. Nothing of yours is held back.

Your site is still yours. Upkeep is what keeps it hosted, monitored and changing with us, so when it ends we hand everything over properly: the files, the words, the photos and the design, with the domain already in your name. There's no fee for leaving.