How Long Does It Actually Take to Build a Website With AI
Marketing pages for AI website builders love to say "build a site in minutes," which is true for the first draft but leaves out the part that actually takes time: reviewing that draft, fixing anything that doesn't match your business, and deciding on a domain and publishing details. It's worth separating those two phases, since they take very different amounts of time.
Generating the first working draft is genuinely fast on a description-based builder like Nova, typically a few minutes from describing your site to seeing a live preview, since the tool is doing the structural and copy work that would otherwise take hours on a template-based builder. That speed is real and is the main advantage of this category of tool over building from scratch or from a blank template.
The second phase, reviewing and adjusting the draft, varies a lot more. A simple one-page site where the AI-generated draft is already close to right might take another ten or fifteen minutes of review. A more detailed multi-page business site, especially one where you want to rewrite specific sections in your own voice or add real photos and testimonials, can reasonably take an hour or more of editing before you're ready to publish. That's still considerably faster than building the same site from a blank template, but it's not instantaneous, and treating "minutes" as the whole timeline sets an unrealistic expectation.
FAQ
It's accurate for generating the first working draft, but most people still spend additional time reviewing and adjusting that draft before publishing, so treat "minutes" as the start of the process, not the whole thing.
Usually replacing placeholder content with your own photos, rewriting sections to sound more like you, and double-checking details like hours, pricing, or contact information for accuracy.
Not the site itself, connecting a custom domain is typically a quick step; if you're buying a new domain rather than connecting an existing one, that adds a short registration step but not significant build time.
See how long your own site takes by describing it to Nova and reviewing the first draft.