Twice a week during active build, with each update naming what was finished and linking to something you can open — and a same-day reply to direct questions. Daily updates on a two-week project mostly produce noise; weekly is too slow to catch a problem before it costs you a fortnight.
The moment it happens
How often should a web company update you during a build is a question that arrives with a specific feeling: you don’t want to be the client who messages every day, but you also have no idea what’s happening.
So you wait. Four days pass. Then you send a slightly apologetic “any update?” — and that dynamic, where progress information is something you have to extract, is the actual problem.
A realistic cadence
| Project stage | Reasonable update frequency |
|---|---|
| Requirements and structure | One summary of what was agreed, in writing |
| Design | An image or file for the home page, then a reply to your feedback within a day |
| Active build | Twice a week, each with a link |
| Revisions | A reply per round within one working day |
| Pre-launch | Daily, briefly — this week has many small moving parts |
| After launch | On request, plus one check-in after two weeks |
Adjust for scale. A five-page site doesn’t need a daily standup. A store with payment integration and stock genuinely does need more contact during the build.
What a useful update actually contains
Most updates fail not because they’re infrequent but because they’re empty. “Working on it, sir” is contact without information.
Three elements make one useful:
- What was completed — named. “Home and About pages are built with your text.”
- A link — the staging address, so you can verify it yourself.
- What’s next, and what’s needed from you — this is the part that saves time. If the build is waiting on your product photographs, you want to know today rather than at the end of the week.
A useful update is two lines long. It doesn’t take effort; it takes the habit.
Set it before work starts
One message, sent with your advance:
Before we start — can we agree on updates twice a week, say Tuesday and Friday, with the staging link each time? And I’ll get you feedback within a day of each round.
Three reasons this works. It’s specific, so there’s nothing to interpret. It’s mutual — you’re committing to your side, which is what makes it reasonable rather than demanding. And the response tells you something: a developer who agrees readily is organised; one who deflects an eight-word-a-week commitment is telling you about the next four weeks.
Reading the cadence as a signal
Communication decay is the earliest reliable warning that a project is drifting. It shows up before missed deadlines do.
Watch for the sequence: replies within minutes, then within hours, then only after you’ve followed up twice, then not at all. When you notice you’ve moved from stage one to stage three, act then — while there’s still a project to correct — rather than after the deadline passes.
The reverse is also worth noticing. Consistent, boring, twice-weekly updates with links are the best available predictor of a project that lands.
Your side of it
To be fair about where delay actually accumulates: clients break cadence too, and often more expensively.
- Feedback in dribbles. Three messages a day for a week is harder to act on than one numbered list.
- Approval that waits on someone travelling. Nominate a decision-maker who is available.
- Going quiet during content collection. The most common project stall, and it looks identical from the developer’s side to being ghosted.
If you want a developer to hold a cadence, hold yours. It’s also the fastest way to be treated as the priority client among their five.
What to do this week
- Send the cadence message — twice weekly, with a link, both ways.
- Ask for the staging link now if you don’t have one.
- Note where your replies currently sit: minutes, hours, or days.
- Commit to giving feedback as one numbered list per round.
- If you’re already at “only replies after two follow-ups”, escalate in writing rather than waiting.
If you want it done the certain way
We update twice a week with a link you can open, and we tell you what we need from you in the same message — because most delay is waiting on content nobody asked for clearly. If you’re currently getting silence, send us the project and we’ll tell you where it actually stands. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- Can you see your website being built?
- When replies go from minutes to days
- How late do website projects actually run?
- The late-night message test
FAQ
How often should a web developer send project updates?
Twice a week during the active build is a sensible standard for a small business site, with each update naming completed work and linking to a staging site. Direct questions deserve a same-day reply.
Is it unreasonable to ask a developer for daily updates?
On a short project, usually yes — daily reporting on a two-week build produces noise rather than information. A twice-weekly update with a link you can check yourself gives you more genuine visibility.
What does it mean when a developer’s replies slow down?
Communication decay is typically the earliest sign a project is drifting, appearing before deadlines are missed. Escalate in writing when you notice replies only arrive after repeated follow-ups.
