Website in a Week
$3,500A professional, fast site live in seven days. Pages, contact, maps, reviews — everything a customer needs to choose you. Perfect if your current site embarrasses you.
Freelance web engineer · Upstate New York, working everywhere
Your website should be making you money.
I'm Josh McDaniel. I build fast websites with real functionality — online ordering, booking, payments — for local businesses that transact. Six years shipping production software for companies like Chime and Bestow.
this_page.sh — live metrics
load_time<1s
javascriptnear zero
frameworks0 heavy
monthly_fees$0 platform
owneryou, outright
Engineering work with Chime Bestow SpecTrust Monro Cognisight
The problem
Most business websites just sit there.
Your site should be your hardest-working employee. Taking orders at midnight. Booking appointments while you're on a job. Answering the questions people actually call about.
Instead, most small business sites are digital brochures — slow, hard to update, and completely disconnected from how you make money. Every visitor who leaves to call a competitor is a sale your website gave away.
I fix that. I rebuild sites so they're fast and do something useful: take the order, book the appointment, capture the lead.
Services
What I build
Fixed prices. No hourly mystery, no "it depends." You know what you get and what it costs before we start.
Site + SystemMost popular
$7,500The site plus the thing that makes you money: online ordering, appointment booking, ticket sales, quote requests, payments. Your website stops being a brochure and starts being a cashier.
Performance Rescue
from $2,000Your site is slow and you can feel it costing you. I audit everything — speed, mobile, checkout friction — and show you exactly what's wrong and what it's costing you in lost customers. Implementation from $5,000.
Care Plan
$450/moYour site stays fast, secure, and updated while you run your business. Monitoring, updates, small changes, priority support. Cancel anytime.
Custom work
$125/hrAnything else — integrations, dashboards, internal tools. Ten-hour minimum.
Not sure which fits? Get a free site review →
Selected work
Proof, not promises
Six years building software inside fintech, healthcare, and fraud prevention — industries where slow or broken costs real money. Here's what that looks like.
Chime
Helped rebuild a banking platform's public site for speed.
- Migrated the main site from WordPress to Next.js + Contentful: faster loads, faster feature delivery
- Built reusable components used across teams in a React/TypeScript codebase
- Held 92% test coverage on mission-critical banking software
92%test coverage
WP → Next.jsplatform migration
0downtime in rollout
Bestow
Closed security gaps in an insurance platform's customer systems.
- Fixed PII handling across React/Python/PostgreSQL on Google Cloud
- Built a security layer that merged legacy flows, cutting duplication and manual work
- Rolled out safely with cross-team coordination
PIIhandling secured
0downtime in rollout
SpecTrust
Made fraud dashboards fast under massive data.
- Migrated a React security app to Svelte: smaller bundles, faster UI under heavy load
- Tuned ClickHouse analytics queries for 50% faster reads
- Powered real-time dashboards over 100k+ record datasets
50%faster queries
100k+records, real-time
AI Insurance Marketplace
Built the backend behind an AI customer-call agent.
- Node event-driven backend powering an AI agent handling real customer calls
- Broke a 1,000+ line monolith into focused modules — closed security gaps, easier debugging, faster feature shipping
1,000+line monolith modularized
Node.js event-driven backend
no public screenshots — internal system
no public screenshots — internal system
Cognisight
Kept a healthcare analytics platform reliable and compliant.
- Built APIs and data pipelines (React/Redux, C#/.NET, PostgreSQL, Docker, AWS)
- Handled sensitive health data in a compliant way while scaling for growing traffic
Compliantat scale
Reliableunder growth
Monro
Modernized a real appointment scheduling system.
- Rebuilt an older booking system with a React frontend on AWS Lambda
- Made it noticeably faster and more dependable for actual customers
- Added CI/CD so deployments stopped being stressful
Fasterbookings
Calmerdeploys
I did this work as a contracted engineer through Sharp Notions and Mindex — these are my contributions to client systems, and I'm straight about what was mine.
Process
How it works
Simple, in writing, no surprises.
1
Free site review.
I look at your current site and tell you honestly what's wrong — speed, mobile, missed opportunities. No pitch, no obligation. You keep the findings either way.
2
Fixed quote.
You get one price for the whole project, in writing, before I start. It doesn't move.
3
Build and launch.
Most sites go live in one to three weeks depending on scope. You see progress as I go, not a big reveal at the end.
4
Stay fast (optional).
The Care Plan keeps everything updated, monitored, and improving after launch.
About
Hi, I'm Josh
I have spent six years as a software engineer — most recently building systems inside fintech and healthcare companies, where a slow page or a security hole isn't an inconvenience, it's lost money and real liability.
What I kept seeing: the engineering discipline that big companies pay for is exactly what small businesses never get. Local shops get bloated WordPress themes and page builders, then wonder why the site doesn't bring in business.
So now I bring the real thing to local businesses: properly engineered websites that load fast and do something useful — take orders, book appointments, process payments. No templates, no shortcuts, no "good enough."
I'm based in Mount Morris, New York, and I work with businesses anywhere.
FAQ
Straight answers
The questions every owner asks before hiring me.
How much does a website cost?
$3,500 for a complete site in a week. $7,500 if you want ordering, booking, or payments built in. Custom work is $125/hour. You'll know the full price before I start — it's fixed, in writing.
How long does it take?
One week for a standard site. Two to three weeks for a site with ordering/booking systems. If you need it faster, ask.
I already have a website. Can you fix it instead of rebuilding?
Usually, yes — that's the Performance Rescue. I audit what's wrong and either fix it or tell you honestly if a rebuild is cheaper. The $2,000 audit is credited toward implementation if you move forward.
Do you do the design too, or do I need a designer?
I handle design and build together. Clean, professional, mobile-first. If you have branding already, I work with it.
What about WordPress / Wix / Squarespace?
I don't build on them, and here's why: they're the reason most small business sites are slow. I build fast, purpose-built sites you own outright. You won't pay monthly platform fees or fight a page builder.
Who owns the site when we're done?
You do. Code, domain, everything. If we part ways, it keeps running and any developer can pick it up.
What happens after launch?
The $450/month Care Plan covers updates, monitoring, security, and small changes. Or take the keys and run it yourself — it's yours.
Do you write the words on the site?
I'll draft page content from what you tell me about your business, and you approve every word. Most clients tweak rather than rewrite.
Get your free site review
Tell me about your business and your current site (or lack of one). I'll look at it personally and send back honest findings — what's slow, what's missing, what I'd fix first. Free, no pitch attached. I reply within one business day.
review_includes
speed_audityes
mobile_checkyes
revenue_gapsyes
sales_pitchno
No spam, no mailing list, no sales calls. Just the review.
Prefer email? [email protected]