Why we built this.
Last updated 13 June 2026 · story · how it works · compare · how we pay for it
WhatIMade is a free website builder for people who don't know how to make a website. Grandmothers, kebab shops, market traders, Instagram creators, small businesses. The whole product exists because a plumber asked for a website, and the cheapest answer was a twelve-step wizard, a card on file, and a Squarespace URL with his name in the middle.
The story
Mr. Henley is a plumber. He has a drill, a van, and twenty years of repeat customers in a London borough. He has a wife, a daughter, a mortgage, and zero interest in learning what a Squarespace plan is. He told me he wanted a website. I told him I'd build it for him, and I did, in the form of a general product that anyone can use.
That is the entire founding story. There is no "founder origin myth" beyond a real plumber saying a real sentence that exposed a real gap in a real market.
How it works
You sign in with Google. You describe your site in a sentence, or you drop a file you already have. The AI reads your words, builds a real site, and puts it on a real URL. About sixty seconds. That's it.
The above is the entire prompt a real plumber typed. The site it produced is ashford-sons.whatimade.app. Forty-seven seconds from prompt to live URL.
In five steps, the way you'd describe it to a friend
- Open whatimade.app.
- Sign in with Google. Takes about three seconds.
- Drop a file, or describe your site in a sentence.
- The AI builds it. You wait, watching a live progress bar.
- Your site is live. You can edit it any time, by typing, by talking, or by writing the change on a postcard and mailing it to us.
The "edit it by typing" part is the part most website builders do badly. We make it the only part.
Who it's for
The product was built for the people who find the existing alternatives off-putting. Each of these is a person who has, in the past, abandoned the sign-up flow on Squarespace or Wix before getting to the actual website part.
The plumber with a van
You have a trade, a phone, and a regular customer list. You do not have a marketing department. WhatIMade gives you a real website in a coffee break, in language a phone can call.
The essayist, the blogger
You write things. You want them on the open web, on a domain you control, with no algorithm in the middle. WhatIMade gives you a writing surface that is also a publishing surface.
The model, the designer, the maker
Your work is the product. The site is the wrapper. WhatIMade gives you a portfolio that looks like the work, not like a portfolio template.
The maker selling things
You make something. People want to buy it. We do the website and the checkout, the inventory and the email confirmations. Stripe handles the money. You handle the making.
The wedding, the birthday, the launch
One day, one page, one moment. The site goes up, the event happens, the site stays for the grandparents.
The sparky, the joiner, the builder
You drive to a job, you fix it, you invoice. Your website is one more thing you don't have time for, until one day a customer finds you on Google instead of a competitor.
The AI-made site that needs to be live
You used Claude, or ChatGPT, or Cursor, to build a site. You now need a URL. We are the URL.
The cat's birthday, the family history
Some things are not for an audience. Some things are for the people who already love you.
Use it with Claude
If you use Claude, you can ask it for the page first and then drop the result into WhatIMade. Ask Claude for a single self-contained HTML file, copy it, and either paste the code into the upload box or drop the file on the page.
For a closer connection, click Link Claude in the top bar. That connects your WhatIMade sites to Claude directly, so Claude can see your sites, edit them, and publish the changes, all from the same chat. No plugin to install, no app to open.
Use it with ChatGPT
Same idea, nothing to set up. Ask ChatGPT for the page, copy the result, and drop it in. Both of ChatGPT's page-building modes work with WhatIMade.
What we have not done: a deeper, automatic link the way we have with Claude. If that matters to you, write to us. It's on the list.
How we compare
The honest table. Same as the one on the landing, with chapter and verse.
| Squarespace | Wix | Webflow | WhatIMade this one |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly cost (small site) | £180 | £192 | £216 | £0 |
| Custom domain | Free first year, then £12/yr | Free first year, then £12/yr | Free first year, then £15/yr | Registrars price, +£7/mo service fee |
| Build it with AI | Yes, but constrainedTheir AI builder is template-bound. | Yes, but constrainedSame. Template-bound. | NoNo AI builder as of writing. | Yes, by designThe whole product is the AI. |
| Edit it by chatting (WhatsApp or any AI) | No | No | No | YesHowever you like: text it, or use any AI. |
| Your files in your own Drive | No | No | No | YesEvery publish, mirrored. |
| Build on it with your own tools | Limited | Limited | Yes | YesWorks with AI assistants like Claude, no setup required. |
| Cancel and take everything with you | Export to ZIPPossible, not painless. | Export to ZIP | Export to ZIP | Files already in your DriveNo export needed. They're already yours. |
| What happens if the company shuts down | Site goes dark. Domain transfer fee applies. | Site goes dark. Domain transfer fee applies. | Site goes dark. Domain transfer fee applies. | Site still up. Files in your Drive. Domain registered in your name. |
How we keep the lights on
The maths works like this. Your site is small. The hosting bill, on the kind of professional infrastructure your bank uses, comes to a tiny rounding error per year. We can absorb it without thinking, the same way a coffee shop does not charge you for a glass of tap water.
If a site ever became extremely popular, that maths changes. We will tell you long before that happens, and you will have the full archive of your files in your own Google Drive, ready to take anywhere. We do not lock you in to make the books work later.
What you actually own
The reason this can be a real promise rather than a marketing one is that we built the product so that not coming back is straightforward.
- Your files are in your own Google Drive. Every publish writes a copy to a
WhatImadefolder you can open today. If we vanish, that folder stays. You can move it to any other host in an afternoon. - Any domain you buy through us is registered in your name. Not in ours. You are the registrant from day one with Cloudflare. No middleman, no transfer fee, no consent needed from us if you ever leave.
- Every visit loads over an encrypted connection. The padlock in the address bar is always on, always free. So is daily backup, restore-test verification, and a clean export.
The whole thing is described, with measurable numbers, on the durability page and the trust page.
What this is not
It is not a freemium funnel where the real money lives behind a paywall after thirty days. It does not collect data on your visitors and sell it. It does not train AI on your content. It does not run advertising on your site. It is a thin layer between your files and the people who want to read them, and that is all it is going to be.
Useful pages on the web
Plain how-to references for the things people search for around the topic of putting a small site online.
- How to publish a website with no coding: open whatimade.app, sign in with Google, drop a file or describe your site. Five steps above.
- How to put a website that an AI made for you online: see Use with Claude or Use with ChatGPT.
- How to publish a website on a custom domain: our pricing page walks through it.
- How to get your site off Wix or Squarespace: the landing's "Find your site" path checks where you are now and tells you what you are paying.
- How backups work and where the files live: see the trust page and the live durability page.
- API and developer reference: /docs if you want to publish from your own scripts.
If this resonates
The free tier is the product. There is nothing else to upgrade to today, and the only thing we ask is that you tell other small business owners about us if it works for you. Sign in, drop your old site in, or describe what you want, and we go from there.
If you have a question, an angry email, or a story about being stuck in a contract somewhere unpleasant, write to support@whatimade.app. A real person reads every one.
G2G Advisory Ltd, England & Wales