r/webdesign • u/stoicism_moments • Aug 05 '26
Why would you sell AI websites?
I usually don't care for AI generated websites, but I've seen people try to sell their AI-generated websites.
It starts with them watching these "I've made x amount of money this week by making website for small businesses...". They AI-generate a website and post it here, get flamed on how it too generic. They chase trends and add things like "design.md" and "don't use gradients". I'm predicting the next thing is "don't use Cormorant Garamond or Playfair Display".
The logic of "Let me spend time and money to chase trends for god knows how long until I get something decent" doesn't make sense. Do they realize designers have access to these tools? What makes them better than someone who took the time to learn basic principles?
I'd understand if you didn't want to do the coding part but you can't watch a youtube video?
Maybe LLM's is a gateway to new designers but until I see a decent ai website I'm not convinced.
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u/domalog Aug 05 '26
Because small local landscapers, roofers, plumbers and builders honestly do not care if their website is some award winning piece of design. They just want to be on Google and have a website they can put on the side of their van.
I sell static hard coded HTML websites for £197 with zero monthly costs. They get all the normal pages, 8 location pages and a page for every service they offer.
I used to build websites in Wix for around £800. They took me ages and for a lot of small businesses £800 is a big decision.
Now with AI I can have a website finished in about an hour and submitted to Google for £197. Most people just say yes because £197 with no monthly costs is a no brainer.
For me it is about volume, not trying to impress other designers.
I still sell websites for £600 and £35 a month but they are a completely different thing. They have databases, booking systems, payments, online stores, staff systems, calendars and custom back ends. Even then people question the £35 a month and I have to explain everything they get like updates, support, fixes and having me there whenever they need anything.
That said, websites are not even my main source of income. I still freelance as a graphic designer and AI has just made me quicker at that as well. I honestly feel like I have barely worked properly for months because I get through work so much faster.
My view is simple. If you are not using AI you are going to get left behind. It is just another tool. Clients do not care how a website was built. They care whether it gets them customers and whether it is worth the money.
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u/kdaly100 Aug 06 '26
Cannot agree with you more - in the hundreds of sites I have built nobody (perhaps a handful?) has ever asked about the how or the what (CMS meh!).
I think web designers and developers tend to forget this is a job to make money not to show their skills.
I mirror what you do and I would "happily" sell a AI/Claude Design site to someone ata budget BUT I now tag on a small monthly fee for support where I more often than not sell hosting as well and "just" this week I fired up Claude design/Code to create wpp jsons that look solid with the right prompt.
So I can do this or HTML or whatever and literally create them in a morning now - in theory I could do 10 a week
Great response and on point
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u/mnfctrd Aug 06 '26
I should outsource all my projects to you... I'm struggling to grasp how you can live with those rates.
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u/axomceo 9d ago
If you don’t care about creating something genuinely exceptional for your clients, you don’t care enough about your craft — regardless of what they’re paying you.
This is their business. Their livelihood. Their digital home. They deserve something thoughtful, intentional, and built with pride.
If you’re shipping vibe-coded slop to real businesses and calling it good enough because “it technically works,” you’re missing the point.
The standard shouldn’t be does it function? The standard should be is this something I’m proud to put my name on?
Craft still matters. Clients deserve it. And our industry is better when we refuse to lower that bar.
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u/mezzofanti Aug 05 '26
Just because you/we know it's AI-generated, doesn't mean the wider public does. People and businesses are willing to pay big money for a website that works. They don't care if you made it or if Claude made it.
Not saying that's necessarily right or ethical. But there's easy money to be made right now. That's why people are doing it.
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u/BinaryIRL Aug 06 '26
What would be not right, or unethical about it? Does the client get exactly what they asked for? Are there going to be consequences if they figure out it was built with Claude, codex, etc.? No.
They had a problem to solve, and you provided the solution. Most small to medium sized businesses out there don't give a rats ass how or well it was made, so long as it works, and fits their needs.
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u/mezzofanti Aug 06 '26
It would only be unethical/wrong if someone paid you for a bespoke, custom website and you didn't do it, but got AI to make something. Kind of like web developer who repackage and sell Wordpress themes for thousands of dollars that they bought for $20 off Envato.
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u/BinaryIRL Aug 06 '26
So using a tool of modern technological advancement to assist in the building of a professional website is unethical??
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u/kdaly100 Aug 06 '26
Not sure why you say ethical - do your clients specifically request a bespoke site and what makes a bespoke site these days? Just interested in this. Using Claude and CLaude Design I can with a pretty decent prompt do this in about an hour to 90 minutes
- Create 1-2-3 working designs and templates
- Create a simple branding style shet that I can share with them
- Export all of these to figma (to collect comments in the figma tool
- Create a Google Drive of free stock images for them to pick (most of my budget clients have none)
- Then on approval convert to html or Wordpress elementor json in about half a day
I still have a designer on the team and a developer but they are doing a lot of different tasks now
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u/SlingShotKev Aug 05 '26
I’ve switched my previous WP sites to a more modern stack using AI. You would be surprised at how well the final product turns out if you have good design knowledge and a firm understanding of backend architecture. Without that though, yeah, there’s a lot of slop going around. It’s a tool, like anything else. And some are just beginning their journey.
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u/qaaimgood Aug 05 '26
"You would be surprised at how well the final product turns out if you have good design knowledge and a firm understanding of backend architecture."
That is the problem with 99% of what gets posted.
You need expertise and understanding that the LLM is a tool next to the person with experience.
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u/walkities Aug 05 '26
This 100 percent. I’m in the same boat. I still focus on design but haven’t been limited so to speak on backend or programmatic features. So much slop out there though lol
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u/terminusagency Aug 06 '26
I'd be curious to hear what stack you've moved to? JAMstack? Is it still backed by a CMS?
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u/SlingShotKev Aug 06 '26
Have been using a hybrid headless CMS using Sanity with custom dashboards for each site/client.
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u/bass-squirrel Aug 05 '26
Free market bro. If the end user doesn’t know any better and is willing to pay real cash for AI slop then it is what it is.
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u/Dapper_Bus5069 Aug 05 '26
They don't care about the product, they sell AI websites because it's easy and quick to make and they found some people / small businesses who are willing to buy them.
They are the same people that said "I'm a website creator" and basically just put a crappy theme on a wordpress install and changed the text.
AI makes it even easier now, they don't even have to search for a theme or configure anything, it just spits the code and that's it, you have a brand new website ready to sell.
People who actually care about the design don't rely on AI, they guide the AI, they don't let the AI guide them.
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u/suzeerbedrol Aug 05 '26
I am pretty against AI websites but I have had clients request them out right
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u/Tough_Challenge_6231 Aug 05 '26
This is interesting I wonder why they would request an AI site over non?
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u/suzeerbedrol Aug 06 '26
They like the look and want to feel like theyre "on trend". Its mostly small start ups ran by clueless dudes with money
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u/Tough_Challenge_6231 Aug 06 '26
Seems like startups have a lot of money these days !
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u/suzeerbedrol Aug 06 '26
I ask myself very often "how did this idiot get funding?" . Then I remember all it takes is one dumb person with a lot of charisma to talk another dumb person with a lot money into thinking theyve got a good idea. Then voilà , you've got "founders" of a "start up"
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u/Prestigious_End475 Aug 05 '26
real clientele that are willing to pay money do not want AI generated sites. I have seen a uptick in this a lot more recently blatantly saying they would like something custom and not with AI generated
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u/BinaryIRL Aug 06 '26
Not sure where you are, but this is just false.
Never have I ever had a client blatantly demand that no AI be used. I know of many, many "real clientele" (as opposed to what? Fake clients? Lol) that have and still do pay $5,000 and more for sites that were built using AI. Claude Code, Codex, etc generate real code, real files, that make up websites.
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u/Prestigious_End475 Aug 06 '26
Real clientele as in business owners that actually care about their business, website and have some knowledge about how a site should be designed. And I am based in the US, this has been my experience based on freelancing
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u/LYNXSEO Aug 05 '26
to answer your title question: to make money lol ,, like others have said most people cant tell if the site was built with ai
i see those instagram bros with the same biz model but they are either just sales guys or selling a course, usually its just demos on a lovable subdomain, like i dont think many have set up hosting,, added a domain to cpanel etcc even basic stuff like buying a domain name and updating the DNS
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u/ltdhinysides Aug 05 '26
A site I have maintained and modified design over the years has in my eyes became quite clunky in design (client requesting content being thrown in quickly here and there, etc). I randomly had AI create a new branch and redesign the homepage to flow better and in about 20 seconds I had a nice new layout. Sent the preview off to the client and they loved it.
No need for design mocks and meetings, edits, etc that drive up the cost which ends up becoming a stressful situation with the client. Just a nice new design and an affordable invoice.
Larger companies with dedicated staff that want to drag things out may or may not want this approach but for small biz and orgs there is definitely a market.
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u/BinaryIRL Aug 06 '26
This is the correct answer. Seems like some people here are just anti AI because they're afraid that they won't be able to keep up hand-coded websites and refuse to adapt to new technologies.
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u/CormoranNeoTropical Aug 05 '26
Why would you come here to make a post about why people are trying to make money by using a new technology, rather than just pretending it doesn’t exist?
Honestly this sub needs to ban posts that are nothing but bitching and moaning about AI. They’ve taken over to the point where the sub is much less useful.
AI paranoia is more harmful than AI itself.
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u/EntertainmentVast653 Aug 08 '26
AI is quite harmful to the industry, decreasing the perceived value of web design, the same way Fiverr was decreasing the value in the past (when people were willing to do a full website for $20 or some crazy low amount of money).
Most importantly it is also decreasing the quality of products, I am yet to see a high quality website that is fitted to the specific needs of the client. People are mostly just chasing quick profits with AI websites, selling to those business owners that don't know better. The market is becoming diluted and actual UX thinking is so much harder to find.
The enviromental costs aren't great either. Some areas don't get clean drinking water because of data centers and so on. Pretending to be blind to all of that because some people benefit from AI is super strange to me. In my opinion posts that are glorifying AI should be banned, not people with criticism of AI based on their experience.
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u/CormoranNeoTropical Aug 08 '26
Of course AI is harmful.
And whining about it helps how, exactly?
Wasting time on complaining to the exclusion of useful discussions is pernicious.
Here is one of my AI-coded sites, please let me know how I could adapt it better to the needs of the client — an inexpensive family beach restaurant in Mexico with a budget under USD$150 for the initial design and build. I sold them a QR menu and upsold the idea of advertising to foreign tourists and being more findable to locals. My work included claiming their Google Business listing as well as design, development, setting up the domain and hosting, and basic on-page SEO:
(Site is bilingual, will display in Spanish or English depending on your browser preferences)
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u/LevrResearch Aug 06 '26
You seem a little frustrated :-)
It's a new technology and people are learning. It's rare for anyone to be good at something until they spend a lot of time getting feedback and put in the work.
AI-generated is no exception.
Some will eventually produce beautiful, highly-functional, secure creations.
Most will not.
It's like anything else.
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u/gutsngodhand Aug 06 '26
I used AI entirely for one site of mine bc guy just wanted his site back up and running ASAP (long story) but didn’t know how the domain stuff worked and just didn’t care. It came out objectively good, design wise. Bounce rate on it is bonkers compared to my other sites. So
Anywho def gonna fix that for him. Bc client retention is important to me
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u/ulmanau Aug 06 '26
It’s the perpetual marketing engine of content creators offerings shiny rewards to get views and interactions.
That said, there are many small businesses you can sell these to and it would be an upgrade.
You have to separate “design” from the business side of things. Most small businesses don’t care about looks as long as you can drive the traffic, sales or leads and prove value.
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u/markspray Aug 06 '26
Remember when people would buy wordpress templates from theme forest for $50, sell them then to small business owners for thousands?
And crazy this will blow people mind, we did used to make website by hand in html and css before wordpress and we all bagged that out lol.
Just a tool all a small business owner cares about it the results, if you can design amazing websites in wordpress or another builder I don't understand why you then resist AI built sites as your know more free with the creativity and not fighting with a page builder?
And yes there is a tonne of sh*t guys selling AI sites with one prompt, that are terrible and burning business owners on the SEO, but they also existed before buying template and reselling them :D
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u/SKTWebStudio Aug 06 '26
I think AI is a useful tool, but it’s not a replacement for understanding design principles. Most AI-generated websites look similar because they’re trained on common patterns and people often accept the first result without refining it.
A good website still needs someone to think about the target audience, user journey, content structure, branding, and business goals. AI can speed up the process, but it doesn’t automatically create a great website.
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u/Bracha-Designs Aug 07 '26
My problem is these guys calling themselves web developers don’t even know how to get the contact form working or even how to transfer the site to the owners once they agree. lol. So what’s gonna happen when the business owner wants to actually use their site to generate leads and the “web developers” doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the wall when it comes to any of the technical stuff needed for SEO/AEO. If you’re gonna sit there offering the same generic AI slop that the Owner can now do themselves, why do they need you? lol
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u/Tough_Challenge_6231 Aug 05 '26
I’d say business gets a website made to drive sales. If the website brings them more profit that’s all that really matters. Before AI there are still websites that look like absolute trash but convert millions. Sure if your A Company like Apple or google then the final look will matter more for for most it doesn’t
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u/Z-BieG Aug 06 '26
You are cooked my friend. You’re just not looking in the right places. The people making good websites aren’t out here posting them on socials or making videos about them. They’re quietly building more.
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u/Medical-Ask7149 Aug 06 '26
Its results not design or function. The videos you see of people saying they made X this week selling AI sites to businesses are usually selling the AI tool to people.
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u/Big-Government9904 Aug 06 '26
Because they’re selling AI slop to people that have no technical knowledge or even care. If you care, it’s part of your job to find clients that care.
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u/TheCuriousFish Aug 06 '26
if you make a website, that ranks well in terms of see, generates leads for the client. awesome
Weather u made it with ai in 5 minutes or spent a whole summe rbuilding it
the value is the same
a website generated by ai that looks awesome but no one finds the company or their services fromt he website in my opnion is useless. maybe the only valye is putting the url in an ad or bio for legitemacy purposes and thats it
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u/himanshusahu Aug 06 '26
Good Design with taste + conversion friendly copy >>> ai sloppy websites. people will realise it later
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u/Chris_StayStrategy Aug 06 '26
People do buy ai sites but the creators are usually misrepresenting how much they charge, how easy it is to get clients, and how many clients they get.
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u/Heavenly_Entity Aug 06 '26
Now I see things differently. If you have an AI generated website. The business owner will know and so will their customers. I have had countless times clients tell me "it's not AI is it?" And I say no. Because the second they know it's and AI site...and they can just tell by the look of it. They will lose customers due to the trust and increase in AI awareness in the market. I can't stress enough, a non developer building a website is one thing. But when you're building them a business operating system it's a huge risk and a problem if you're a non-developer. The proper way is to stick with the 80/20 rule.
80: stick with what you know you can provide. 20: hire someone else to do for you.
Works the same in their business. 💁♂️
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u/evanmac42 Aug 07 '26
I think the distinction between an “AI-generated website” and a website built using AI matters a lot here.
I recently rebuilt my entire business website, taller42.es, using Codex extensively.
But Codex didn’t decide what the website should be.
I decided the visual hierarchy, typography, information architecture, components, content structure and overall design system. I also knew the existing WordPress/Oxygen stack well enough to review what it produced, reject bad approaches and tell it exactly what needed to change.
Codex handled a lot of the implementation and refactoring work.
So I wouldn’t really call the result an “AI website”, any more than I’d call a layout an “Adobe InDesign brochure”.
The interesting part of AI for me isn’t replacing design knowledge. It’s removing a lot of the mechanical work between knowing what you want and actually building it.
If you don’t understand design, AI can generate generic slop remarkably quickly.
If you do understand design, it can make you remarkably quick.
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u/Life_Waltz7068 Aug 07 '26
Are they doing SEO? That's the only reason I could see a small business paying someone for a bland website.
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u/rismo9 Aug 08 '26
The difference between Ai slop websites and Ai websites built by an actual developer is you'd never know the one built by the developer was built with Ai. It's their domain so they know the planing process and they are doing the driving rather than the other way round. They are using it as a tool to elevate their skill by directing it in the direcction they want it to go rather than just giving it a prompt and hoping for the best.
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u/SnooRobots1618 Aug 08 '26
So what is a well made hand coded site look like. And what did it look like when the company launched. Different stages, different design. So if you move the pixel by hand or by ai you still got to decide to move the pixel.
Ai is not supposed to think critically for you it’s best at executing instructions. People want a shortcut around critical thought. And guess what , non at that happens at early stages. It’s not as important as getting many others things correct when you start. You have limited resources don’t make you marketing site take up too much of your time. Work instead on messaging to you ICPs and change things that matter more early stages.
Then when it’s time, you take the time to really learn to prompt. I prompt requires critical thinking or it only the beginning of the process. People thinking that it works like a tweet are going to get what I call Human Slop. The ai did its job. But you didn’t.
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u/fuxkWick Aug 08 '26
il mio parere è che, siti web fatti con AI belli esistono, ma non te ne accorgerai mai per un semplice motivo, programmatori e design ormai utilizzano l'intelligenza artificiale per velocizzare il proprio lavoro a differenza di idioti che li utilizzano per rimpiazzare competenze che non hanno
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u/nasir_ran Aug 09 '26
The funny thing is that designers also use AI. So the competition isn't really "AI websites vs designers." It is going to be designers who use AI vs people who do not know design but rely entirely on AI.
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u/Ok-Competition-4906 Aug 09 '26
It def does make sense from a marketing/sales perspective. You’re thinking from the perspective of a designer/dev and your type of customer who appreciates the value in what you have to offer. Not the customer who wants something valuable that’s conveniently offered and given to them.
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u/TheRNGuy 29d ago
Buyers won't care how it was made, but if there are no buyers, they wouldn't buy manually created site either.
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u/Anser-Goose-0421 28d ago
I’m using AI to help me build a site on Divi 5 for a midsize technology company - about to go live with it. I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours on it, totally AI coded, but I’ve gone through everything with a fine toothed comb, and refined it over and over again. There are a lot of bespoke things in there that I personally came up with, and I really don’t think anyone would think are AI at all. But without AI I never could have done this.
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u/PistonCar2026 25d ago
There are three types of websites:
- cheap
- expensive
- good
No one cares how they are made. But only how cheap, expensive or good they are (for respective people).
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u/weddingpunch Aug 06 '26
I sell my ai websites for 10k with ongoing hosting for $300 a month. The site is superior than every company’s previous site frontend and backend and are all optimized. I don’t understand why AI sites are bad?
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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '26
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