Building Your Business Website with AI: What We Learned Spending $150
We rebuilt briolink.com using AI tools and modern templates. Here's exactly what we spent, what we used, and the lessons that became our next playbook.
Your website doesn’t have to cost $10,000. It doesn’t even have to cost $1,000. Here’s how we built a professional, multi-page business website for under $150 — and why we’re turning the process into a playbook.
The Problem with Traditional Web Development
Most businesses face an impossible choice: pay $5,000-$15,000 for a custom website, or settle for a cookie-cutter template that looks like everyone else’s. Drag-and-drop builders like Wix or Squarespace seem cheap until you realize you’re locked into their ecosystem with limited customization.
We wanted something different — a professional, fast, fully customizable website that we own completely, costs almost nothing to host, and can grow into a full web application as our business evolves.
Our Stack: $150 Total
Here’s exactly what we used:
| Tool | Cost |
|---|---|
| Astro (site generator) | Free |
| Tailwind CSS (styling) | Free |
| Shadcn UI (components) | Free |
| Shadcn Blocks (premium blocks) | $150 (lifetime) |
| Framer Motion (animations) | Free |
| Vercel (hosting) | Free |
| Total | $150 |
That $150 gets us access to 1,350+ pre-built UI components, 12 professional templates, and an AI-accessible component library via MCP (Model Context Protocol) — meaning our AI assistant can search and install components programmatically.
The Process
-
Choose a template — We picked a professional Astro template as our starting point. 10+ pages, responsive design, dark/light mode, blog support.
-
Customize with AI — Using our AI assistant, we adapted every page with Briolink content. The AI pulled components from the Shadcn Blocks library as needed.
-
Deploy to Vercel — One command:
npx vercel deploy --prod. Live in 30 seconds. SSL, CDN, and global edge network included for free. -
Iterate fast — Need a new page? Create it, deploy. Change takes minutes, not days.
The Playbook Opportunity
As we built this website, we documented every decision, every tool evaluation, every lesson learned. That documentation is becoming our first playbook: Website Development Automation.
The playbook will cover three tiers:
- Tier 1: Static HTML/CSS for a single landing page ($0)
- Tier 2: Astro + components for a multi-page business site ($150)
- Tier 3: Next.js for dynamic features — subscriptions, dashboards, CRM ($150+)
Each tier builds on the previous one, so you start simple and scale up as your business needs grow.
This playbook is coming soon. Subscribe to Growth Signal to be notified when it drops.