Claude built you a website in an hour. It looks good, it runs on your machine, and the client loves it. Then comes the question the draft has no answer for: how does this become a website that is online and still maintained three years from now?
What you have now
A folder of files. Depending on what you asked for, that is plain HTML with CSS and some JavaScript, or a project in a framework such as Astro or Next.js. Both are a working draft. Neither is a website in operation.
What is missing before launch
- Hosting. The files have to go on a server. For static websites there are services such as Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages, often free for small projects.
- Domain and certificate. You register the domain with a registrar and point it at the hosting through DNS. Most services issue the HTTPS certificate themselves.
- Forms. A contact form in HTML sends nothing anywhere on its own. It needs a receiver on a server, protection against spam and a note on data protection.
- Legal pages. In Germany and much of the EU a business website needs a legal notice and a privacy policy. What goes into them depends on the services the website uses.
- Third party services. Drafts like to load fonts, maps or videos from other servers. Each of these belongs in the privacy policy, and some need consent. Fonts can be served from your own website.
- Images. Photos at full resolution make the page slow. They need several sizes and a modern format.
All of this can be solved, and Claude helps with every point. But these are six decisions, and you make them again for the next website.
What is missing after launch
This is the larger part of the work. The client calls: new opening hours, a new colleague, a job posting. In a folder of HTML files, each of these changes means: open the file, change it, publish again. You do that, or an AI does, but not the client.
Then there are the questions nobody asks at the start. Who sees a change before it goes online? How do you get back to last week's state? Where are the form submissions when the email does not arrive?
Three ways
1. Put it together yourself. You upload the files to a host, connect a form service and add a CMS if you need one. It costs little and leaves you every freedom. It fits when you look after the website alone and changes are rare. The price: every project has a setup of its own.
2. Move into a classic system. You rebuild the draft in WordPress or Webflow. The client gets a familiar backend, and there is a ready solution for almost every special feature. In return the website is built a second time, by hand or with a page builder. With WordPress, updates and maintenance come on top.
3. Build in a system made for AI agents. Claude then builds the website not into a folder but directly in a platform that brings hosting, forms, approvals and the editor for the client. This is how Cleverpage works: Claude Code connects to your account, creates the design system, the components and the pages, and you get a preview behind a password. The website goes live only when you say so.
What you should know about Cleverpage
Cleverpage does not upload your folder. Claude builds the website there anew from your draft, as components with fixed fields. For that you give Claude the draft, screenshots or the address of the existing site. It is a second pass, but Claude does it, not you.
The fields of the components become the editor for your client. They see every page as it looks on the website and change texts and images right there. They cannot change the layout.
Building, the preview and the rounds with your client cost nothing. You pay only once the website is online under its domain: €6.90 per month, or €3.45 for a mini website of up to three pages. These are net introductory prices; the current ones are on cleverpage.ai.
When each way fits
- A single page for yourself that hardly changes: way 1.
- An online shop, a members area or a booking system: way 2.
- Client websites you look after for years and the client maintains: way 3.
The decision is cheapest before you build further. A draft is rebuilt quickly. A finished website of twenty pages is not.