Frequently asked questions on building and rebuilding.

We build digital products for businesses that treat being found online as a strategic investment. Selectively, rigorously, with continuity after launch.

Working boutique is a deliberate choice. A single architect and developer means direct communication, with no context lost and no hierarchy of intermediaries in between. The small capacity is a cost of the model that we accept. In exchange, every project gets concentrated attention.

A freelancer gives you direct access, but rarely a stable process. An agency gives you process, but you communicate through intermediaries and never quite know who writes the code. A single architect and developer combines the direct access with a process of its own, at an accepted limit: we cannot take on many projects at once.

Because the difference shows six months after launch, not on go-live day. If that view resonates, let's talk. If it does not, there are suppliers better suited to short-term tactical work.

The best fit is with businesses that treat being found online as a long-term investment. If you need something live tomorrow, or on the smallest possible budget, we are an honest mismatch, and we will say so directly.

For the moment the focus is on building digital presence. Other kinds of software can be discussed case by case, depending on fit.

It depends on scope. One thing to be clear about: we do not compete on speed. If the fastest possible launch is your main criterion, we are a mismatch, and there are DIY platforms that do it in a few days.

Four stages, no surprises. Discovery: a call of 30 to 45 minutes after the brief, which ends in a short document covering scope, duration and price. Blueprint: a quick wireframe, then a mockup of the key pages, with two rounds of feedback included. Build: we build on our own modern stack, you get a staging link in the first week and watch the progress live. Launch: handover of code, domain and hosting. Maintenance after launch is optional and contracted separately. The process is public because it is part of the offer. No cold quote by email, and you approve before we touch a line of code.

Yes. From the first week of development you get a staging link you can open in a browser, protected by a password. There you see exactly what we are building, page by page as each is finished. You can leave feedback directly on the pages with a light tool (Pastel, Markup.io) or simply by email, whichever you prefer. The site does not go live on your domain until you give final approval.

Ideally, before the first conversation: a short brief covering what the business is, who you are addressing and what you want the site to do; two or three examples of sites you like, with a sentence on what you like about each; and a budget estimate, where even a wide range helps. Text, photography and a logo are not required at the start. We can produce them together, or you can prepare them in parallel with development. If you do not have time to put all of that together, write anyway and we will clarify as we go.

The main stack: Astro for the frontend, Tailwind for styling, MDX for editable content, deployed on a Hetzner VPS with Coolify. Astro generates static HTML, so your site loads in under a second, with none of the JavaScript baggage you never use. We do not use WordPress and we do not build on page builders such as Elementor or Divi. For projects that genuinely need a CMS, we integrate a headless one (Sanity or Decap). The concrete choice is made together, based on how you will edit the content.

Yes, and that is the standard rather than an option. The concrete target: Lighthouse Performance above 90 on mobile, LCP under 2.5 seconds, CLS under 0.1. To get there we optimise images automatically (AVIF/WebP), never load fonts we do not use, remove JavaScript that is not necessary, and host behind a CDN. Mobile-first is not an add-on: we design for the phone from the first stage and adapt upwards to desktop.

The delivered site has the whole technical SEO foundation in place: semantic structure, meta tags on every page, sitemap.xml, robots.txt, schema.org structured data, loading speed, mobile. That means Google can read and index the site correctly. What we do not promise: first place for competitive keywords. Position in Google depends on content, authority, competition and time. Nobody serious guarantees rankings. If you want to grow organically, that is a separate conversation about content and strategy.

HTTPS by default, with an auto-renewed SSL certificate. Security headers (CSP, X-Frame-Options, HSTS) configured at deploy. Forms carrying personal data use server-side validation, a honeypot against bots, and optionally Cloudflare Turnstile if the project has heavy traffic. We do not store sensitive data unless the functionality explicitly requires it; when it does, you get a Data Processing Agreement and we implement GDPR by design. If the project calls for further compliance, in finance or healthcare for instance, we discuss it at the brief.

The budget is set after the first fit conversation, and depends on scope and complexity. One thing to be clear about: we do not compete on price. If the lowest cost is your main criterion, we are a mismatch, and there are suppliers who do that better than we would.

The standard: a deposit on signing the contract, a milestone when the design is approved, and the rest before launch. For small projects we accept 50/50, deposit and final payment. For large ones we can propose several monthly instalments. We invoice as NORTHPIXEL DEVELOPMENT SRL, in Romanian lei or in euro for clients inside the EU, and we accept bank transfer. The exact percentages and milestones are agreed in the contract, after the brief.

Changes under an hour of work (a line of text, an image added, a button moved) are included in the normal iterations. New features that were not in the original scope (a complex form, an extra page, a new integration) are treated as a change request: you get an estimate in hours plus a price before we start, and they are invoiced separately. We do not add scope quietly and we do not change the price without your approval. If the scope grows a lot, we can postpone whatever is not critical to a second phase after launch.

With WordPress, a bought template and a low-cost developer you get a live site on a small budget. The difference is not only in the price, it is in what you get: code written for your project rather than a template carrying fifty features you never use; measurable speed rather than three caching plugins laid over a problem in the foundation; a custom design that does not resemble thousands of other sites; a solid SEO structure from day one; and, importantly, code that stays yours, with no dependence on plugins that break at the next update. If the budget does not allow it, going low-cost is a fair choice. We say plainly when we would be overkill for a project.

Everything we deliver is yours. At launch you receive access to the Git repository (GitHub or GitLab) with the complete code, credentials for the domain and hosting in your company's name, and short documentation on how to edit content. We do not hold you captive. If a year from now you want to move the site to another developer, or carry on alone, you can do it without asking us and without hidden costs. The code is your intellectual property under the contract; we remain its authors and may refer to the project in our portfolio, unless you say otherwise.

Maintenance is optional, not compulsory. Typical packages cover uptime monitoring, technical updates, backups, a number of intervention hours included (small content or design changes), and on the extended packages a monthly performance and SEO report. The maintenance budget is set against the concrete scope of your site. If you prefer to handle it yourself, we show you how and hand over everything. Many clients start with a basic package in the first months after launch and then decide whether to continue.

You can. At handover we record a walkthrough video of 10 to 15 minutes on editing content, alongside written documentation. Content lives in MDX files (extended markdown), a plain text format you can change from a text editor or straight from the GitHub interface. For fixed pages such as About or Services, changes go through a commit; for blog articles or case studies we add a simple admin panel (Decap CMS) on request, so you never have to touch code. If you get stuck, write to us. An hour of maintenance solves most cases.