Build and publish a real website with AI, no coding
Search “make a website with AI” and you mostly find website builders: you pick a template, type into boxes, and the site lives on their platform. That works for many people. This guide covers the other way: you describe the site to an AI that writes real files on your computer, and then you put those files online yourself. You own every file, and you can change anything later.
The AI here is Claude Code. You need a paid Claude plan (Claude Pro, about ₹2,000 a month in India) and a laptop. Hosting can be free.
What you will end up with
Here is the sample site we use in class, Megh Trails, a made-up monsoon trekking company: megh-trails.super-intelligence.workers.dev. It has a scrolling hero with hills that move at different speeds, three moods, a booking form and a short promo video. Claude built all of it from plain requests.
The steps
- Decide what the site is for. One sentence: “A page for my home bakery so people can see the menu and message me on WhatsApp.” The clearer this is, the better the first version.
- Make a folder and open it in Claude. Every file of the site will live in that folder.
- Ask for the first screen only. The top of the page, with a title, one line and a button. Look at it in your browser before asking for more.
- Build it a piece at a time. A menu section, then photos, then the contact button. One request, one look, one fix.
- Check it on a phone size. Ask Claude to show you the page at phone width, or shrink the browser window. Most visitors will be on a phone.
- Put it online. Claude can publish the folder to a free host such as Cloudflare, and you get a link to send to people.
What it costs
| Cost | |
|---|---|
| Claude Pro | about ₹2,000 a month |
| Hosting a small site on Cloudflare’s free plan | ₹0 |
| Your own address (yourbakery.in) | optional; you buy it from a domain seller, usually yearly |
For comparison, a freelancer in India often charges ₹8,000 to ₹50,000 for a small business site, and an agency more. Each change after that usually costs again. With your own copy and Claude, a change is a request you type.
Habits that help
- Ask for a little at a time. Small steps give a cleaner first version and are faster overall.
- Look after each change. Open the page and you will spot a mistake in seconds.
- Save a checkpoint before a big change. Ask Claude for one, and you can go back to it.
- Publish often. It is one request and a link, and you can publish again after every change.
Doing it in a class
Our Website project follows these steps across a few lessons, with a checker inside Claude that tells you when each part is done. In the class, a facilitator sits with you while you build, and by the end your site is online at a link you can share.
Before any of that, the free lesson below checks your plan and your computer, so the first class goes smoothly.