How I built this site in six hours.
The stack, the cost, and what your shop's version could look like.
A small-business site that actually books work.
Coastal Cuts is a fictional one-chair barbershop in St. Michaels, Maryland. The site does what a service-business site should: tells visitors who you are, what you charge, and gets them to book - all on their phone, in under a minute. The booking flow takes a $10 deposit through Stripe, which both confirms the appointment and weeds out no-shows.
No CMS, no Wix, no monthly subscription to a platform that can flip a switch on you. Just clean static HTML deployed to your AWS account, with a Stripe link or hosted checkout for payments. You own everything.
The stackBoring tech, on purpose.
A small-business site doesn't need React, Next.js, or a database. It needs to load fast, work offline-friendly, and never break. So this is what's under the hood:
- Frontend Hand-written HTML, CSS, and a few hundred lines of JavaScript. No framework, no build step.
- Hosting S3 bucket + CloudFront CDN. Custom domain on Route 53 with ACM SSL.
- Booking Client-side time picker (date + 30-min slots, respects shop hours). State stays in the browser until deposit.
- Payments Stripe Checkout for the $10 deposit. Lives in your Stripe account, not mine.
- Domain $3/year for a .click TLD (or your existing domain). Auto-renewed.
- Hosting cost AWS free tier covers most small shops. Realistic monthly bill: under $5.
The same, but yours.
For a small service business - barber, stylist, mechanic, dog groomer, mobile detailer, you get the idea - here's what fits:
- Branded home, services, about, contact, and booking pages
- Real Stripe deposit flow ($10, $25, whatever you want)
- SMS confirmation (Twilio - tiny cost, big trust signal)
- Calendar sync if you use Google or Outlook
- Mobile-first, fast, never breaks
- Deployed on your AWS account so the keys are yours forever
Typical fixed price: $750 - $2,000 depending on scope. One-time. No subscription. I hand you the keys when it's done and you can hire anyone (or no one) to maintain it.
Find me on Upwork.
Send a note with what your shop does and I'll send back a fixed quote in 24 hours.
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