A website launch Gantt chart guide covering discovery, design, development, content migration, QA, and go-live phases to ship on schedule.
Website launches are the most reliably late project in marketing and technology. The reasons are consistent: scope expands during design, content takes longer to write than expected, stakeholders request changes after approvals have already been given, and QA surfaces issues that require development work after the launch date was supposed to be locked.
A website launch Gantt chart doesn't eliminate these problems—but it makes them visible early enough to manage. When a content delay is mapped against its downstream dependency on development and QA, the team can see exactly how much the launch date moves if content misses its deadline. That visibility converts abstract schedule conversations into concrete decisions.
| Phase | Typical Duration | Key Deliverables |
|-------|-----------------|-----------------|
| Discovery | 2–3 weeks | Sitemap, technical requirements, hosting plan |
| Design | 3–5 weeks | Wireframes, design mockups, style guide |
| Content | 3–6 weeks | Written content for all pages |
| Development | 4–8 weeks | CMS setup, templates, integrations |
| Content Migration | 1–3 weeks | Content entered into CMS |
| QA & Testing | 1–2 weeks | All pages tested and approved |
| Go-Live | 1–2 days | DNS switch, launch monitoring |
| Post-Launch | 2–4 weeks | Bug fixes, analytics review, SEO indexing |
Total duration for a mid-size website: 16–28 weeks. Organizations that plan for 8 weeks should plan to launch late.
Discovery sets the scope. Scope set in discovery prevents scope added in development.
Tasks:
Design is typically the first phase where stakeholder opinions surface and timelines stretch.
Tasks:
Build at least two revision rounds into the design phase. First approval is rarely final.
Content and design should run in parallel—waiting for design to finish before writing content adds 3–6 weeks to the timeline.
Tasks:
Content is the most commonly delayed phase in website projects. Writers underestimate the number of pages, stakeholders take longer to review, and late-stage messaging changes require rewrites. Buffer content timelines by 30–50% relative to initial estimates.
Development can begin once design mockups for the most complex templates are approved.
Tasks:
Content migration into the CMS is often treated as trivial and underresourced. For a 50-page site it isn't—structured content entry takes time.
Tasks:
QA should be the last thing that happens before go-live, not the first thing that gets compressed.
QA checklist:
Go-live is a task with its own mini-Gantt:
The critical path on a website project typically runs through content. No content means no content migration. No content migration means no QA. No QA means no go-live. When content is late, everything is late—and content is almost always late.
Build aggressive content deadlines and treat them as hard milestones in the Gantt chart. When content misses, make the downstream impact visible to leadership immediately. The tradeoff is always the same: more content resources now, or a later launch date.
Plan and track your website launch on gantt-chart.io so every phase, dependency, and milestone is visible to the whole team from discovery through post-launch.