How long does it actually take?
About a minute for a site that is already right, and an evening for one that is yours. Both numbers are measured, not promised.
A real Clay site, built from a Google listing
Every website builder answers this with a number that means nothing, because the number they quote is how long the SOFTWARE takes and the part that takes weeks is you: choosing a template, finding the photographs, writing the words, and then not opening it again for a month.
Clay is fast for one reason, and it is not the software. Your Google Business Profile already holds your photographs, your hours, your address, your rating and a few hundred reviews, so the first version is not a blank page you fill in, it is a page built from what you have already written, that you then correct.
About a minute, and it is measured
Type your business name and the run takes about fifty-seven seconds end to end. Ten of those are a model looking at your photographs to decide which one opens the page and what colour the site is; twenty are a second one reading about a hundred of your reviews; the rest is your listing, your pictures downloaded and graded, and the words.
The page ships at a seventy-five second deadline whether or not the writing is finished. If the copywriter is slow, the site is still right, right colour, right theme, right photographs in the right places, and the prose lands on the live page behind you.
An evening, and most of it is deleting
The second half is not building, it is correcting: a heading you would have phrased differently, a photograph that is of the car park, a service we guessed the name of. You edit it on the page itself, the editor IS the live site, so there is no preview to flip between and nothing to publish twice.
The parts that are usually a week elsewhere are already done. Your opening hours are the ones on Google and stay current by themselves once the site is claimed. The map is drawn from the coordinates the listing carries. The reviews are your own.
Where the time actually goes
Nothing to choose first
No template gallery, no colour picker before the page exists. The theme and the accent are decided from your own photographs, and you change them afterwards against a page you can see.
Nothing to type in twice
Name, address, phone, category, hours, rating, review count and coordinates come off the listing in one request. A day you are shut for a bank holiday is the one thing you set on the site, Google keeps those separately and we do not read them.
Something to correct, not a blank page
A food business with no published menu gets preset rows so the band is not empty. They are furniture, marked for you to check, not your dishes, and the page says so.
In short
Real sites, made with Clay
Open one. It is the live site in a frame, not a screenshot, so what you see is what it looks like right now.
What it looks like when it is live
Drawn rather than described, the page, the address, and what it can switch on.
Questions
How long does it really take?
Most people are live in two to three minutes, search your business, pick a style, publish. There is nothing to install and no signup needed to see your site first, because it is built from your Google listing rather than from a blank page.
Is it free?
Yes. You get a live site on your own name.clay.site address with a small badge in the footer, and nothing expires. The paid plan is your own domain, the badge removed and the pro features.
Do I need any tech skills?
None. If you can type your business name, you can build a Clay site: the live page is the editor, so you tap the thing you want to change. There is no code anywhere, and nothing to install or keep updated, see the WordPress comparison for what that saves.
Can I use my own domain?
Yes, buy it wherever you like and point it at Clay on a paid plan; the certificate is issued for you. Until then the free name.clay.site address is a real one you can print, and it keeps working afterwards.
Why does the homepage say thirty seconds?
It is out of date and it is being fixed. The measured full run is about fifty-seven seconds and the site is shipped at a seventy-five second deadline; the thirty-second figure predates the two extra model calls that read your photographs and your reviews.
What makes it slower on my business than on yours?
Photographs and reviews. Forty pictures take longer to download and grade than five, and a business with hundreds of reviews has more to read. Nothing waits on the slowest part, the page ships and the writing catches up.
How long before it is on Google?
That is not ours to promise, and anybody who gives you a number is guessing. What we control is done at generation: real text at a real address with structured data around it, a sitemap, and a page that loads in under a second. When Google indexes it is Google's.
Try it with your business
Search your business and see your site in seconds, free, no signup.