Grafter Learn

Learn to build apps and websites

80 free lessons from the first idea to a product people can find, use and trust. Open to readers everywhere.

Grafter turning a rough idea into an organised app and website plan

Courses

  • A brief taken apart — Twenty words about a fencing business, read clause by clause: what each one bought, what the weak version of it costs, and a skeleton to fill in with your own.
  • Changing a site without starting it again — The difference between a turn that changes the site you have and one that starts a new one, and how to phrase a change so only the named thing moves.
  • How much to write, and where — Three words under a heading tell a stranger nothing. Eight paragraphs about your mission get skipped. What has to be in writing, and how long each part runs.
  • Name the trade plainly — The words naming your work do more to the first draft than anything else you type. Why the plain noun beats the polished phrase, and what to do about two trades.
  • Photographs that earn their place — One honest set from a real job beats a gallery of stock. What to shoot on a phone, what never to use, and what the builder does with what you upload.
  • The proof a stranger will actually believe — Registration numbers that can be looked up, insurance stated as a figure, guarantees with their exclusions showing, and reviews that name the job.
  • Read your own site the way a stranger would — The closing pass. Open the site cold on a phone, walk it in order, end with a written list of fixes, and turn that list into sentences for the builder.
  • What a stranger sees before they scroll — Nearly all of this is read on a phone. Four things have to be on the first screen. How to check yours today, and what to send when one is missing.
  • A phone number that can actually be rung — A number set as text is a number nobody rings from a phone. Where it goes, how it should behave, and the honest line about when you answer.
  • What the builder will not do — The honest limits in one place: it cannot invent your details, cannot know your prices, cannot photograph your work, and does not build phone apps.
  • What to have ready before you build — The details the builder refuses to invent — number, address, registrations, insurance, years trading — what it writes instead, and what to do without one.
  • What your first message decides — The opening brief settles your colours, your sections and their order without asking. What to put in it, what to leave out, and what it hands back.

Build an app

Guides

  • When a build does not give you a site — Why a build can stop short, how automatic continuation works, and when Plan mode is the right choice.
  • When you can't sign in to Grafter — The email with no code in it, the link that signs in the wrong device, and why a password can be refused on an account you have definitely used.
  • Is a website tax deductible? The rule HMRC uses — Nearly every source calls a website advertising and stops. HMRC's own manual says that label settles nothing. The shop window rule, and what it means.
  • How many client sites one account will carry — What a month of credits actually carries when the sites are for other people: the turn arithmetic, the builds-at-once limit, and what no plan includes.
  • Add WhatsApp, socials and a map — Paste your WhatsApp number, Instagram, Facebook page, a video and your address onto an agent, in the exact shape each field will accept.
  • Choosing a domain name for your trade business — co.uk or com, whether to put your town in it, when a hyphen hurts, and what registering one actually costs in the UK.
  • Editing your site — The site is not finished when the build stops. How a turn works, when to plan instead of build, and how to go back.
  • How to turn website visits into leads — Traffic is not the problem. Where trade websites lose the call — the first screen, the phone button, the form, and how fast you ring back.
  • How to set up your Google Business Profile — Categories, service areas, photos and reviews — how to set the listing up properly, and the mistakes that quietly bury it.
  • How to create a business website that brings leads — A practical way to create a small business website: decide what it must do, write the pages people need, choose a domain and publish without waiting on a developer.
  • When the live site behaves differently — The editor and the address you hand out are the same sealed frame. What that switches off, what it does not, and where a lead from your form really ends up.
  • Local SEO for tradespeople: what actually works — How a one-van business gets found in local search: Google Business Profile, service and town pages, reviews, and what is not worth your time.
  • Photos on your site — What happens to a photograph you attach, where a first draft's pictures come from and what they cost, and what to do when one of them is wrong.
  • Publishing and exporting — The live address, the zip, GitHub and a deploy of your own — four ways your site leaves the builder, and what each one gives you.
  • Put your site on your own domain — There is no domain box inside Grafter. The route that works: publish the site to Vercel, add your name there, then paste the records at your registrar.
  • Receipts, and how to stop paying — Where the invoices actually live, what the billing portal will and will not do, and what cancelling does to your credits, your site and your card.
  • See who is visiting your site — Your site counts its own visitors with nothing to set up. Where to read the numbers, what each one actually means, and how to test it in two minutes.
  • When your site will not go live — A publish that fails with one useless sentence, a second site appearing beside the first, and the address that vanished when you closed the panel.
  • Take bookings on your site — Paste your Google Calendar or Calendly booking link into an agent, build once, and visitors pick a slot that lands in your own diary.
  • Take payments with Stripe — Connect your own Stripe account, list what you sell, and get a buy button a customer can pay through — and the two places it will not work.
  • Taking a site down — What deleting a site removes, what it leaves behind, and the one thing it quietly breaks on a copy you have already exported or handed over.
  • What training an agent changes — Why a taught line, a switched-on tool or a connected payment link can leave the built site looking identical, and what actually reaches a build.
  • What a website costs in Australia — What agencies, freelancers and builders charge for a small business site in Australia, why GST makes two quotes look different, and the .com.au rules.
  • What a small business website costs in the UK — Agency, freelancer, template builder or AI: real UK price ranges for a small business website, plus the second bill nobody quotes for.
  • How to get a website for your trade business — What a plumber, electrician or roofer actually needs on a website, what it costs, and how to have one live this afternoon.
  • Website or web app: which one does your idea need? — A simple way to decide whether you need a website, a web app or both, based on what your visitor needs to do rather than how impressive the project sounds.
  • What it costs to rebuild a site you already have — You already paid once. What a redesign quote is actually for: moving the words and the photographs, the redirects, and when to start again.
  • What a turn costs — Credits are spent per turn, for what that turn actually used — why a first build costs more than a correction, and what a failed turn costs.
  • What to charge for building a website in the UK — How to price client website work in the UK, the three shapes a quote comes in, and how to defend a fee when the build itself takes minutes.
  • What you get with a website — A real address, a form that reaches you, and the files themselves — what exists after the build finishes, and what you can take with you.
  • Where your credits went — Why the balance drops further than the receipt says, what the second row under a build is, and where a charge you never pressed a button for came from.
  • Where your leads go — What a contact form on your site records, where it lands, and the things we do not do with it: no email, no export, and no way to delete one.
  • Describe your business so the site writes itself — What to put in the box: your trade, your towns, the jobs you want, the jobs you do not. Weak and strong descriptions side by side.
  • Your colours, type and logo — There is no brand panel. Colours and type are asked for in words, a logo is a file you attach, and this is what you get if you say nothing.
  • Your site's dashboard — Who got in touch, how many people came and where from, and what you have for sale — the four screens behind every site you build.

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