Build a website with ChatGPT Sites, start to live link

Until recently, building a website with ChatGPT meant asking it for code and then figuring out hosting yourself. That changed. ChatGPT Sites entered public beta on 9 July 2026, and it builds and hosts the site for you. You describe what you want, it makes it, and you get a URL you can send to someone.

For a business owner who has been putting off a website for a year, this removes the two steps that caused the delay: choosing a platform and doing the deployment. It also comes with real limits, and knowing them up front saves you a rebuild.

What is ChatGPT Sites?

Sites lets ChatGPT create, host, refine, and share interactive websites, web apps, and games without a separate deploy workflow. You trigger it by describing the site in chat, or explicitly with @Sites in your prompt. Claude and other tools give you files you then have to host somewhere. Sites skips that and hosts it under a URL you can share immediately.

Two limits to know up front. Commerce is banned, meaning you cannot sell directly on a Sites page. And at launch it is not available in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland.

Who has access?

Sites is in public beta on paid plans, and it excludes the Free and Go tiers. Pro, Pro Lite, Enterprise, and Edu got it first, with Plus and Business following.

If you are on Free or Go and want to build a site today, that is not a blocker for the project, just for this tool. Claude's Artifacts publish to a public link on every plan since 13 July 2026, and build a website with Claude covers that path.

How do you brief it so the first version is close?

The mistake is describing a website. Describe the visitor and the one action you want from them, and the structure follows.

@Sites Build a site for my business.

What I do: [your offer, in one plain sentence]
Who visits: [who they are and what they are trying to figure out]
The one action I want: [book a call, join the list, buy, message me]
What they need to believe first: [the objection or question standing in the way]
Proof I have: [testimonials, results, credentials, years, names, numbers]
Pages: [start with one. Add more only when one is not enough.]

Style: [two or three adjectives, plus any brand colors and fonts]
Requirements: works on a phone first, the action appears above the fold and again
at the bottom, no stock-photo filler, no invented claims or fake testimonials.

That last requirement is not optional. Left alone, AI site builders write placeholder testimonials from invented people. Delete every one it makes up. A site with one real quote outperforms a site with five imaginary ones, and the fake kind is a liability.

Why start with one page?

Because a five-page site is five pages of copy you will not finish, and a one-page site that says one thing clearly converts better than a navigation menu that gives visitors somewhere to wander.

One page, in this order: what you do and who for, the proof, what happens when they contact you, the action. That is the whole thing. Add an about page or a services page when you have evidence that visitors need it, not because sites usually have one.

How do you get the copy right?

The site builder will write copy for you and it will be competent and generic. Competent and generic does not convert, so write the words separately and paste them in.

You are my website copywriter. My offer is [describe it and the price]. My buyer
is [who they are, what they have already tried, what they are afraid of].
The action I want is [action].
Write the page in this order: headline that names their problem in their words,
one paragraph on what changes for them, three specific proof points, what happens
after they contact me step by step, and the button text.
Rules: no superlatives, no "passionate about," no industry jargon. Every claim
either names a number or gets cut. Read it back as if you are skeptical.

Then run it through your own voice. AI drafts structure faster than you and sounds like everyone else by default, which use AI without losing your voice covers in detail.

What should you not use Sites for?

Three things, and knowing them saves you a rebuild.

Selling. Commerce is banned on Sites, so payment lives elsewhere. Link out to a checkout you host on a payment provider.

Anything you need to own long term. A hosted beta feature is a fast way to get live. It is not where you want your primary domain and your search rankings sitting in two years. Treat Sites as the version that gets you live this week, and plan a move to a platform you control once the site is earning its place.

Anything requiring visitor accounts or a database. That is app territory, not a site page.

What is the realistic timeline?

An afternoon for a working one-page site if your copy is ready. A week if you are writing the copy properly, which is the right amount of time to spend, because the copy is the part that determines whether the site does anything.

And the order matters more than the tool. A website is not the first step in a business. Get your first customer before you build a website describes a sequence that keeps you from spending three weeks on a page nobody visits. If you have not sold the thing yet, sell it in conversations first and build the site to scale what already worked.

Once the site is live, the next question is what feeds it. The WorkSmart Scale Plan maps the traffic, offer, and follow-up around a site so it functions as part of a revenue path instead of a business card.