Frequently Asked Questions

You reach out by phone, email, or the contact form, and the call goes straight to Tom. The first conversation runs about 30 minutes, by phone or Zoom. Tom gives you a quote on the same call about 99.5% of the time. If you say yes, you pay a 50% deposit, sign a plain-English contract, and you are in our build queue.

Most projects launch in 2 to 6 weeks, auction platforms included. The biggest factor is how quickly you can get us the content and feedback we need. We have launched in as little as a week, but that is not common. We do not lock in a written timeline. We tell you 2 to 6 weeks, and it goes faster when you are responsive.

Tom takes the first call and writes your quote. Once you are started, Debbie Damiano and her team manage the entire design and build. You will hear from Debbie regularly. If anything goes sideways, Tom is still on the phone.

They always do, and we expect it. Small changes we just do. Bigger changes, like adding a brand new online form, get quoted before any work starts. No surprise invoices ever.

No. We have a separate service for that, Tell Your Business Story. Most clients use a mix. They write what they know best, and we write the rest.

Yes, if training is needed. Debbie and her team handle it before launch with screen-share walkthroughs, recorded videos, written documentation, or live webinars. It is included in the project, not a separate fee.

Either. Plenty of our projects are redesigns of a site you already have. We bring over the content worth keeping, fix what is not working, and build the rest fresh. Some clients come to us for a first website, plenty more come to us to fix the one they have.

Most websites start at $3,000 and go up from there depending on what you need. Tom gives you a real number on the call, not a range. Association sites typically start at $3,500. Auction platforms are quoted based on the build.

No. Every operation is different. Some need a five-page site, some need a full association platform with member logins and an integrated auction. We quote each project based on what it actually needs. Once we quote it, that is the price.

A 50% deposit on the design fee plus a signed contract gets you started. The 50% balance and your first hosting period are paid at launch. Everything is quoted up front, so you always know the number before you write a check.

Never. We do not take a cut of anything you sell, raise, or collect. You pay a flat design fee and a flat hosting fee. That is it.

No hidden fees. You pay the design fee for the build, then a flat hosting fee (annual or monthly) that covers hosting, security, and your unlimited updates. Anything beyond a normal update gets quoted before we start, so nothing ever shows up on a bill as a surprise.

You can send as many normal content updates as you need. There is no monthly cap and no per-update fee. New features are projects, not updates, and those get quoted separately.

New horse listings, sold horse moves, foal announcements, stallion additions, breeding fee changes, event calendar changes, photo and video updates, sponsor changes, show results and points, copy edits, and new pages of normal length. Anything a website normally needs to keep current.

Within 24 business hours, and most are done the same day, often within hours. That is the guarantee, not a "we try to."

Yes, on most sites. Many clients update their own listings, photos, and pages directly. Or you send everything to Debbie's team. Most clients do a mix.

No. Every Big Sky site is hosted on our Cloudflare Enterprise setup, because that is the only way we can stand behind the 3-Way Guarantee. The 24-hour updates, email deliverability, security, and speed all depend on us having full control of the server.

Cloudflare Enterprise gives us 99.9%+ uptime, monitored continuously. If something does go down, we know before you do and we fix it. Live auctions are treated as the highest priority.

Yes. Automatic off-site backups run regularly. If anything needs restoring, we handle it for you.

Every Big Sky site has an SSL certificate, the lock icon in the browser, and it renews automatically. No expired certificates, no security warnings.

Yes, as an optional add-on. Custom domain email on your own domain, 25 GB per mailbox, $72 per year per mailbox, as many mailboxes as you want. We set it all up. See the email setup guide for details.

We hand you your content. Text, images, member records, results, sponsor lists, all of it. We do not hold your data hostage.

Generic site builders cannot run a stallion service auction, do not understand your horse business, cannot support what an association needs, and share hosting, email, and security with millions of other sites. That is why we built our own hosting on Cloudflare Enterprise.

Your content is yours. Your text, images, member records, results, and data belong to you, and if you ever leave we hand it all over. The site itself is custom-built on our platform, so it does not pick up and move to another host as-is, but nothing you would need is ever held hostage.

Three promises no one else in horse website design makes together: a 28-day money-back guarantee, a 24-hour turnaround on updates, and 100% transparent pricing. Read the full details on the 3-Way Guarantee page.

The day you pay your deposit and we sign the agreement.

Reach out anyway. The 28 days is the formal guarantee, but it has never been a wall we hide behind. If you are unhappy, we want to know, and we will work it out with you fairly.

In all the years of offering this guarantee, we have issued exactly one refund, to a client who had a life change before the project ever started. We do not have unhappy clients very often, because there are no surprises from day one.

No. We design for the full horse industry: ranches, trainers, breeders, breed associations, performance horse operations, stallion stations, equine reproduction centers, horse trailer dealers, veterinarians, and online auction platforms. About half our clients are individual ranches and breeders.

Yes. We have built for a Hall of Fame horse trainer, a bookkeeper, a landscaping and dirt-moving company, and others. If you operate in the horse industry you get the bonus of working with someone who already knows it. If you do not, we still do great work.

Yes. We work with clients across the United States and Canada. Most communication is by phone, email, and video call, so distance is not an issue.

Since 1998. Owner Tom Bruch has been personally involved in the horse industry his entire adult life.

A 30-minute conversation we turn into website content written in your voice. We record it, transcribe it, and write your pages from how you actually talk about your business. Starting at $495. See the Tell Your Business Story page.

That is the whole point. We write in your voice, captured from how you talk during the recorded conversation. If you are direct and folksy, the content is direct and folksy. The content matches the person.

You comment on it, tell us what does not sound right, and we fix it. One round of revisions is included. Most clients only need light edits because it is built from their own words.

Yes. It works just as well on an existing site. We rewrite the pages you have, sometimes add new ones, and hand it back for your team to drop in.

Yes, as add-on packages. A common add-on is four weeks of social media posts tied to a blog post, linking back and forth.

It works best as a recurring service. We recommend it at least once a quarter, especially if you are also doing blog posts or social media.

An assistant that sits on your website and answers your members' and visitors' questions instantly, using only the information on your own site. It takes the repetitive questions off your secretary's plate. See the SiteGuide page.

It reads through your website, including your PDFs, and answers only from what is there. It does not guess and it does not pull from the rest of the internet.

No. SiteGuide is a small piece of code that works alongside your existing site.

Yes. One sponsor can cover the full cost, with their banner and a "powered by" credit, their information worked into relevant answers, and full reporting on how many times their banner was shown and clicked.

Yes. Every conversation is recorded and you can read all of them, in your members' own words.

Introductory pricing starts at $697 per year with the setup fee waived.

No. Every Big Sky association site is built on our server with Cloudflare Enterprise. We migrate your existing content (members, results, history, photos, sponsor records) into the new site. You do not lose anything important.

Yes. Member archives, past show results, Hall of Fame entries, photo galleries, sponsor histories, and newsletter back issues all migrate in. Nothing gets retyped.

Big Sky is your webmaster. All changes go through our team under the 24-hour update guarantee. Your secretary typically handles only show-specific items like posting results and entries, and even those we can do for them.

Normal in association life, and it does not disrupt the work. We work with your designated point of contact, and when leadership changes we train the new people.

Yes. Online show entry, online entry payment, automatic confirmation, and entry data sent to your show secretary are all standard.

Yes, as an add-on. Common uses are member directories, association documents, or members-only resources.

We have seen it many times. The volunteer gets busy or burns out, and the association is stuck with a half-finished site nobody can update, no support, and often no backup. DIY platforms work for personal blogs. They do not work for an association.

Yes. The auction runs on a Big Sky-controlled server with Cloudflare Enterprise, because we need full command over security, email delivery, payment, and live auction support. If we did not build your main site, we build you a branded auction site that matches it.

We integrate with Stripe. Stripe is the industry leader in secure payment processing, stores all card information on PCI-compliant servers, and your website never touches a card number.

No. Donors or consignors submit their information to your auction admin, who uploads it. Years of running these auctions taught us catalog quality only stays right when one set of hands does the upload. We can build a submission form to make it easier.

It stays in your auction website. Your admin has full access and reports export to Excel. We do not collect, sell, or share bidder information.

Once we have your information, we can have it live within 7 days, often sooner. We run a test auction first so your admin can practice before the real one goes live.

No. Bidder support is handled by the auction itself, with terms of bidding, a "How to Bid" guide, and instructions in the automated emails. Questions about a specific lot go to your sale manager or association.

Separate sites we maintain that explain online auctions to the public and list every active Big Sky client auction. If you run an auction with us, yours shows up there during your bidding window for extra exposure.