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AI & automation for web agencies

Spend the hours on the build, not the chasing

Web agencies are good at making things work online, yet their own projects often stall on missing content, scattered feedback and renewals nobody noticed. Make It Flow looks at how an agency really runs, from first brief to long-term care plan, and connects the steps that keep slipping.

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AI and automation for web developers · 49 sec

Understand the work

What a project really looks like inside a web agency

Most web projects follow a familiar arc. A prospect gets in touch with a half-formed idea, the agency runs a discovery call, writes a brief and a proposal, and agrees scope, milestones and a budget. Then design starts in a tool such as Figma, development happens on a staging site, and the client is asked for copy, images, logins and decisions.

That middle stretch is where time disappears. Content arrives late or in odd formats, feedback comes through email, chat, comments on a PDF and a phone call, and small requests quietly grow the scope. Before launch someone checks forms, redirects, speed, accessibility and tracking, often from a checklist that lives in one person's head.

After launch the work changes shape. Many agencies sell care plans covering updates, backups, uptime monitoring and small changes. Domains, SSL certificates and hosting renew on their own schedules, plugin and framework updates keep coming, and time has to be tracked and invoiced accurately against retainers and change requests.

Agency owner or director

Wins work, sets pricing, signs off proposals and worries about cash flow and utilisation at the same time.

Project manager

Keeps scope, timelines, client feedback and content collection moving, and is usually the one doing the chasing.

Designer

Turns the brief into layouts and design systems, then works through rounds of client comments.

Developer

Builds the site on staging, handles integrations and deployments, and fixes what breaks after updates.

Support or care-plan lead

Handles change requests, updates, monitoring alerts and renewals for live client sites.

Every day

New enquiries, client emails with feedback, content trickling in, staging deploys, small change requests on live sites and timers started and forgotten.

Every week

Project status updates, design and staging review rounds, resource planning, QA passes before launches and care-plan update windows.

Every month

Retainer and care-plan invoicing, time reports against budgets, maintenance reports for clients, domain and certificate renewals and pipeline reviews.

Where work gets stuck

The current way of working is full of small detours.

01

Briefs that start vague and stay vague

Enquiries arrive as a few lines in a contact form. Turning them into a scoped brief takes calls and follow-up emails, and gaps that are not caught early resurface as disagreements halfway through the build.

02

Content that never arrives on time

Copy, photos, product data and logins are the client's job, but they are rarely anyone's priority on the client side. Projects pause while the project manager sends polite reminders and tracks what is still missing in a spreadsheet.

03

Feedback spread across every channel

One round of comments might arrive as an email, a voice note, PDF annotations and a message to the designer directly. Consolidating it, spotting contradictions and noticing what is really a new request takes careful, tedious work.

04

QA that depends on memory

Broken links, missing alt text, forms that do not send, redirects that were forgotten and tracking that was never added are easy to miss under launch pressure, especially when the checklist is informal.

05

Renewals and alerts that surprise everyone

Domains, SSL certificates and hosting renew on different dates, often under different accounts. An expired certificate or lapsed domain becomes an urgent client problem that nobody saw coming.

06

Time that is worked but never billed

Small favours, quick fixes and extra review rounds rarely make it into the time tracker. Without a clear link between requests, scope and time, retainers drift and change requests go uncharged.

What could flow better

Less chasing. More of the work that matters.

AI agents, assistants, research workflows and integrations can each take on part of the load. Here is where they fit for web design & development agencies.

Enquiries, briefs and proposals

Turning first conversations into clear scope and well-founded proposals.

  • Structuring enquiry forms and call notes into a draft brief
  • Highlighting missing information before a proposal is written
  • Drafting proposals from past projects and approved pricing
  • Logging enquiries and next steps in the CRM

Content and asset collection

Getting what the client owes the project without constant chasing.

  • Building content checklists from the agreed sitemap
  • Sending scheduled, friendly reminders for missing items
  • Checking uploads for format, size and obvious gaps
  • Keeping a live status view for the project manager

Design and staging feedback

Gathering comments in one place and keeping scope visible.

  • Collecting feedback from email, comments and call notes
  • Grouping comments by page and spotting contradictions
  • Flagging requests that look outside the agreed scope
  • Turning approved feedback into developer tasks

Quality assurance and launch

Making pre-launch checks consistent and documented.

  • Running link, redirect, metadata and form checks on staging
  • Running automated accessibility checks and listing issues for review
  • Comparing old and new URLs to draft a redirect map
  • Preparing a launch checklist and handover notes

Care plans and site health

Keeping live sites secure, renewed and reported on.

  • Monitoring uptime, SSL expiry and domain renewal dates
  • Summarising update and backup results per site
  • Triaging care-plan requests by urgency and plan scope
  • Drafting monthly maintenance reports for clients

Time, budgets and invoicing

Connecting the work done to the work billed.

  • Matching time entries to projects, tasks and change requests
  • Flagging budgets and retainers approaching their limits
  • Preparing draft invoices from approved time and fixed fees
  • Producing utilisation and profitability views for the owner

Use cases in detail

From trigger to done, step by step.

How it happens today

The owner or project manager reads the enquiry, looks at the existing site, books a discovery call and writes notes by hand. The brief is pieced together later from memory and scattered notes, and important questions about integrations, content or hosting are sometimes missed.

Systems and information

  • · Website form or shared inbox
  • · CRM such as HubSpot or Pipedrive (where API access is available)
  • · Call notes or transcripts, only where the client has agreed to recording
  • · The agency's brief template

How it could flow

  1. 1 Reads the enquiry and any linked existing website
  2. 2 Notes the current platform, page structure and obvious features such as booking, shop or member areas, from public information only
  3. 3 Prepares a discovery call agenda with questions the enquiry does not answer yet
  4. 4 After the call, turns the transcript or notes into a draft brief using the agency's own template
  5. 5 Lists open questions and assumptions clearly so they can be confirmed with the client

Human oversight

The project manager or owner edits the brief and confirms every assumption with the client before anything is priced. Nothing goes to the prospect without being read.

What gets easier

Every brief starts from the same structure, the right questions are asked early and fewer surprises appear once the build has started.

How it happens today

The owner copies the last similar proposal, edits it section by section and estimates effort from experience. Old wording, outdated inclusions or another client's name occasionally slip through.

Systems and information

  • · Proposal templates and past proposals
  • · Time-tracking history such as Harvest, Toggl or Clockify (via export or API)
  • · Approved pricing guidance
  • · CRM deal record

How it could flow

  1. 1 Takes the approved brief and identifies the project type and main features
  2. 2 Finds comparable past proposals and actual time records, where those are available
  3. 3 Drafts scope, deliverables, exclusions and milestones using the agency's approved language
  4. 4 Suggests an effort range per phase for the owner to adjust, with the comparable projects listed
  5. 5 Checks the draft for leftover client names, conflicting dates and missing exclusions

Human oversight

Pricing, payment terms and what the agency commits to are decided by the owner. The draft is a starting point, not a quote.

What gets easier

Proposals are consistent, exclusions are stated clearly and estimates are grounded in what similar projects actually took.

How it happens today

The project manager sends a long email listing everything needed, then tracks progress in a spreadsheet and sends reminders by hand. Files arrive by email, file-sharing links and messaging apps, and some go missing.

Systems and information

  • · Project management tool such as Asana, ClickUp, Trello or Teamwork (via API)
  • · File storage such as Google Drive, Dropbox or SharePoint
  • · Email platform for reminders
  • · Sitemap or content plan

How it could flow

  1. 1 Generates a content checklist per page from the approved sitemap
  2. 2 Shares a single upload area or form with the client, with clear instructions per item
  3. 3 Checks each upload for basics such as file type, image size, missing pages or placeholder text
  4. 4 Sends scheduled reminders for outstanding items, with the wording and frequency the agency has approved
  5. 5 Updates a status view the project manager can share in weekly check-ins
  6. 6 Alerts the project manager when missing content puts the launch date at risk

Human oversight

The project manager sets reminder timing and tone, and handles any conversation about delays or changed deadlines personally. Logins and credentials are moved into a password manager, never pasted into tickets or chat.

What gets easier

Everyone can see what is missing, reminders go out reliably without sounding robotic, and launch-date conversations happen earlier and with facts.

How it happens today

The project manager copies comments from emails, annotation tools and call notes into a list, works out which page each refers to, resolves contradictions and decides which items are bugs, which are refinements and which are new work.

Systems and information

  • · Visual feedback tool such as Markup.io, BugHerd or Figma comments (where an API or export exists)
  • · Project management tool
  • · Signed proposal and scope document
  • · Email or shared inbox

How it could flow

  1. 1 Gathers feedback from the review tool, email thread and call notes for the current round
  2. 2 Groups each comment by page and component, and links it to a screenshot where possible
  3. 3 Highlights conflicting requests from different stakeholders
  4. 4 Compares each item against the agreed scope and labels likely bugs, refinements and possible change requests
  5. 5 Creates draft tasks for designers and developers from the items the project manager approves

Human oversight

The project manager confirms every classification and decides with the client how to handle contradictions and anything that looks like new scope. Change requests are priced and approved by people.

What gets easier

Each feedback round becomes one clear list, scope conversations are based on the written agreement and developers receive tasks they can act on.

How it happens today

A developer or project manager clicks through key pages, submits forms, checks a few redirects and runs one or two online checkers. Coverage depends on who has time and what they remember.

Systems and information

  • · Staging environment with protected access
  • · Crawler and accessibility testing tools
  • · Existing site URLs from the sitemap or analytics export
  • · Form handling and CRM destinations

How it could flow

  1. 1 Crawls the staging site for broken links, missing titles and descriptions, duplicate headings and oversized images
  2. 2 Runs automated accessibility checks against WCAG success criteria and lists issues by page
  3. 3 Compares old live URLs with new ones and drafts a redirect map for unmatched pages
  4. 4 Tests key forms in a safe mode and confirms submissions reach the right inbox or system
  5. 5 Checks robots settings, sitemap, analytics tags and consent banner behaviour
  6. 6 Compiles a launch report with pass, fail and needs-review items

Human oversight

Automated checks only catch part of accessibility, so a person still tests keyboard navigation, screen-reader behaviour and content clarity. A developer approves the redirect map and the go-live decision. Accessibility expectations vary: the European Accessibility Act applies to many consumer services in the EU, the ADA is used in US claims, and the UK Equality Act 2010 sets duties too, so check what applies to each client.

What gets easier

Every launch goes through the same documented checks, regressions are caught on staging and clients receive a clear record of what was tested.

How it happens today

Uptime alerts go to a shared inbox, certificate and domain expiry dates sit in registrar accounts or a spreadsheet, and update results are checked site by site. Issues are often noticed when a client calls.

Systems and information

  • · Uptime monitoring service
  • · Hosting or site management dashboard such as MainWP or ManageWP (depending on access)
  • · Domain registrar records
  • · Help desk or ticketing tool
  • · Care-plan agreements

How it could flow

  1. 1 Monitors uptime, response codes and SSL certificate expiry for every site under a care plan
  2. 2 Tracks domain renewal dates and auto-renew status, where registrar data is available
  3. 3 Collects results of scheduled updates and backups from the hosting or management dashboard
  4. 4 Opens a ticket with context when a site goes down, a certificate nears expiry or a backup fails
  5. 5 Escalates urgent issues to the on-call developer according to the care-plan tier
  6. 6 Logs every alert, action and resolution for the monthly client report

Human oversight

Developers decide how to fix incidents and when to roll back updates. Domain renewals and transfers that involve payment or ownership changes are confirmed by a person with the client.

What gets easier

Renewals stop being surprises, outages are noticed before clients notice them and care-plan reports reflect what actually happened.

How it happens today

The owner or an administrator exports time entries, matches them to projects and change requests, chases people for missing timesheets and builds invoices by hand in the accounting system.

Systems and information

  • · Time-tracking tool such as Harvest, Toggl or Clockify (via API)
  • · Accounting software such as QuickBooks, Xero or FreeAgent (via API)
  • · Project management tool
  • · Signed proposals and change requests

How it could flow

  1. 1 Pulls the month's time entries and compares them with projects, retainers and approved change requests
  2. 2 Flags entries without a project, unusually long timers and days with no time logged
  3. 3 Shows retainers and fixed budgets that are close to or over their limits
  4. 4 Prepares draft invoices in the accounting system with line items linked to approved work
  5. 5 Produces a short summary of billable versus non-billable time for the owner

Human oversight

The owner reviews and approves every invoice before it is sent, and decides how to handle overruns with each client.

What gets easier

Invoices go out on time, small pieces of work are no longer forgotten and budget conversations happen while they can still be managed.

From one task to a connected system

From first enquiry to a site that stays healthy

A web project passes through sales, design, development, launch and long-term care. This is how those stages can share context instead of restarting each time.
  1. 01 Automated

    Enquiry

    The enquiry is logged, the existing site is reviewed and a call agenda is prepared.

  2. 02 A person reviews

    Brief and proposal

    A brief and proposal are drafted from notes and past projects for the owner to edit.

  3. 03 People decide

    Scope and price

    Pricing, terms and commitments are agreed and signed by the people authorised to do so.

  4. 04 Automated

    Content collection

    Checklists, uploads and reminders run until everything needed has arrived.

  5. 05 A person reviews

    Feedback rounds

    Comments are consolidated and scope is flagged for the project manager to decide.

  6. 06 A person reviews

    QA and launch

    Automated checks run on staging and a developer approves go-live.

  7. 07 Automated

    Care plan

    Uptime, SSL, domains, updates and backups are monitored and logged.

  8. 08 People decide

    Client relationship

    Reports, renewals and next projects are discussed by the account owner.

Responsible by design

What gets automated, what stays with people.

Can be automated

  • Content checklists and scheduled reminders
  • Uptime, SSL and domain expiry monitoring
  • Crawling staging sites for links, metadata and redirects
  • Matching time entries to projects and flagging gaps
  • Logging enquiries and project status updates

AI prepares, a person checks

  • Briefs and proposals drafted from notes and past work
  • Consolidated feedback lists and scope labels
  • Accessibility issue lists from automated checks
  • Draft invoices and maintenance reports
  • Client-facing messages about delays or issues

Stays with qualified people

  • Pricing, scope and contract commitments
  • Design direction and creative decisions
  • Go-live decisions and incident fixes
  • Whether a site meets accessibility obligations
  • Difficult client conversations about delays or overruns

Agencies often handle client logins, form submissions and customer data, which makes them a processor under laws such as GDPR in the UK and EU and subject to state privacy laws and contract terms in the US. Keep credentials in a password manager, and check your client contracts and the rules where you operate before connecting any AI service to client data.

What this gives people back

Less managing the process. More doing the work.

Project managers who manage, not chase

When reminders and status tracking run on their own, project managers can spend their energy on decisions, risks and client relationships.

Designers and developers with clearer tasks

Feedback arrives as one consolidated list with context, so creative and technical people spend less time interpreting and more time building.

Launches that feel calmer

A consistent QA process means fewer late-night surprises and a clear record of what was checked before go-live.

Care plans clients can see the value of

Reports drawn from real monitoring and update logs show clients what was done to keep their site healthy.

Built around how you work

Your process first. Technology second.

No two agencies run the same way. A two-person WordPress studio, a Webflow specialist and a development shop building custom applications all have different tools, client types and margins. What is feasible depends on which systems offer APIs or exports, how consistently projects are set up, what client contracts allow and how much risk the team wants to take on.

Make It Flow starts by mapping how a project actually moves through your agency, from enquiry to care plan, and where it tends to stall. We research options that fit the tools you already use, build small workflows with clear human checkpoints, add logging and access controls where client data is involved, and refine them as your team sees how they work on real projects.

  1. 01Map the work as it really happens
  2. 02Find the steps worth automating
  3. 03Design with checks and approvals
  4. 04Connect, measure and improve

FAQ

Common questions from web design & development agencies.

Still have a question?

Talk to us

It can send reminders on a schedule and in a tone you approve, and it stops as soon as items arrive. Conversations about missed deadlines or changed dates should still come from the project manager.

No. Automated tools catch a useful share of issues, such as missing alt text or low contrast, but many criteria need human testing. Treat automated results as a starting list, and check the accessibility rules that apply to each client where they operate.

No. It drafts from your templates and past projects, and the owner decides scope, price and terms. Nothing is sent to a client without a person approving it.

Only with clear access controls. Credentials belong in a password manager, monitoring can usually run without admin access, and we check client contracts and data protection rules before connecting anything.

Usually not. Most workflows can be built around the tools you already use, depending on the API access and plan level each one offers.

Pick the step that stalls most often, such as content collection or care-plan monitoring. Automate the predictable parts with a clear review step, and expand once the team trusts the results.

Free tools

Tools picked for web developers.

Free, quick and mostly sign-up free. Each one opens on the main Make It Flow site.
All free tools for this industry
CSS Gradient Generator Build linear, radial and conic gradients with draggable colour stops and copy clean CSS. htaccess Redirect Generator Generate single-hop HTTPS, www and bulk 301 redirects for Apache sites and migrations. Cron Expression Generator Turn schedules into cron expressions and check the next run times before deploying. JSON Formatter & Validator Format, validate and minify JSON with exact line and column errors, a collapsible tree view and sorted keys, all in the browser. Regex Tester Test JavaScript regular expressions with live highlighting, capture groups and a replace preview, safely sandboxed so a bad pattern cannot freeze the tab. Text Compare (Diff Checker) Compare two versions of a config file, template or copy side by side, with word-level highlighting inside changed lines. Colour Converter & Contrast Checker Convert HEX, RGB and HSL values and check WCAG 2.2 contrast before a colour goes into the design system. Redirect Checker Run every old URL from your redirect map through the checker before and after DNS cutover. It shows each hop and status code, so you catch 302s that should be 301s and ch... robots.txt Tester Staging sites usually carry a blanket Disallow. Test the live robots.txt on launch morning to confirm Googlebot and Bingbot can reach key templates and that the sitemap l... Security Headers Checker Check HSTS, CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy and framing controls on the production URL. Fixing missing headers before handover is far cheaper than explaining... Content Security Policy Generator Building a Content Security Policy by hand for a site with analytics, fonts and embedded video is fiddly. Generate a starting policy, deploy it in report-only mode, then... SSL Certificate Checker Confirm the certificate covers both the apex and www hostnames, the chain is complete and the expiry date is sensible. A missing intermediate certificate can work in desk... XML Sitemap Checker Validate the production sitemap after launch. It flags URLs that return redirects or errors, which is common when a CMS still lists staging paths or old slugs after a mig... Image Compressor Batch up to 20 client photos at once, set a max width and export as WebP for large savings. It runs in the browser, so unreleased product shots and client assets are neve... Favicon Generator Turn the client logo into favicon.ico, apple-touch-icon, the 192 and 512 PNGs and a site.webmanifest in one ZIP, with the HTML link tags ready to paste. It removes a smal... DNS Propagation Checker After changing A records or nameservers, check how the new values appear across resolvers before you tell the client the site is live. It helps explain why some staff sti... Email Deliverability Checker Run the client domain after any DNS move to confirm MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC survived. Contact-form and order emails are the first thing clients notice when they stop. Broken Link Checker Crawl key pages for internal links that still point to staging, old slugs or deleted files. Fixing these before handover avoids soft 404s and a messy first Search Console... Website Down Checker Find out in seconds whether a website is down for everyone or only on your connection, and what kind of failure it is AI Content Visibility Checker Paste any page address to see whether AI search tools may fetch it, whether its text is in the HTML, and whether it is written so a passage can be quoted What Is My IP Address Your public IP address, the network it belongs to and what your browser shares with every site, plus a lookup for any IPv4 or IPv6 address Keyword Grouping Tool Paste a keyword list or upload a CSV export, and group it into topics you can plan one page around, with intent buckets and summed volume, impressions and clicks Bulk Redirect Checker Paste or upload up to 100 URLs and see where each one really ends: every hop with its status code, chains, loops and temporary redirects, plus a match check against the t... XML to JSON Converter Turn RSS feeds, sitemaps, SOAP responses and other XML into clean JSON, or build XML from JSON, with full control over how attributes, arrays and namespaces are mapped Color Palette Generator Build a palette from one color, pull the main colors out of an image, or press the space bar for random ideas Privacy Policy Generator Answer five short questions about your business, the data you collect and the tools you use, and get a starting-point privacy policy you can review, edit and publish WHOIS Lookup See the full public registration record for any domain: registrar and abuse contact, key dates, every status code in plain English, nameservers, DNSSEC and the raw record SSL Certificate & CSR Decoder Paste a PEM certificate, a full chain or a CSR to read every field in plain English, check that each certificate signs the next, and catch problems before you install it Subnet Calculator Enter any IPv4 or IPv6 address with a prefix or mask to get its network, host range, masks, address type and reverse DNS zone, then split it, plan VLSM subnets or summari... Image Alt Text Checker Paste a page address to list every image on it, see which have missing, empty or placeholder alt text, and find image links that screen readers cannot name HTTP Headers & Compression Checker Enter a URL to see every response header it sends, whether gzip or Brotli compression is on and how much it saves, and what its caching headers tell browsers and CDNs llms.txt Checker & Generator Enter a website to validate its llms Website Technology Checker Enter any website to find out which CMS, builder or store platform it runs on, the scripts and services it loads, and who hosts its website, DNS and email, with the evide... Subdomain Finder Enter a domain to list the subdomains recorded in public Certificate Transparency logs, check which ones still resolve, and flag forgotten records that could be taken ove... Color Contrast Checker Enter a text color and a background color to see their WCAG contrast ratio, whether they pass AA and AAA for normal and large text and for UI parts, and the closest shade... Mixed Content Checker Enter a page address to find every resource it still loads over plain http://, see which ones browsers block or upgrade, and check whether each file is already available...

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