How to Build a Website With B12: Step-by-Step Guide

If you’ve built a high-ticket dropshipping store and started fielding questions from other sellers who want to learn how you did it, or you’re eyeing a done-for-you or consulting side business to diversify your income, you’ve probably run into the same wall I’ve seen with a lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs. Your store’s website is built for selling products, not for managing clients. A coaching or agency arm needs something different: a professional-looking site with real client operations tooling built in, not just another landing page bolted onto your existing setup.

That’s the specific gap B12 is built to fill. It’s an AI website builder aimed at service businesses (consultants, coaches, agencies, contractors) that bundles appointment scheduling, invoicing, and client intake forms into the same subscription as the website itself. This guide walks through the actual setup process step by step, including the parts that aren’t as smooth as the marketing copy makes them sound.

Before you start, it’s worth knowing what B12 is and isn’t a fit for. I cover the full picture in my B12 review. I also break down every plan in the B12 pricing guide, so if you haven’t decided whether B12 is the right tool for your situation yet, start there. This piece assumes you’ve made the call and just want the setup done right the first time.

Who This Guide Is For

This walkthrough is written for the reader who already runs (or is building) a high-ticket dropshipping store and wants a second, client-facing site for a coaching, consulting, or done-for-you agency offer running alongside it. That’s a common path once a store owner gets a few years in and starts getting asked “can you just build one for me” or “will you teach me how you do this.”

It’s not written for someone who wants B12 to be their actual ecommerce storefront. B12 has no shopping cart or checkout system for selling physical products, so it can’t replace Shopify, WooCommerce, or a proper ecommerce platform for your main store. Think of it as the site for the service side of your business, not the store itself.

What to Have Ready Before You Start

B12’s AI can generate a full multi-page site in a few minutes, but the quality of what it generates depends almost entirely on what you feed it up front. Spend fifteen minutes gathering these four things before you sign up, and you’ll save yourself an hour of regenerating sections later.

A clear business description. Write two or three sentences describing what you actually do. “I help ecommerce sellers launch high-ticket dropshipping stores through 1-on-1 coaching and done-for-you store setup” is specific enough for the AI to work with. “I help people with online business” is not.
Your target client. Are you coaching total beginners, or working with sellers who already do $10,000 a month and want to scale? The AI’s copywriting tone and the services it suggests will shift based on who you tell it you’re serving.
The services you actually offer, with rough pricing. List out each offer: 1-on-1 coaching calls, a done-for-you store build, a group program, whatever it is. If you already have prices in mind, even rough ones, have them ready. It’s much faster to edit a number than to write pricing copy from scratch inside the editor.
Any existing branding. If you already have a logo, brand colors, or even just a font you like from your main store, have the files or hex codes handy. B12 will generate a look for you if you have nothing, but matching your existing brand keeps your coaching site and your store feeling like they come from the same person.

Step 1: Sign Up and Choose a Plan

Head to B12’s site and start the signup flow. You don’t have to commit to a paid plan up front. The Free plan gets you a B12 subdomain (something like yourbusiness.b12sites.com) and 5 AI credits a day, capped around 30 a month, which is enough to test the editor and see if you like how it works before paying anything.

If you know you want a custom domain and more AI generation room, the Website plan runs $49 a month standard or $42 a month billed yearly. For the client-ops tools this guide is actually about, scheduling, intake forms, invoicing, and contracts, you need the Website + Client Engagement plan, which runs $78 a month standard or $67 a month billed yearly. B12 has also run promotional pricing (a reduced rate for the first few months) on these plans for new signups in the past. Promotions like that change, so check the current offer on B12’s own pricing page before you enter payment details.

If the idea of doing all of this yourself sounds like more time than you have, B12 also sells an “Experts Do It For You” tier where a real human team builds and launches the site for you, starting at a $1,999 one-time setup fee plus $199 a month. That’s a meaningful upfront commitment before you’ve seen a finished product, so I’d only recommend it if the self-serve steps in this guide genuinely feel like too much for your schedule right now.

Step 2: Describe Your Business and Generate Your First Draft

Once you’re signed up, B12 asks you to describe your business in a text box. This is where the prep work from earlier pays off. Paste in your business description, mention your target client, and list your core services. The more specific you are here, the less editing you’ll do later.

B12’s AI then generates a complete multi-page site draft in a few minutes: usually a homepage, an about page, a services page, and a contact page, sometimes more depending on what you described. Don’t expect the first draft to be publish-ready. Think of it as a strong starting point that gets you 60 to 70 percent of the way there, with the copy, layout, and section choices roughly matching your business, but needing real editing before it represents you accurately.

Step 3: Refine Copy and Layout With the Section-Based AI Editor

This is the step where B12 works differently from a tool like Wix or Squarespace, and it’s worth understanding before you get frustrated halfway through. B12 uses a section-based editor with an AI chat interface. You click into a section (a hero banner, a services block, a testimonials area) and either edit the text directly or type instructions into the AI chat, something like “make this headline more direct” or “shorten this paragraph.”

The real limitation reviewers consistently point out, and one I want to be upfront about, is that you’re regenerating sections with AI rather than freely repositioning elements the way you would in a traditional drag-and-drop builder. If you want to move a specific button three pixels to the left, or place an image exactly where you want it inside a custom layout, B12’s editor gives you noticeably less granular control than Wix’s or Squarespace’s editors do. You’re working within the structure the AI built, nudging and regenerating it, not building a layout from a blank canvas.

In practice, this is a fine trade-off for most service businesses, since you’re optimizing for speed and a clean, professional result rather than pixel-perfect custom design. But if you’re someone who wants exact control over spacing and positioning, know that going in so it doesn’t catch you off guard three edits into the process.

Want the human team to handle the editing for you instead? B12’s Experts Do It For You plans hand the whole build, copy included, to a real designer and copywriter team rather than leaving you to work the AI editor yourself. Compare every B12 plan and pricing tier →

Step 4: Set Up Client Intake Forms

Client intake forms live under the Client Engagement features, so you’ll need the Website + Client Engagement plan or higher to use them. In your dashboard, look for the intake or forms section and choose a template close to what you need, or build one from scratch with the fields you actually want answered before a first call.

For a coaching or done-for-you offer, keep the intake form short. Ask what someone is currently doing (their current revenue level, whether they already have a store, what platform they’re on), what result they’re looking for, and their timeline. Three to six questions is usually enough. A twenty-question intake form scares off more prospects than it qualifies.

Once the form is built, embed it on your services or contact page, or link it directly from a call-to-action button. Submissions typically land in B12’s contact manager, which functions as a lightweight CRM so you can see who filled out the form and follow up without digging through email.

Step 5: Set Up Appointment Scheduling

The scheduling tool sits alongside the intake forms in your dashboard. Set your availability (which days and hours you’re open to booking calls), the length of the call (a 15-minute discovery call and a 60-minute strategy session are common combinations for coaching offers), and any buffer time you want between meetings.

Connect your calendar so bookings sync automatically and you’re not manually blocking off time every time someone books. Once it’s set up, add a “Book a Call” button to your homepage and services pages. This is usually the single highest-value element on a coaching or consulting site, since it’s the step that turns a browser into a booked call.

Step 6: Set Up Invoicing and Payments

Invoicing lives in the same Client Engagement toolset. You can build a service catalog (your coaching packages, done-for-you setup fee, whatever you sell) and send invoices directly from B12, with clients paying online rather than you chasing a check or a bank transfer.

Here’s the honest caveat worth flagging clearly: third-party reviews consistently report that B12’s invoicing and payment collection features are US-only. I haven’t been able to confirm B12 has expanded that internationally as of this writing, so if you’re operating outside the US, verify directly with B12’s support before building your entire payment workflow around this feature. It would be a frustrating thing to discover after you’ve already onboarded a client.

If invoicing through B12 doesn’t work for your country, you can still use B12 for the site and intake forms, and handle invoicing separately through whatever payment processor already works where you’re based. It’s an extra tool to manage, but it keeps the rest of the setup from being blocked by one feature gap.

Step 7: Connect a Custom Domain

A subdomain like yourbusiness.b12sites.com is fine for testing, but you’ll want a real domain before sending it to prospective clients. If you already own a domain (maybe one you registered for this exact purpose, or a variation of your main store’s brand), go to your B12 domain settings and follow the prompts to point it at your new site. This usually means updating a few DNS records with your domain registrar, and B12 walks you through exactly which records to add.

If you don’t have a domain yet, B12 lets you register one directly through the platform, and it’s included free for the first year on the Website plan and above. Either way, budget a few hours for DNS changes to propagate before your custom domain is fully live and consistently resolving.

Step 8: Final Checks and Publishing

Before you hit publish, walk through the site on both desktop and mobile. Check that every button actually goes where it’s supposed to (the booking link opens your scheduler, the contact form actually submits), that your services and pricing are accurate, and that there’s no leftover placeholder text from the AI’s first draft still sitting in a section you didn’t get to.

Once everything checks out, publish. If you registered a custom domain, double check it resolves correctly and that there’s no mixed content warning in your browser (a sign some assets are still loading from the old subdomain). Then send yourself a test intake form submission and a test booking to confirm the full client flow actually works end to end before you send the link to a real prospect.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

A few patterns show up repeatedly with new B12 users, and most of them are avoidable if you know to watch for them.

Skipping the prep work and winging the business description. A vague first prompt produces vague first-draft copy, and you’ll spend far more time fixing generic AI text than you would have spent writing three good sentences up front.
Running out of AI credits mid-edit. Self-serve plans meter AI credits, from around 30 a month on Free up to 300 a month on Website + Client Engagement. If you’re doing heavy back-and-forth editing with the AI chat, keep an eye on your credit usage so you’re not stuck mid-project waiting for next month’s allotment to reset.
Assuming the invoicing tool works everywhere. As covered above, verify US-only status applies (or doesn’t) to your situation before you build your client payment process around it.
Forgetting this isn’t an ecommerce platform. If your main dropshipping store is what you’re trying to build here, stop and use a real ecommerce platform instead. B12 has no cart or checkout for physical products, and trying to force it into that role will cost you more time than starting with the right tool.
Publishing before testing the client flow. Send yourself a real test booking and a real test intake submission. Catching a broken form after a prospect hits it is a worse first impression than any delay in launching.

What to Do After Launch

Getting the site live is the start, not the finish. Once it’s published, a few things are worth doing in the first couple of weeks.

Check your analytics inside B12’s dashboard weekly to see where visitors are actually coming from and whether they’re making it to your booking page. If a page is getting traffic but nobody’s booking a call, that’s usually a copy or offer clarity problem, not a design problem, and it’s worth revisiting that specific section with the AI editor.

Make sure your local directory listings (part of B12’s SEO tools on paid plans) are accurate, since these help local or regional service businesses show up in relevant searches. And if you’re building this alongside a coaching offer specifically, it’s worth having a structured system for how you actually deliver that coaching once someone books, not just how you sell it. That’s the exact gap Trevor’s coaching program is built to help with if you want a proven framework rather than figuring it out client by client.

If instead you’re leaning toward offering a done-for-you service (building stores for other sellers rather than coaching them), it’s worth understanding what that actually looks like at scale before you commit to selling it. Trevor’s own done-for-you service for high-ticket dropshipping stores is a useful reference point for how a DFY offer gets structured and delivered profitably.

Why This Matters Alongside Your Main Store

None of this replaces the fundamentals of running your actual ecommerce business. If you’re still working out what high-ticket dropshipping actually involves, that comes first. Picking the right niche matters just as much, and so does lining up reliable suppliers before you claim any expertise worth coaching on.

A coaching or agency site built on B12 is a way to monetize the experience you build running that store, not a shortcut around building it. If you haven’t nailed down your supplier relationships yet, our step-by-step guide to finding suppliers for high-ticket products is worth working through first.

It’s also worth getting your business structure right before you start invoicing clients under a second offer. Proper business formation (the right entity type, separate business banking, the basics of how you’ll handle taxes on a second income stream) matters just as much for a coaching arm as it does for your main store, and it’s much easier to set up correctly from day one than to untangle later.

If you’re completely new to this whole world and haven’t started your main store yet, it’s worth working through Ecommerce Paradise’s beginner’s guide to high-ticket dropshipping first. Building a client-facing coaching site only makes sense once you actually have something worth teaching.

How B12 Compares to Doing This Elsewhere

B12 isn’t the only option for this kind of site. If you want more design control at the cost of built-in client-ops tools, my B12 vs Wix comparison covers that trade-off in detail. And if you want a broader look at how the AI builder landscape stacks up specifically for service businesses, the best AI website builders for service businesses roundup ranks B12 against Duda, Squarespace, Wix, and GoDaddy for this exact use case.

It’s also worth noting that B12’s own site (the official pricing page) is the source of truth for current plan details, since pricing and promotions do shift.

Third-party review sites are useful too, for reading real user feedback on the editor and support experience before you commit, particularly around the design flexibility trade-off covered in Step 3. G2 is a solid starting point for that. Capterra is another good source of verified user reviews.

For a general comparison of platforms across the wider web-building space, not just service-business tools, Ecommerce Paradise’s best freelance websites guide is worth a look. The best landing page builders roundup is another useful comparison if you’re weighing your options beyond just B12.

For everything else related to building and growing an ecommerce business, from finding your first product to scaling a coaching arm on the side, browse the rest of Ecommerce Paradise for more practical, no-hype guides.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a paid plan to try B12?
No. The Free plan lets you build and test a site on a B12 subdomain with 5 AI credits a day, capped around 30 a month. It’s enough to see whether the editor and AI generation work for you before you pay anything.

Can I use B12 to sell physical products from my dropshipping store?
No. B12 has no shopping cart or checkout built for selling physical products, so it isn’t a replacement for a real ecommerce platform. Use it for a service-based site (coaching, consulting, a done-for-you offer) that runs alongside your actual store, not as your store itself.

Which plan do I need for client intake forms and invoicing?
Those live under the Website + Client Engagement plan, which runs $78 a month standard or $67 a month billed yearly. The base Website plan doesn’t include them.

Is B12’s invoicing available outside the US?
Third-party reviews consistently describe B12’s invoicing and payment collection as US-only. This hasn’t been fully confirmed as changed as of this writing, so verify directly with B12 support for your specific country before relying on it for client payments.

How long does it actually take to get a site live?
The AI generates a first draft in a few minutes. Getting it from that first draft to something you’d actually send to a client, factoring in editing copy, setting up scheduling and intake, and connecting a domain, realistically takes a few hours spread across a day or two, not the “minutes” the marketing sometimes implies.

If you’re still deciding whether B12 is the right platform for your service business, these related guides can help you compare your options.

Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.