HowPayrollworks
Plain-language payroll help from someone who's run payroll for 26+ years, on a site he runs himself.
Visit live site- Type
- Client website
- For
- Brian Escobar · HowPayrollworks
- Year
- 2026
- Stage
- Live
HowPayrollworks is plain-language payroll help from Brian Escobar, who has spent more than 26 years running payroll for companies from 1 to 10,000 employees. He needed a site that teaches first and books clients second, and one he could keep growing without a developer on call. We designed and built it: his services and pricing, his training program, a library of plain-language lessons, and booking right on the site. Then we launched it on his own accounts, so he owns every piece.
Brian knows payroll inside and out, but he's one person. The site had to earn trust with people who are nervous about payroll, show up for the questions they actually type into Google and AI search, and take bookings, all without turning into a maintenance job. No database to babysit, no monthly CMS bill, and nothing he'd need a developer to change.
Keep it simple underneath so it can grow on top. The whole site lives in one GitHub repo, with every lesson, service, and FAQ stored as plain files. Brian edits through a friendly web editor, and we set up an AI-assisted writing workflow so he can research the questions people ask and publish the answers himself. The SEO and answer-engine groundwork went in from day one, and booking, paid sessions, and branded contact emails are all wired in.
- A custom, mobile-first design and build in Astro, deployed on Railway
- A git-based CMS (Sveltia) so Brian edits lessons, videos, services, pricing, and FAQs himself
- An AI-assisted writing workflow for researching and publishing new lessons
- An SEO and AEO foundation: structured data for the business, Brian, articles, services, and FAQs, plus sitemap, canonicals, and metadata
- Booking built into the site, with four appointment types and payment on the paid ones
- Branded contact emails through Resend
- Logo guidance, a clean vector version of Brian's wordmark, and a brand guide
- Launched on Brian's own GitHub, hosting, and domain
Development
- Astro
Content
- Sveltia CMS
- GitHub
Booking & email
- Stripe
- Resend
Infrastructure
- Railway