Websites

Website features list: what 11 generated sites planned

A small business website needs the features its visitors use to act: a way to sign in if they return, payments if they buy, bookings if they book, and an admin area to run it. In 11 AI website plans, sign in, profiles, an admin area and CSV export each appeared in 8, and payments in 7.

Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder

4 min read · Published 21 October 2026

The features a business website needs are the ones its visitors use to do something: sign in to return, pay to buy, book to visit, and an admin area for the owner to run it all. In 11 AI website plans, sign in, profiles, an admin area and CSV export each appeared in 8 plans, and card payments in 7.

Where the list comes from

OneCraft plans every website before writing code, and the plan names, page by page, the capabilities that page needs. The table counts those names in OneCraft’s development project on 21 October 2026, using the latest completed pipeline run for each business: 11 websites with 97 planned pages between them. The businesses were a yoga studio, a second yoga studio, a reformer pilates studio, a pottery studio, a ceramics shop, a kayak hire, a running club, a branding agency, an online sourdough course, a dog hotel and a dog walker.

The caveats: n is 11; the briefs were written by the team to test features, so they ask for more than many first sites; all runs were on one environment; and the planner changed during the week, so the early plans name fewer capabilities. These are what the planner named, not a census of finished sites. 57 different names appear in all, and the table shows the 20 named most often.

The four features almost every site planned

Sign in, profiles, an admin area and CSV export travel together. Any site where a visitor books, buys or joins needs to know who they are, a page where they see their own bookings or orders, and a staff side to see everyone’s. CSV export sits in the admin area of 8 plans because the owner always wants the list out: a class roll, a dispatch list, a donor list. Sign in also has the most pages, 28, because many pages change once someone is signed in.

Payments came next, in 7 of 11 plans and 15 pages: class packs, course purchases, deposits on kayak hire, orders in the two shops, donations for the running club. On OneCraft, card payments run through Stripe Checkout on the owner’s connected Stripe account, prices are read from the site’s database, and a Stripe webhook marks the order paid. What Stripe Checkout is explains the hosted page itself.

The middle of the list

Files (6 plans), FAQs (6), forms that save what visitors send (5) and notifications (5) form the second tier. They are less about the business model and more about running the site: a waiver to upload, a question answered before it is asked, a contact form that keeps its messages, a notice that a booking moved. Search appeared in 4 plans with listings or a catalog to filter.

What depends on the business

Below that, the list splits by kind of business. Classes appeared only for the studios. Catalog, orders and inventory only for the shops. Rentals, tours and referrals for the kayak hire. A members feed, donations, an auction and a giveaway for the running club. A client portal, quotes, invoices and careers for the agency. This is why a fixed features list for every business is less useful than starting from what your own customers do. The industries map behind OneCraft’s planner, covered in website features by industry, suggests a set for 28 kinds of business as a hint, never a preset.

Turning this into your own list

Write the one action that pays. Book a class, buy a mug, hire a kayak, donate.
Add what that action needs. Payment, a confirmation, sign in if people come back to it.
Add the owner’s side. An admin view, an export, a way to change prices and times. See what an admin role is.
Add what helps people decide. FAQs, reviews, a map, real photos.
Leave the rest for later. Loyalty, referrals, gift cards and pre-orders can follow once the core runs.

To have the agent build such a list, describe it in the brief on the AI website generator. For visitor accounts read website with login and what OAuth is; for where the data lives read website with a database; and for what each of these features adds to the cost, see how much an AI website builder costs, by business type.

Capabilities the planner named on at least one page, latest completed website pipeline job per business, dev project, read 21 October 2026 (n = 11 websites, 97 planned pages). Sites = plans naming it; pages = planned pages naming it
Capability the planner named	What it means	Sites (of 11)	Pages
auth	Visitor sign in and sign up	8	28
profiles	A person's own details and account page	8	9
admin	An admin area for staff	8	8
csv	CSV export from the admin area	8	8
payments	Card payment through Stripe Checkout	7	15
files	Uploads and downloads	6	9
faq	Questions and answers	6	8
forms	Forms that save what visitors send	5	10
notifications	In site notices for signed in people	5	5
classes	A class timetable with spaces	4	9
catalog	Products or services to browse	4	9
search	Search and filters	4	4
memberships	Paid or free member tiers	3	10
orders	Orders and their status	3	8
bookings	Appointments or reservations	3	8
email	Mail to visitors or subscribers	3	5
waitlist	A queue when something is full	3	4
seo	Search tags and structured data	3	3
referrals	Refer a friend codes	2	6
maps	A map of a place or places	2	4

Questions people ask

What features does every small business website need?

Clear pages for what you sell and where you are, a way to get in touch, and fast, readable pages on a phone. Everything else depends on what visitors do. In this sample, the two sites that only needed to inform planned no database tables at all, while sites with classes, shops or members planned a dozen or more.

Why is CSV export so common?

Because almost every admin area in the plans had a list worth taking out: bookings, orders, members or messages. A CSV file opens in a spreadsheet, so an owner can do the books, mail merge or import into another tool without asking anyone. It is a small feature that saves the owner a lot of copying.

Should a small business website have sign in?

Only if visitors come back to something of theirs: bookings to cancel, a course to continue, orders to track or a members area. Sign in adds friction and data to protect. Eight of 11 plans named it because their briefs asked for repeat use; the information only sites did not.

Are the capability names a list of product features?

They are the names the planner wrote on each page of a plan. Each one tells the build steps which capability guide to follow, where one exists, and the agent then writes the tables, access rules and screens itself. This post counts what was planned, not a promise about any one feature.

How many features should a first website have?

Fewer than you think. Start with the action that earns money, such as booking or buying, plus the admin view to handle it, then add the rest once real visitors use the site. Each feature brings tables, rules, pages and tests, and the plans with the most features also cost the most to generate.

Written by

Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder

Works across the builders and the export paths: how a form becomes a PDF, how a flyer canvas becomes a print file, and how a signed document carries its audit trail.

LinkedIn profile

Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked 21 October 2026.

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