Clone with Claude

When Clone with Claude is available on your account, Clone an existing website can hand the whole rebuild to Claude working in its own workspace instead of building it turn by turn in the assistant. Claude reads every page of the original, measures its design in a real browser, rebuilds each page with its words and images, checks the result against the original, and delivers the finished website here — ready to edit, with every section editable in Edit mode.

Seeing the credits first

1. Open the builder on a new website and choose Clone an existing website.

2. Enter the address and confirm the snapshot is the right site, then choose Continue. If a snapshot can't be taken, a short note says so and you can continue anyway — Claude reads the website itself. If the website turns our request away — a firewall that admits only browsers, say — the dialog says We are having trouble talking to that website, with the website's answer behind More details; Continue anyway carries on without a snapshot, and the next step shows which pages Claude's browser could find before any credits are spent.

3. Choose how to create it:

   • Identical Clone — the website as close to the original as possible.
   • Improve Design — every page, address and word kept, with a new design at an effort level: Light (same layout, modernized), Medium (a fresh design from a design brief — the default) or High (a total redesign). Improve Design costs a little more and takes a little longer than an identical clone, more the higher the level — the dialog says how much more under the level you pick.

   Under either card, Additional information takes your own instructions, which Claude follows throughout the build. For an identical clone that is anything to change from the original ("show every product, but replace the checkout with a 'Request this order' form that sends the product, size and quantity"), and where it differs from the original it wins; anything Claude couldn't do is named in its report. For a redesign it is anything the new design must keep or do ("keep the full-screen video in the hero") — see Improve Design.

4. Choose Continue. We discover the website's pages — its sitemap, every link, and the links its scripts draw, such as a footer's privacy and terms pages — while you watch the number climb, then list every page we found, each ticked, with what it is likely to cost in credits, as a range, and how long it usually takes. Nothing has been spent yet.

5. Untick any page you do not want rebuilt — a blog you have abandoned, an old promotion — and the credits and the time come down with each one. Pages that share a shape, like every post under /blog, sit under one row you can open or tick as a whole. The home page always comes along. Filter pages finds one by its title or address on a large website.

6. Choose Clone for … credits (or Redesign for … credits) to start, or Cancel to go back. If the estimate is more than the credits you have, the button reads Insufficient credits and a note offers Buy credits right there, over the dialog, if you manage billing (or names the people who can, with an email link each, if you don't). When leaving pages out would bring it under, the note suggests that too. The steps along the top of the dialog — Website, Clone type, Build — show where you are, and Change next to your choices takes you back to change them.

Starting from a design image

Choose Start from an image and upload a design of your website — a mockup, a full-page screenshot or a Figma export, as a PNG, JPG or WebP at the largest size you have. You can drop it in, choose the file, or paste a screenshot straight from your clipboard.

Under the design you can add up to 12 additional images — your logo, photos, backgrounds. Claude uses them in place of cutting the same things out of the design, so they come out sharp. Then choose what Claude builds: This page only (the page in your design, as your home page — the default) or Full website (that page plus every page its menu names, in the same design; pages your design doesn't show get short starter copy for you to replace, and it takes longer and uses more credits). Choose Continue to see how many credits building it is likely to take and how long it usually takes, then Build for … credits to start. Claude rebuilds the picture as real, editable pages, compares its work with your design until they match, and adds simple pages for the menu links your design shows but does not draw. Photos it can cut cleanly from your design are used; anything it cannot is left for you to fill, and the picture itself is never placed on a page.

Describe it with AI

With Clone with Claude available, Describe it with AI has Claude design a brand-new website for your business, the way our professional templates are designed — but for you rather than for an industry. Give your business's name and a few words about your business (both are needed), and optionally:

• Photos — your logo, storefront, team, your work. Press Logo on your logo; its colors are offered as brand colors, and the two you pick become your website's primary and secondary colors.
• Design inspiration — the address of a website you like the look of, or of an image of one (a screenshot, a design, a mood board); the address says which. Press Add Another URL for more (up to 8). Claude studies their style — type, spacing, layout ideas, mood — and never takes their words, pictures, logo or name.

Choose Continue to see the credits it is likely to take, then Build for … credits. Claude plans the pages your business needs, writes the copy from what you said, places your photos and logo, and checks every page on a computer and a phone before it lands here. Nothing is invented: where a page would need something you didn't say — prices, opening hours, an address — it is written so nothing is made up, and Claude's reply lists what to add. Your logo and colors are set on the Branding page when the website arrives.

Without Clone with Claude, the same step sends your description to the assistant as its first message instead (Build my website), with your logo and colors set right away.

What it costs

Most of a clone's cost is the same whatever the website's size — reading the original, setting up its design, checking the result — so a one-page website costs less than a large one, but not in proportion to its pages. The estimate is a range because the cost depends on how much work the website turns out to need, not only on its page count. Every run also has the same generous spending cap, far above any estimate, so a website that turns out to need more work than its estimate allowed for still finishes; the cap is only there so a run can never run away, and in the rare case one reaches it, it pauses and asks you rather than throwing the work away (see If it needs more credits below).

What you are charged is what the run used, once it ends — the credits you watched climb on Claude's reply, not the estimate. That holds whichever way it ends: a website brought into your builder, a run that stopped short, or one you stopped yourself, which is charged for what it had used up to the stop. A run that never got going costs nothing. The charge comes out of your credits the same way Max's own work does — your plan's monthly credits first, then any you bought — and shows in your credit history as "Clone with Claude" beside the website's name; the reply reads "… credits charged" once it has been taken.

While it runs

The builder looks just as it does while Max builds a website. The canvas shows your website being built, with Email me when ready underneath — choose it and leave; we'll email you when your website is in. In the chat, your request appears as Start from a website, and Claude answers it with the steps it is working through — setting up, reading the original, rebuilding every section, checking it against the original, packing it, and bringing it into your builder — the time so far, the last thing it said, and the credits used against the estimate. More Details under the reply shows everything it has done.

Claude works with a small team: it sets up the website's design and its home page itself, and brings in helpers — you see "Claude brought in a builder" in the details — that read the original and build the other pages side by side, while Claude checks their work against the original. A one-page website usually takes 5–10 minutes, and the estimate tells you the usual time for the pages you kept. It carries on if you close the tab or leave the page; come back and the progress is there. While it runs, the message box waits; its stop button ends the clone at any time, and whatever Claude had built is discarded and your website is exactly as it was.

If the reply seems to have stopped moving — the same note for a long while, no new details — press Refresh status beside the credits line. It checks on Claude right then: if Claude is still working you are told so, and if it had stalled (its helpers all finished and it was waiting for one of them) it is woken on the spot and carries on from where it was. The platform checks for this on its own too, every ten quiet minutes, so a stall rarely needs you; and a Claude that cannot be woken is stopped, charged only for what it used, with Try again on the reply. Refresh status answers once a minute.

If it needs more credits

This almost never happens: every clone starts with the same spending cap, far above what any website's estimate comes to, so a website bigger than its estimate allowed for simply finishes. Only a run that spends all the way to that cap pauses. The clone then pauses with everything Claude built kept in its workspace, and the reply reads "The clone of … needs more credits": how many credits it has used, that Continue allows about the estimate's worth again and picks up exactly where it left off, and that Stop ends it, charged only for what it used. The canvas goes back to its empty state while it waits, and the message box waits with it.

• Continue for … credits raises the cap by the original estimate and the same run carries on — nothing is read or built twice. If it reaches the new cap, it pauses again with the same choice. Continue needs the extra credits to be available; when they are not, the button waits and Buy credits opens in place (members see who can buy them instead).
• Stop (or the stop square in the message box) ends it there, charged for what it used, with nothing imported.
• A pause nobody answers within 30 minutes is stopped the same way, before Claude's workspace is reclaimed. The reply says until when it waits.

If you chose Email me when ready, you are emailed when it pauses ("Claude needs more credits to finish …") as well as when the website is in.

When it finishes

Your new website appears on the canvas by itself — there is nothing to press — and Claude's reply says it is in. The clone is your website's newest version; the version from before is kept in Version history. From here on, Max knows the website: ask for any change in the assistant, or edit any section in Edit mode.

If the clone stops before it finishes, Claude's reply says why and offers Try again. Nothing on your website changes, and you can start over from the four starting points.