A popular post on X recently asked whether anyone else had noticed that almost every vibe-coded website looks the same. Dark background, gradient headline, three feature cards, a "Get started" button. Among AI startups the pattern is everywhere.
For a company selling to engineers, looking the same as everyone else is only part of the problem. The bigger issue is that the standard layout skips what technical buyers actually check: does the product work, what does it cost and how is data handled. This guide covers what an AI startup website needs to earn a demo booking from someone who reads the docs first.
Engineers read the site differently
A technical buyer does not read your homepage from top to bottom. They skim the headline, then go looking for:
- The docs or API reference
- Pricing
- Code samples
- A security page
- A changelog, to see if the product is actively maintained
If they cannot find these quickly, many leave. A widely shared post on X listing reasons AI assistants skip a SaaS product included pricing hidden behind "book a demo" and missing documentation. Another post claimed that one in two B2B buyers now start their research in an AI chatbot. That figure is unverified, but the direction is clear: clear, public, specific pages help you get found and trusted.
Show the product working in the hero
For a developer tool or API, the most convincing thing you can put on the first screen is the product doing its job. That could be:
- A sample request and its response
- A short code snippet next to its output
- A trace showing what happens when a request is made
This tells an engineer, in seconds, what the product does and roughly how it works. It is much more useful than an abstract illustration or a headline about "the future of AI".
Keep the example realistic. Use a request that reflects real usage, with plausible response times and output. If you show figures such as latency, they should match what customers actually experience.
Pricing they can check without a call
Many AI startups hide pricing behind "Contact sales". For enterprise deals with custom terms, that can make sense. For most products, it costs you buyers who want to evaluate before they talk to anyone.
Publish at least a starting point:
- Tiers with what each includes
- Usage-based rates, with units explained (per request, per token, per seat)
- What happens when someone exceeds their limit
- A free tier or trial, if you offer one
- An "Enterprise" tier for custom needs, with a contact route
If usage pricing is complex, add a worked example or two showing what a typical small and medium customer would pay.
A developer page laid out like docs
Even if your full documentation lives on a separate docs platform, a developer page on your main site helps. It shows a technical visitor that the product is built for people like them. Include:
- A quickstart: how to get an API key and make a first request
- Code samples in the languages your users work in
- Links to the full reference, SDKs and status page
- Rate limits and authentication, summarised
Lay it out the way engineers expect docs to look, with a sidebar of sections and code blocks they can copy.
Security, early
For AI products in particular, buyers want to know what happens to the data they send you. Is it stored? For how long? Is it used to train models? Who can access it?
A dedicated security page answers these questions before a security questionnaire arrives. At minimum, cover:
- Whether customer inputs and outputs are stored, and for how long
- Whether customer data is used to train or improve models
- Where data is processed and hosted
- Which third-party model providers or subprocessors you use
- How to report a vulnerability
The security page should say what you do today, not what you plan to do. Describe your practices in plain terms and state only certifications you actually hold. We cover this in detail in a separate guide on what to put on a SaaS security page.
Changelog and customers
Two more pages help with trust:
- A changelog shows you ship regularly. Dated entries, tagged by type, help engineers see what changed and spot anything that might break their integration.
- A customers page shows who already relies on you. Use only real customers, with written permission for names, logos and figures.
Setting up Switchyard
Switchyard is a Framer template for AI infrastructure and developer tool companies, made for buyers who read the docs, pricing and security page first.
It opens with a working request playground in the hero, so the visitor sees the product respond before reading further. The request trace and code samples are edited on the Framer canvas. It has twelve pages: home, product, solutions, customers, pricing with three tiers, a developer page laid out like real docs, security, changelog, book a demo, privacy, terms and a branded 404. Every layer is native Framer, with no code components. It costs $69, and one licence covers unlimited sites.
To set it up:
1. Replace the playground request and response with a real example from your product.
2. Update the code samples to match your API.
3. Set your three pricing tiers with real rates.
4. Rewrite the security page around your actual practices.
5. Add your first changelog entries and real customer stories.
6. Point the book a demo form at your team's inbox and test it.
The playground is a front end you edit on the canvas, not a live connection to your API. If you want visitors to make real calls, link to your API console or sandbox from it.
If you sell to operations teams rather than developers, Relaey is built for that review process. See Framer templates for AI startups and Framer templates for SaaS for more.
Technical buyers are not hard to please. They want to see it work, know what it costs and understand how their data is handled. Put those three things where they can find them.