What ChatGPT Sites Actually Is

Read this before anything else

Two things decide whether this course is any use to you, and neither has anything to do with your skill.

ChatGPT Sites needs a paid ChatGPT plan. It is not included on the Free plan and it is not included on the Go plan.

ChatGPT Sites is not available in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area, or Switzerland. If you are reading this from London, Dublin, Berlin or Zurich, you cannot use the product at all, whichever plan you pay for.

What it is

You already know the ChatGPT message box. Sites is what happens when you point that box at a whole website instead of a paragraph.

You describe the site you want. It builds it, and it hosts it on OpenAI's own infrastructure, which means you do not go and find a hosting company afterwards. You can preview it, publish it, and share the address.

There are two ways in. You can simply ask ChatGPT to build you a site, in plain English, and it will work out what you mean. Or you can be explicit and put @Sites in your prompt, which removes the guesswork about which capability you want.

What static actually means

This one word decides what you can and cannot build, so it is worth thirty seconds.

Sites builds static websites and lightweight web apps, using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Static means the pages are the same for every visitor. The site has no memory. It does not know who you are, it does not recognise you when you come back, and it does not keep anything anyone types into it.

That sounds like a limitation, and it is. But look at what OpenAI itself puts forward as example use cases: dashboards, project trackers, launch calendars, prototypes, internal portals and reports. Every one of those is a thing you look at rather than a thing that remembers you. That is the sweet spot, and lesson 5 is entirely about where its edges are.

How it compares to a standalone builder

You may already have met a tool like Lovable, which is a separate app you go to specifically to build websites. Sites is not that, and the differences are worth being honest about.

Where it lives. Sites is inside the app you already have open. No new account, no new tab, no new tool to learn. That convenience is the main thing it is selling.

Whether you get files. A standalone builder typically hands you a real codebase you own and can take elsewhere. Sites hosts the result for you. Convenience and portability pull in opposite directions here, and Sites has chosen convenience.

Whether a backend is possible. A standalone builder can usually add stored data and logins when you need them. Sites is static, so that door is closed. Narrower by design, not by accident.

None of that makes one better than the other. It makes them different shapes. If your idea is a thing people read, Sites is the shorter path. If your idea is a thing people log into, you were always going to need something else.

Three prompts to start with

Build me a simple one page website for a freelance illustrator
called Sam Reed. Calm and uncluttered. A short introduction,
a gallery of six pieces of work, and a way to get in touch.

@Sites Build me a one page launch calendar for a small team.
Six upcoming dates, each with a title, a date and one line
of description. Plain, readable, no decoration.

Before I try anything: tell me what ChatGPT Sites can and cannot
build, which plans include it, and which countries it is
unavailable in. If you are not certain, say so and point me at
the official help page rather than guessing.

That third one is a habit rather than a trick. On a two week old beta, the tool's own answer plus the official page beats any tutorial, this one included.