A financial advisors' association built a website with real features, without an agency

The Association of Financial Advisors of the Czech Republic (AFP ČR) is an independent professional body representing around a hundred financial advisors across the country, all of whom provide advice to the highest professional and ethical standards. Its mission is to cultivate the financial market, raise the expertise of advisors, and protect the interests of their clients.

For an organization working in financial advisory, credibility is everything. And the website is the first place clients, prospective members, and journalists land.

Hire an agency, or do it yourself?

When Samuel Pšeja became the association's new president in the autumn of 2025, he set out to reshape how AFP ČR presents itself to the outside world and how it communicates with its members. A modern, trustworthy-looking website was a basic requirement.

The existing site, built a few years earlier by an external vendor, no longer lived up to that role. "I inherited a website that had seen better days and didn't reflect where the association was heading," Pšeja explains. Nothing that would represent an organization whose members appear in Forbes or the country's leading business press.

The usual path was there for the taking: hand the redesign to an agency or a freelancer. Traditionally, that means writing a brief, finding a vendor, paying tens of thousands, and then waiting. Every change goes through someone else and costs both time and money. For a non-profit association that could put its budget to better use elsewhere, it's an awkward equation.

"As a non-profit, we don't have big budgets for websites. But today's tools let you create great things for great prices," says Pšeja. Instead of looking for a vendor, he built the website himself with Macaly, a Czech AI website builder.

Why Macaly beat Lovable

Samuel Pšeja, the creator of the new AFP ČR website, has a feel for technology but isn't a developer. He described to the Macaly agent in plain language how the website should look and what it should do. A first version came together quickly, followed by refinement and adding features. Building the entire website took around 30 hours.

"At the start I was weighing up several tools. I tried Lovable too, but it didn't strike me as that good for websites. Macaly's output was noticeably better, and it handled more complex features more capably as well." Pšeja also appreciates the small things that made his work easier, such as being able to hand the agent several tasks at once.

To keep the website from looking generic, Macaly can build a site based on a reference to other pages, so you just show it how the result should look. It keeps colors and fonts consistent across the entire project on its own, so the website holds a unified appearance. And minor tweaks can be made with visual edits, by clicking directly on the page.

This isn't just a pretty website

Most websites built on templates and content management systems can only handle static presentation: text, images, contact forms. The moment you want to add a real feature, like advanced search or working dynamically with databases, you have to bring in a programmer.

Macaly works differently. It lets you create fully functional websites from a text description. The user doesn't need to understand what's happening behind the scenes. It's enough to describe what the website should do.

What was originally a static website turned into one with the following features:

• A member database with profiles and filtering. Clients can search for advisors in a directory by name, company, or specialization, and filter by region and certifications. Each advisor has their own profile with a photo, the services they offer, and contact details.
• An application form for new members. Membership applicants fill out a form on the website that shows their progress and lets them upload documents. The data is saved to the admin panel and automatically sent to the board for review.
• A conference page with a live program. Association members can register through the website for the regular annual conference. During the conference, the website acts as an event app that displays the current program and what's coming up next.
• Member content in one place. The website also features a section that aggregates podcasts and videos from YouTube. Scattered member activities become an organized content library.

After launch, the feedback from members was very positive. "Compared to the previous site, the new website is a major step forward and represents our association with dignity. Above all, we managed to build it ourselves for a fraction of what we would have paid an agency," Pšeja says.

But a website is a living organism that keeps evolving. AFP ČR is already dreaming up and preparing new features that its website will soon be able to handle.