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Service 02 of 05 · Custom WordPress builds

WordPress sites that load in under
two seconds.

Custom builds from scratch — designed for your brand, engineered for speed, documented so your team can actually edit them. No page-builder bloat, no 40-plugin stack, no surprise renewal fees.

Typical engagement: 4–6 weeks · from $3,000 · Most projects begin with a $299 audit.

yourbrand.com
Work that performs.
Get in touch →
PageSpeed 98 · LCP 1.1s
100+ WordPress
sites shipped
92 Avg PageSpeed
at launch
< 2s Target LCP on
all builds
4.9 Clutch average
(27 reviews)
2wk Post-launch
support included

Most WordPress agencies hand you a themed Elementor site with fifteen plugins and a maintenance bill you can’t escape. We don’t do that. We write clean code, pick the smallest dependency that does the job, and hand you documentation so the site still makes sense in two years.

What’s included · What isn’t

A clear scope. Every time.

Every development engagement starts with this list. No scope creep, no surprise invoices — and if something here isn’t a fit, we’ll tell you before the kickoff call ends.

Always included

  • Discovery workshop and technical audit of your current site
  • Custom design system — colors, typography, components — built for your brand
  • Performance-first build targeting 90+ PageSpeed on mobile
  • Editor-friendly CMS using native Gutenberg blocks, not a page builder
  • SEO foundations: metadata, schema, sitemap, analytics, Search Console
  • Responsive from 320px up to ultra-wide — tested on real devices
  • Accessibility baseline: WCAG 2.1 AA, keyboard + screen-reader pass
  • Documented handover — content guide, plugin inventory, recovery plan
  • Two weeks of post-launch support and monitoring

Never included

  • Bloated page builders (Elementor, Divi, WPBakery)
  • Premium theme marketplaces (we start from a blank slate)
  • 40-plugin stacks that conflict on every update
  • Proprietary lock-in — you own the code, the content, and the hosting
  • Monthly “design retainer” fees rolled in as hidden maintenance
  • Endless discovery — we scope in days, not quarters
  • AI-generated imagery or placeholder content passed off as “final”
Audience fit · Before you enquire

Is this the right service for you?

Be honest with yourself before booking. These are the three groups we deliver best work for — and the shapes of project we decline.

Great fit · 01

Founders rebuilding from a tired template.

  • Site was built on Divi or a marketplace theme 3+ years ago
  • Brand and offering have evolved; site hasn’t
  • You want something you’re not embarrassed to share
  • Editing anything means calling a developer
Great fit · 02

Operators whose site has to earn.

  • Bookings, demos, or leads flow through the homepage
  • You know slow pages are costing you conversions
  • You can attach a dollar value to a 1-second improvement
  • You want measurable outcomes, not a design award
Not a fit · 03

Projects we politely decline.

  • E-commerce stores with 5,000+ SKUs — you need a Shopify partner
  • Marketplaces, membership sites with complex role logic
  • Anything where “fast” is less important than “cheap”
  • Clients who need a full-time developer, not a project partner
The stack · What we build with

A deliberate, minimal toolbox.

We pick dependencies the way a chef picks pans — few, reliable, sharpened with use. Every tool here earns its place.

Foundation

  • CMSWordPress core · latest stable release, no forks
  • EditorNative Gutenberg · custom blocks via ACF
  • ThemeCustom-built from a blank starter, no marketplace
  • LanguageModern PHP 8.2+, typed where it matters

Front of house

  • CSSHand-authored, tokenized, no framework tax
  • JSVanilla or Alpine · sprinkle, not soup
  • AssetsVite for builds · tree-shaken, hashed, minified
  • ImagesAVIF/WebP, responsive srcset, lazy by default

Delivery

  • HostingKinsta · WP Engine · Cloudways (your call)
  • CDNCloudflare, configured not assumed
  • CachingServer-level · Redis object cache when it helps
  • CI/CDGit-based deploys, staging → production parity
Recent builds · Last twelve months

Four projects, four different shapes.

Every project on this page started as a scoping call and ended as a measurable outcome. Pick one that looks like your situation.

Hospitality · 2025
+47% Bookings (60d)
Next-gen media Custom booking API Multilingual

Boutique hotel group rebuilt around direct bookings.

Five-property group migrated off a tired theme. Direct bookings up 47% in 60 days post-launch; mobile bounce down from 68% to 34%.

Read the full case study
B2B SaaS · 2024
0.9s LCP, mobile
Headless WP Next.js front-end A/B testing

Headless rebuild for a series-A dev-tools company.

Marketing site moved off Webflow onto a headless WordPress + Next.js stack. LCP dropped from 4.2s to 0.9s; organic sign-ups up 31%.

Read the full case study
Membership · 2024
3wk Delivery
MemberPress Stripe Custom roles

Members-only content library for a writers’ collective.

Paid membership platform with 1,200 members and 300+ gated essays. Shipped in three weeks, then handed off with a 20-page playbook.

Read the full case study
Editorial · 2024
98 PageSpeed
Multi-author Newsletter integration SEO migration

Independent design publication — faster than a static site.

Long-form publication running 4× weekly. Core Web Vitals all green; editor team of seven ships without dev help.

Read the full case study
Process · Six milestones

A six-week rhythm, start to finish.

Every build follows the same sequence. You always know what week you’re in and what’s landing next. No mystery.

Milestone 00

Scoping

Week 0

Half-day discovery call. Audit of current site. Scope doc and fixed estimate delivered within 48 hours.

Milestone 01

Design

Week 1

Brand exploration, information architecture, and two high-fidelity directions. One hands-on review session.

Milestone 02

Build

Week 2–3

Theme scaffolded, blocks authored, content structured. Daily deploys to a staging URL you can watch take shape.

Milestone 03

Polish

Week 4

Performance tuning, accessibility pass, SEO hygiene. Full QA on real devices, not just your designer’s MacBook.

Milestone 04

Launch

Week 5

DNS cutover, 301 redirects, analytics verified. A written launch-day runbook covers every step.

Milestone 05

Handover

Week 6+

Documentation walkthrough, editor training, monitoring setup. Two weeks of included support for anything small.

What clients say

Measurable outcomes, quiet pride.

Boutique hotel
“The new site is the first time in five years I haven’t winced when someone asks for the URL. Bookings are up — but honestly, that’s secondary.”
PM
Priya M.
Founder · Five-property hotel group
Dev-tools SaaS
“They pushed back on half our brief. I was annoyed for a day, then grateful. Everything they cut was the thing that would have slowed us down.”
DO
Daniel O.
VP Marketing · Dev-tools SaaS
Writers’ collective
“Three weeks from kickoff to 1,200 members paying. The admin is so clean our least-technical contributor is the one posting most.”
LR
Lena R.
Editor · Writers’ collective
Questions people ask

Answered before you ask.

It’s the opposite of dated — it’s the most mature content platform available and powers roughly 40% of the web. What’s dated is the way most agencies build on it: marketplace themes, page builders, and plugin soup. Built properly, a modern WordPress site is as fast and maintainable as any headless stack — and your editors will actually use it.
Builds start at $3,000 and average $7,500. Complex projects — membership systems, multilingual, custom booking flows — can reach $20,000. We give a fixed quote after a 30-minute scoping call; no hourly surprise billing.
Absolutely. If you have a brand system we’ll design inside it. If you don’t, we’ll build a lightweight one as part of the project — enough to ship the site, not a 90-page brand bible you’ll never open.
We’ll structure and edit your copy, but we don’t write it from scratch. Good copy comes from knowing your business — something you do better than any agency. For longer projects we introduce you to two copywriters we trust.
Two weeks of free post-launch support for anything small. After that, most clients move onto a Maintenance plan ($99–$499/month) to keep the site secure, backed up, and updated. No obligation — if you’ve got an internal team, you’re in great hands with our documentation.
Yes, for the right reasons. Most sites don’t need headless — the complexity tax outweighs the benefit. When your team has the engineering capacity and the product genuinely needs it (a large marketing site, a fast-moving front-end team, component reuse across apps), we build headless cleanly.
Next step · Development intake

A custom WordPress site, properly built,
in four to six weeks.

Every Development project starts with a 30-minute scoping call. You leave with a fixed quote, a timeline, and an honest answer about whether we’re the right studio for the work.

  • Fixed-fee quote within 48 hours
  • No 12-month retainer lock-in
  • Documented handover · you own everything