Service
WordPress, written by hand and kept light.
WordPress has a reputation, and in our opinion most of it was earned by what people installed on top. We write the theme and the plugins ourselves, so the site does your job and leaves the rest of the marketplace out of it.
The platform isn't the main suspect.
47% of the 487 businesses in our Phoenix-area sample ran on WordPress. On the homepage, they posted a median speed score of 62 out of 100, against 63 for the whole sample. Sites on other or custom platforms posted 63. That second group is a mixed bag of hand-built sites, industry platforms and anything we couldn't identify, and one lab run per site can swing. Smaller groups landed on both sides of WordPress, such as Squarespace at 52.5 and GoDaddy's builder at 77, so this is no trophy for the platform. Our read is only that nothing in those numbers convicts WordPress, by itself, of slowing anybody down.
Our read is that the trouble lies in the pile: a bought theme, a page builder, and a plugin for every request anybody ever made. Patchstack's report on 2022 found about 93% of the WordPress security bugs it tracked were in plugins. Any one of those plugins can also add to what loads on your page, whether or not that page needs it.
So the plan is short. Keep the platform and leave out the pile. If you'd like to see how your current site does first, run the free website health check, or read how we speed up a WordPress site that's already built.
What we write instead.
A theme made for your site, with fields for the things your staff actually changes: headline, text, photos, hours. Content management built that way lets the design apply itself. An editor can't accidentally turn the services page into a ransom note, because the fonts aren't on the menu.
No page builder on a new build. We think builders add code to every page and make updates riskier, and we see the wreckage: we repair Elementor and Divi sites too, so we aren't speaking from theory. If you already own one and it mostly works, we can stabilize it before anyone discusses replacing it.
Then the plumbing most people skip. Forms that get tested until they arrive, because a contact form that quietly stops working looks perfectly healthy from the outside. And tracking set up so you can tell which marketing dollar did what.
Custom plugins, for the parts a marketplace can only guess at.
A marketplace plugin gets written for everyone who might buy it. It has settings for a thousand businesses, and yours is one of them, sort of. Your quote logic, your lead routing and your link to the field software nobody else uses were written by no one. That's the job for a custom plugin: one job, your rules, and nothing else riding along.
Plugin and integration work on an existing site falls under our web app, portal and integration pricing, from $575, with the final number depending on complexity. API integration covers the connections, and if the site sells things, eCommerce development or WooCommerce repair is the better door.
The WordPress site we'd show you.
Mac & Bleu is a Phoenix business podcast with a new show every Monday. We built the WordPress site that carried the episode scheduling, the guest and listener reviews, and the subscribe paths to every platform. The publishing is weekly and routine, and it has to happen on time. Our opinion is that WordPress suits that kind of work well: regular posts, people who need to publish them, and no heavy application underneath.
When to stay, and when to go.
Stay if your team publishes often, knows the editor, or depends on a plugin with no good replacement. There's a practical argument too. W3Techs counts WordPress on about 39% of all websites, so we'd expect your next developer to be easy to find, which can't be said of every platform.
Go if the plugin pile can't be cleaned, or the site has started acting like an application. Moving to Next.js and full-stack development are both on our menu, so we get paid either way, which makes the advice cheap to trust. WordPress vs. a custom website walks through the choice.
How it works
How a WordPress job runs here.
List what the site must do
Every form, page type and integration. On an existing site, every plugin too, and what it's actually doing, which is often a surprise to everyone.
Decide what gets written and what goes
Some plugins become theme code. Some become one small custom plugin. Some get retired, and nobody notices but the page load.
Build and test on a copy
The theme and plugins get built away from the live site. Forms get sent and updates get run there first, so the surprises happen where no customer can see them.
Hand it to your editors
We walk your staff through the editing and leave written notes for the tasks they'll really do. A package build comes with 1 year of support.
What stood out was the balance of design and operations.
The site looked polished, but the real win was behind the scenes: better forms, cleaner handoffs, stronger tracking, fewer manual steps.
Casey, the owner and developer, took the project and ran with it 100%.
I gave him specific direction and he went well above the call of duty. Five star service all the way!
Other jobs off the same bench.
Website Redesign
Same business, better first impression. A redesign planned around what the old site already earned.
Real Estate & PropTech Software
Custom software for property professionals: agent workflows, listing engines, and client portals.
WordPress to Next.js Migration
Leave the plugin pile behind, with a redirect map for every old address.
Price it in a minute
A WordPress build, priced by the page.
A few answers and the number appears on screen. Mention WordPress in your note, and say what the site has to do that a plugin hasn't managed.
- Every price published on the pricing page
- 0% financing with 25% down. Financed projects are hosted on the DataCram platform for the length of the plan. Shopify stores can't be financed.
- One developer from first call to launch
How many pages should the site have?
We recommend 51 to 70 pages for the best initial organic SEO rankings: it gives the site proper page depth.
Also need? (pick any, quoted on top)
Rather talk? (480) 525-7582. 0% financing on any project, 25% down. See all pricing
Custom WordPress Development: questions we hear a lot.
Do you really build on WordPress?
Yes, when it suits how your team works. We also build on Next.js and hand-coded PHP, so we have no stake in talking you into anything. Our web design page covers the other side of that decision.
Will you use Elementor or Divi?
Not on a new build. We hand-write the theme and give your editors structured fields. If you already run a page builder and it's misbehaving, we repair those: see Elementor repair, Divi repair and WPBakery repair.
Could you just fix the WordPress site I have?
Often, and that's where we'd start if the site is basically sound. Repairs are flat-priced and bought online, with a full refund if we can't fix the problem: Error Fix $149, Theme, Builder or Plugin Conflict $199, Site Down or White Screen $249, Malware Cleanup $349, and Speed Fix $399. The repair menu has the details.
Will WordPress updates break a custom plugin?
No developer can swear an update will never break anything, and you should be wary of one who does. We'd expect a small plugin doing one job to give less trouble than a stack of marketplace plugins, because there's less of it to go wrong. On a package build, 1 year of support is included, and the person who wrote the code is who you call. If an update has already bitten you, see failed WordPress updates.
What does a custom WordPress job cost?
A full site is priced like any website package: $1,500 for up to 10 pages, $2,250 for 11 to 20, $3,750 for 21 to 50, and $5,750 for 51 to 70. Plugin or integration work on a site you already own runs from $575, and complexity sets the final number. Everything is on the pricing page.
Can you take over a theme or plugin another developer wrote?
Usually. We read the code first and tell you what we found. A broken one may only need a theme fix or a plugin fix. If the code is past saving, we'll tell you that first.
How fast will the site be?
We don't promise a score. We keep the theme light and the plugin list short, and you can check the result yourself on Google's PageSpeed Insights any time you like. In our Phoenix-area sample the median WordPress homepage scored 62 out of 100, so that's the field a light build is up against.
Keep WordPress. Lose the pile.
Tell us what the site has to do and what's been getting in the way. You'll get a straight answer on whether it needs new code, a repair, or a different platform.