WordPress development company, hired on evidence

Agencies with a verified published price

How to brief and compare WordPress builds

1. Say whether you want custom or configured. A configured build uses a commercial theme and plugins and is cheaper and faster; a custom build gives you templates written for your content and fewer moving parts to update. Ask each bidder which they are proposing and to name the theme, page builder and plugins involved.
2. Count plugins and name their licences. Every commercial plugin is a recurring cost and a dependency that can break on update or be abandoned. Require a list with annual licence fees and who holds each licence, so renewals do not arrive as a surprise in the account of an agency you have since left.
3. Make crawlability and performance acceptance criteria. Google's starter guide says crawlers need access to the same resources users get, including CSS and JavaScript files, and points to the URL Inspection tool to confirm a page can be crawled. Put mobile performance and crawlability in the acceptance tests rather than raising them after launch.
4. Agree the maintenance and handover terms up front. Who applies core, theme and plugin updates, how often backups are taken and tested by restoring one, what the response time is for an outage, what change work costs by the hour after launch, and that admin accounts and hosting are in your name.

Where WordPress projects usually go wrong

The first failure is plugin sprawl. A build assembled from a dozen commercial plugins works on launch day and becomes fragile within a year as licences lapse, updates conflict and one abandoned plugin holds the whole stack at an old version. Ask what the agency does when a plugin it used is abandoned, and whether it has had to do it before.

The second is a build only its author can change. Page builders can leave content locked into proprietary markup that a later agency cannot edit without a rebuild. Ask what happens to your pages if the builder is removed, and require an editor guide plus a short handover session recorded and kept.

The third is performance. Heavy themes, unoptimised images and a stack of scripts produce a site that tests well on a developer's laptop and badly on a phone in a parking lot. Set the target on real devices and make it a condition of final payment.

Security and updates are the running cost

WordPress's flexibility comes from third-party code, and third-party code needs patching. A maintenance agreement should name the update cadence, say whether updates are tested on staging first, and define the rollback path. Backups only count if a restore has actually been performed; ask when the agency last restored one for a client and how long it took.

Decide too who holds the keys. Hosting, domain, registrar, DNS, plugin licences and the admin account should be in your organisation's name with the agency added as a user. This costs nothing to arrange at the start and is expensive to unpick later, particularly if a relationship ends badly.

Comparing quotes that look different on purpose

Bring every bid onto the same grid: number of unique templates, number of integrations, whether content is written or migrated, whether the theme is bespoke or commercial, what maintenance is included and for how long, and what an hour costs afterwards. Once quotes sit on that grid, the apparent price gap usually turns out to be a scope gap.

Agencies here are listed on what can be verified from their own published pages, including printed prices where they publish them and case detail that names the client. Nothing is pay-for-placement, and no listing is a warranty of any build's quality; use it to assemble a shortlist you then test yourself.

Questions people actually ask

Custom theme or a commercial one?

A commercial theme is cheaper and faster and brings dependencies you do not control. A custom theme costs more and gives you templates built for your content with fewer moving parts. Choose on how long the site must last and who will maintain it.

What should a WordPress maintenance plan include?

Core, theme and plugin updates on a named cadence, staging tests before production, off-site backups with a tested restore, uptime and security monitoring, a defined response time for outages, and an hourly rate for change work.

Will a WordPress rebuild affect our search visibility?

It can, mainly through URL changes and rendering. Plan redirects for every changed URL and confirm pages are crawlable after launch; Google's starter guide points to the URL Inspection tool for that check and warns that crawlers need the same CSS and JavaScript resources users get.

Who should own the hosting and licences?

You should. Domain, registrar, DNS, hosting and plugin licences belong in your organisation's name with the agency granted access as a user. Write it into the contract along with the handover deliverables.

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