WordPress Development
WordPress, built to be maintained
Anyone can stand a WordPress site up. The difference shows two years later, when it needs updating, when a plugin conflicts, or when it slows down and nobody can say why. We build sites we would be willing to inherit.
The problem, as we usually find it
What is actually going wrong on most of the sites we are called into — before anything about what we would charge.
There is no shortage of people in Mumbai who will build you a WordPress site cheaply. The build is genuinely not the hard part — a competent developer can stand one up in a week.
The difference shows in year two. When a plugin update breaks the layout. When it slows down and nobody can say why. When the person who built it has moved on and left no note about the custom function that runs the entire homepage.
We build sites we would be willing to inherit ourselves, because we inherit other people's constantly and we know exactly what that costs.
What the work covers
Everything below is included. If something is not on this list, we quote it separately rather than leaving you to find out later.
Custom theme work
Built on a licensed, maintained theme or coded from scratch, chosen against what you actually need rather than what looks impressive in a demo.
Speed from the start
Caching, image handling, a CDN and a server configuration that suits the site, set up at build rather than bolted on after the complaints.
Security that holds
Web firewall, bad bot blocking, spam control and hardened logins. Most hacked WordPress sites we inherit were running fine until an unpatched plugin was not.
SEO groundwork
Titles, schema, sitemaps, Search Console and clean URLs, done at the template level so every new page inherits it.
Handover you can use
Accounts in your name, a short walkthrough of the parts you will actually touch, and documentation of anything unusual.
Mobile-first build
Designed and tested at phone width first, because that is where most Indian traffic actually arrives.
Contact forms that reach you
Transactional email configured and tested, with spam protection that does not block real enquiries.
Accessibility basics
Real heading structure, alt text, keyboard navigation and contrast that passes.
Analytics and Search Console
Connected at launch, so you have data from week one rather than from whenever someone remembers.
What we have actually found
Real numbers from real accounts. We never publish client names, so the businesses are described rather than identified — the figures are exactly as we found them.
240+
projects delivered on WordPress and WooCommerce since 2012
75+
sites currently on active care plans with us
10 weeks
of orders that would have disappeared from one admin, because an order table looked populated and had stopped updating
7
live products left with no usable image by a snippet that force-deleted photos other products were still using
23 days
one inherited site had gone with its scheduled tasks silently dead. The tell was a 492 MB sessions table.
The detail that decides it
The part most quotes leave out, because it takes experience rather than a price list.
Plugin discipline is the whole game
Every plugin is code from a stranger running with full access to your database, updating on their schedule rather than yours. Most WordPress sites we take over are running thirty or more, several doing the same job, at least one abandoned by its author years ago.
We keep the count deliberately low and we can tell you why each one is there. Where a plugin would add twelve features to get one, we usually write the one.
This is also the security answer. Almost every hacked WordPress site we have recovered was compromised through an outdated plugin, not through a password.
Built for whoever edits it, not for the demo
A beautifully coded site your team cannot update is a site that stops being accurate within three months. A page builder your team can actually use is often the more professional choice, even when it is not the one a developer would pick for themselves.
So we ask who will be editing it before choosing how to build it, and we tell you what we would use and why before starting.
Handover includes a short walkthrough of the parts you will genuinely touch — not a fifty-page manual nobody opens.
Speed and SEO at build, not bolted on later
Caching, image handling, a CDN and sensible server configuration are decisions, and they are cheapest at build time. Retrofitting them onto a live site with traffic is a different and more expensive job.
The same is true of SEO groundwork. Titles, schema, clean URLs, sitemaps and Search Console cost almost nothing to set up correctly at the start and are tedious to fix across hundreds of pages afterwards.
We have been called in to fix a migration that left 675 dead product URLs still earning 67% of a site's clicks. All of it was avoidable at build.
What we find when we take over somebody else's build
A client came to us worried about a 15 GB website and ready to start deleting product photography, which is the one move on that list you cannot undo.
Measured, the site was 6.7 GB. The other 22.9 GB was backups — orphaned folders left behind by three different backup plugins, two of which had been uninstalled years earlier. One archive had swallowed the others whole, because that plugin excludes only its own directory and happily backs up everyone else's.
The reclaim split 7.3 GB at no risk against 2.2 GB at real risk of silent breakage — better than three to one in favour of the safe work. We do the safe part, measure it, and quote the risky part separately for the client to decide on. Nobody's product photos get deleted to save a fifth of the space.
And "unused" media is rarely unused. Counting images by their parent record on one site reported 2,969 orphans when the honest answer was 2,813, arrived at completely differently — page builders, sliders and custom fields all store image references where a naive scan never looks. We resolve every gallery and thumbnail by id before deleting anything, and keep a filename guard behind it.
Everything in your name, from day one
Hosting, domain, and every account set up in your name rather than ours. We have taken over sites where the previous agency owned the domain and used it as leverage. It is a miserable position to be in and it is entirely preventable.
You get full admin access throughout the build, not on completion.
If you leave, you leave with everything and nothing needs migrating. That is deliberate — it means we have to keep earning the relationship rather than relying on it being hard to exit.
What we need from you
Short, and worth reading before you start. What delays this work is almost never the work — it is waiting on access or a decision.
Content, or a decision to have us write it
The most common cause of a stalled build. If copy is not ready, say so at quote stage and we price writing it.
Logo and brand assets
Vector logo, fonts and colours if they exist. If they do not, we will tell you what is worth creating first.
Domain and hosting access
Or permission to set them up in your name. We never hold either one.
One person who can approve
Design rounds go quickly with one decision-maker and slowly with four.
Your existing site, if there is one
Access to it, so URLs can be mapped and rankings preserved rather than discovered missing after launch.
Whether this is right for you
We would rather lose the enquiry than take work we would do badly, so the right-hand column is as honest as the left.
This is for you if
- You want a WordPress site built to be maintained, not just launched
- You have been burned by a site that broke six months after handover
- You want your team able to edit content without calling a developer
- You want hosting, domain and accounts in your own name
This is not for you if
- You want the cheapest possible build and will maintain it yourself
- You need a large custom application; WordPress is the wrong tool for that
- You want thirty plugins installed because a competitor has them
- You need it live this week with content you have not written yet
How it runs
Four steps, in this order, every time.
- We scope against what the site has to do, not a package tier, and quote a fixed figure.
- Build on staging, with you reviewing real pages rather than flat mockups.
- Speed, security and SEO configured before launch, not after.
- Launch, then a support window, then a care plan if you want one. No obligation either way.
Looking for hosting? This is what we would put you on
We do not sell hosting and we do not resell it, so there is no plan of ours to push you onto. When a client asks where to host, this is the honest answer for most small Indian sites.
Indian data centre
Mumbai is on the list. A site served from India to Indian visitors starts a long way ahead of one served from Singapore.
LiteSpeed, not plain Apache
It ships with LiteSpeed and LSCache, which is most of the WordPress speed problem solved before anyone installs a plugin.
Free SSL and daily backups
Included on the plans we would actually put a client on, rather than sold back to you at renewal.
Priced for a small business
The long term is where it is cheap. Renewal rates are higher than the first-term price, so buy the longest term you are comfortable with.
That is a referral link. Hostinger pays us a small commission if you sign up through it, at no extra cost to you. We recommend it because we run client sites on it, not because of the commission.
The Stack We
Work In Every Day
Every platform below is one we build on, maintain, rank and report from — not a logo wall.
Questions
Where they earn their place. A builder your team can actually edit beats clean code nobody can touch. We will tell you what we would use and why before we start.
Yes, we do it regularly. We will say honestly if the build is in a state where fixing costs more than replacing, and show you the reasoning.
No, and we never mark it up. We set it up in your name and you pay the host directly, so you keep control of it.
Want free stats on your site first?
Send us the URL. We pull the numbers from your own accounts and tell you what is wrong before there is any quote, and before there is any contract.
No pitch deck, no obligation. Bring your URL and we will look at it together.