The developer who vanished
Your site works, but nobody knows how. The person who built it stopped replying two years ago and left no documentation.
Sites that still work three years after we hand them over.
Next.js and headless WordPress builds — designed, engineered and launched by the same person. No handoff, no agency telephone game, and no proprietary CMS you have to keep paying for.
From $3,500
2–12 weeks
Fixed scope
Most sites don't fail at launch. They fail at month eighteen.
A site is only as good as your ability to change it. The ones that rot are the ones nobody but the original builder could touch — and the original builder has moved on.
The builder you outgrew
A drag-and-drop site got you started and now fights you on every change. Page speed is poor and you can't fix it from inside the tool.
The site nobody uses
It looks acceptable. It also loads in six seconds on a phone, buries the phone number, and hasn't produced an enquiry in months.
What every build includes.
Discovery
Scope in writing, first
What the site must do, who it's for, what it replaces. You approve a fixed number before any work starts.
Design
Designed for your business
Not a template with your logo dropped in. Type, colour and layout derived from what you actually sell.
Build
Next.js or headless WordPress
Chosen for your team, not our convenience. If your staff will edit weekly, that decision changes.
Content
A CMS your team can drive
Editable regions with guardrails, so a content change can't break the layout.
Quality
Accessibility, speed and SEO before launch
WCAG 2.2 AA audited, Core Web Vitals green, metadata and schema in place — not bolted on afterwards.
Handover
Everything in your name
Repo, hosting, DNS, analytics. Documentation and a walkthrough with whoever runs it next.
Five steps, and you can watch every one.
Scope and quote
Week 0A call, then a written scope with a fixed number. You approve it before dates are booked.
Design direction
Week 1Type, colour, and the key page compositions. One round of changes before anything is built.
Build
Weeks 2–4Front-end, CMS, integrations. You get a staging link from day one and can watch it happen.
Quality pass
Week 5Accessibility audit, performance, cross-device, SEO. Findings fixed before you see the launch button.
Handover
LaunchDNS cutover, documentation, walkthrough. Thirty days of fixes for anything we got wrong.
Those weeks describe a Signature build. Launch compresses to roughly two; Platform runs longer and is scoped by phase. Page count moves the date, and so does anything we end up waiting on — content that isn't written yet, logins nobody can find, a decision that needs someone else in the room. None of that is unusual and we plan for it. If a date is going to move, you hear it the day we know rather than at handover.
Hundreds of builds, under rules that don't bend.
Six years building custom WordPress dealership sites meant every one shipped under manufacturer brand compliance — design and content standards with no room for interpretation. That's the same discipline a WCAG audit needs, and the same discipline a brand guideline needs. It's why “it looked fine to me” has never been the standard here.
See the work- Hundreds
- sites built under brand compliance
- 100
- Lighthouse at handover
- AA
- WCAG 2.2 on every build
- 30 days
- post-launch fixes
Three tiers, all published.
Launch
3–5 pages, LaunchKit base, CMS, one revision round
$3,500
Signature
6–10 pages, custom design, CMS, two revision rounds
$11,000
Platform
Auth, dashboards, integrations, payments
From $24,000
What moves it: page count, e-commerce, custom integrations, content migration from an existing site, or multi-language. Scope is confirmed in writing before work starts.
Questions worth asking
- How long does a site take?
- Launch is about two weeks from approved scope; Signature about five. Platform work is scoped by phase. The long pole is almost always content — if yours is ready, we're faster.
- Why does a site fail at month eighteen rather than at launch?
- Because a site is only as good as your ability to change it. The ones that rot are the ones nobody but the original builder could touch — and the original builder has moved on. Every build here ships with documentation, a CMS your own team can operate, and code in your repository, specifically so that month eighteen is uneventful.
- WordPress or Next.js — which do we need?
- It depends on who edits the site and how often. If your team publishes weekly, a CMS-led build wins. If the site is mostly stable and performance is the priority, a Next.js build wins. Headless WordPress gives you both at more cost and more moving parts, so it has to be earned rather than assumed.
- Can you work with the site we already have?
- Often, yes — and sometimes that is the honest recommendation over a rebuild. If the foundation is sound and the problem is speed, structure or conversion, fixing those costs far less than starting again. We'll say which after looking.
- What if we outgrow the scope mid-project?
- New scope gets its own number before the work starts. On fixed-scope work you never receive a bill you did not approve in writing, and "that was always included" is not a conversation we have.
- What happens if we want to leave?
- You take everything — source code, hosting, domain, analytics and documentation — because they were in your accounts from day one. There is no proprietary CMS and no licence to keep paying. Leaving costs you nothing but the notice period.
Tell us what's actually broken.
A sentence or two is enough to start. You'll get a straight answer about whether this is the right engagement — including when it isn't.
Start a projectReplies inside one work day