WordPress Development
WordPress Development, Headless WordPress and Migration
WordPress development is building and maintaining sites on WordPress beyond what stock themes and plugins provide: custom themes, custom plugins, integrations, and using WordPress as the content system behind a separate frontend.
It is for organizations whose site has outgrown its theme and plugin stack, who need WordPress to feed a faster custom frontend, or whose product has outgrown WordPress and needs to move to a purpose-built platform.
Peregrine offers WordPress development and migration. We have not published a WordPress build as a case study; one published case study covers a custom platform built for a client whose content had lived partly in WordPress.
At a glance
WordPress Development at a Glance
| What's delivered | Custom WordPress themes and plugins, headless WordPress with Next.js, performance and security work, and migration to a custom platform |
|---|---|
| Engagement model | Fixed-scope projects, monthly retainers, or a combination, agreed after the discovery call |
| How it starts | A 30-minute technical discovery call with an engineer |
| Pricing | Pricing is scoped per project after the discovery call. |
| Related case studies | EdTech Learning Platform with LMS & Video Streaming |
Fit
Is WordPress Development the Right Fit?
A good fit when
- The site needs a theme, blocks or a plugin built for your content and processes instead of adapted from general-purpose ones.
- WordPress has to exchange data with a CRM, payment provider or internal system.
- Editors want to keep WordPress while the public site needs faster pages or a design the theme cannot deliver.
- The site has become an application, with logins, custom data and plugins acting as business logic, and you are weighing a move to a purpose-built platform.
Probably not the right fit when
- You need a brochure site on a stock theme. A WordPress freelancer or a site builder will cost less.
- The need is ongoing content, SEO or design work, not engineering.
- You need a firm with published WordPress builds before shortlisting. Peregrine has none published.
What we build
What Does Peregrine's WordPress Development Service Include?
Peregrine's WordPress development covers custom themes and editor blocks, custom plugins, integrations through the WordPress REST API, headless WordPress with a Next.js frontend, performance and security work on existing sites, and migration from WordPress to a purpose-built platform when a product has outgrown it.
Custom themes and blocks
Themes and editor blocks built for your content, so editors assemble pages from components designed for the site instead of working around a general-purpose theme.
Custom plugins and integrations
Plugins for logic specific to your organization, and integrations between WordPress and a CRM, payment provider or internal system through its REST API and webhooks.
Headless WordPress with Next.js
WordPress kept as the editing tool while a Next.js frontend renders the site, for teams that want faster pages and full design control without retraining editors.
Performance and security work
Auditing plugins, caching, images and database queries on a slow site, and reducing the attack surface: fewer plugins, current versions, restricted admin access.
Migration from WordPress to a custom platform
When a product has outgrown WordPress, building the purpose-built application that replaces it. In our EdTech case study the client's content lived in separate systems, some in WordPress and some in Google Drive, with progress tracked in spreadsheets, before we built a custom learning platform.
Shown in: EdTech Learning Platform with LMS & Video Streaming
Industries: All industries
Timeline
How Long Does a WordPress Development Project Take?
Peregrine sets the timeline for WordPress work after auditing the site: its theme, plugins, hosting, content and traffic. A performance fix, a custom theme and a migration to a custom platform are very different sizes, so each is scoped on its own and built on a staging copy before launch.
Site audit
We review the theme, plugins, hosting, content model and traffic, and separate what should be fixed from what should be replaced.
Staging build
Work is done on a staging copy of the site, with content kept in sync until launch.
Content and redirects
Content is migrated or restructured, and every changed URL gets a redirect so links and search rankings carry over.
Launch and handover
A scheduled launch, checks on forms, search and redirects, and training for the people who edit the site.
Scope
What Determines the Scope of a WordPress Development Project?
These are the inputs that change the effort. None needs a final answer before the first call, but each one you can answer makes the estimate tighter.
- Type of work
- A theme or blocks, a plugin, an integration, a headless frontend, performance work and a migration are different sizes.
- Content model
- The number of content types, templates and languages, and how much existing content has to be restructured.
- Plugins
- How many are active, which of them hold business logic, and which can be removed.
- Integrations
- The systems involved, whether each has an API, and the direction data moves.
- URLs and search traffic
- The number of URLs that change, each of which needs a redirect so links and rankings carry over.
- Hosting
- Host limits, whether a staging environment exists, and how changes reach the live site.
A sensible first phase
A sensible first phase is an audit of the theme, plugins, hosting and content model that separates what to fix from what to replace, followed by one contained change on a staging copy. For a slow site, measure before changing anything.
Cost
What Does WordPress Development Cost?
Peregrine works on WordPress development as fixed-scope projects, monthly retainers, or a combination, agreed after the discovery call. Cost depends on whether the work is a fix, a custom theme or plugin, a headless frontend or a full migration, and on how much content is involved. We do not publish a price list.
Getting started
How Does a WordPress Development Project Start?
A Peregrine WordPress Development project starts with a 30-minute technical discovery call with an engineer, not a salesperson. Larger builds then begin with a discovery sprint that maps requirements, designs the architecture and produces a written technical plan. Smaller, well-defined tasks can use the quick project form for a scoped estimate.
What to bring to the scoping call
- The site URL, the hosting provider and whether a staging environment exists.
- The active theme (and whether it is custom) and the list of active plugins.
- Who edits the site and what they find hard today.
- The systems WordPress has to connect to.
- For a redesign or migration: a URL export and the pages that bring the most search traffic.
- For performance work: the pages that are slow and any measurements you already have.
Partial answers are fine. Whatever is missing becomes the first item on the call.
Case studies
Which Case Studies Show Peregrine's WordPress Development Work?
Peregrine has not published a WordPress build as a case study. One published case study is related: an EdTech company whose content lived partly in WordPress and partly in Google Drive, with progress tracked in spreadsheets, for whom we built a custom learning platform. It is not a WordPress project.
Stack
Technology We Use
Other technologies: Next.js Development · React & React Native Development · Shopify Development · Laravel Development
Related services
Services Often Scoped With WordPress Development
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
When should a site move off WordPress?
When it has become an application rather than a website: users log in to do work, data lives in custom tables or spreadsheets around it, and plugins are being bent to act as business logic. A content site that mostly publishes pages and posts is usually better served by staying on WordPress.
What is headless WordPress?
Editors keep using WordPress to write and manage content, but the public site is a separate frontend, often Next.js, that reads the content through the WordPress API. Pages can be faster and the design is unconstrained, at the cost of a second application to maintain.
Can you speed up a slow WordPress site?
Usually. The common causes are too many plugins, unoptimized images, no page caching and slow database queries. We measure first, then fix what the measurements point to rather than adding another optimization plugin.
Will a redesign or migration hurt our search rankings?
It does not have to. The main risks are changed URLs without redirects and content that disappears. We map every existing URL to its new location and check redirects, titles and structured data before and after launch.
Have you published WordPress case studies?
Not a WordPress build. Our EdTech case study describes a custom platform built for a client whose content had lived partly in WordPress. We will add WordPress projects here when one can be published.
Who owns the IP rights to what Peregrine builds?
You do. Once the work is paid for, the client owns the intellectual property (IP) rights to what Peregrine builds for the project, whether it is delivered as a fixed-scope project, a monthly retainer or a combination of the two.
Questions about the team, contract models and how progress is shown are answered on the services page.
Technical consultation
Talk to an Engineer About WordPress Development
Tell us what you are building or fixing. Your first conversation is with an engineer, not a salesperson.
- A 30-minute technical discovery call with an engineer, not a salesperson.
- Fixed-scope projects, monthly retainers, or a combination, agreed after the call.
- Small, well-defined tasks get a scoped estimate. We reply within 1 business day.
Prefer to pick a time? Book a call on Calendly
