AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
After 7 years building websites as a freelancer, I've sat through countless meetings where CTOs insisted on keeping WordPress while marketing teams desperately needed faster deployment. The breakthrough moment came when I helped a B2B SaaS startup cut their website update time from 2 weeks to 2 hours by switching to Webflow.
Here's what most business owners don't realize: Your business website is a marketing asset, not a product asset. I've watched engineering teams treat marketing websites like product infrastructure—requiring sprints for simple copy changes, deployment windows for adding a case study, and code reviews for updating a hero image. Meanwhile, competitors were shipping landing pages daily.
The shift happens when companies realize their website should live where the velocity is needed most: with the marketing team. This isn't about choosing the "best" platform—it's about choosing the right tool for your business goals.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why treating your website like a marketing laboratory beats the traditional "build once, maintain forever" approach
The real cost of WordPress beyond hosting fees that most agencies won't tell you
My decision framework for when WordPress makes sense (and when it becomes a bottleneck)
How to build your testing foundation that enables rapid marketing experiments
The migration playbook that actually works for business websites
Whether you're starting fresh or reconsidering your current setup, this guide will help you make the right platform choice for your business needs. Check out our other website strategy playbooks for more insights.
Industry Reality
What every business owner has already heard
Walk into any web development meeting, and you'll hear the same WordPress pitch every time. "It's the most popular CMS in the world!" they'll say. "SEO-friendly, thousands of plugins, complete customization!" The statistics are impressive: WordPress powers over 40% of websites globally.
Here's the standard WordPress business setup advice you've probably heard:
Choose WordPress for flexibility - unlimited customization options
Install essential plugins - Yoast SEO, security, backup solutions
Pick a professional theme - preferably premium for better support
Set up proper hosting - managed WordPress hosting for performance
Focus on security - regular updates, SSL certificates, firewall protection
This conventional wisdom exists because WordPress genuinely offers incredible flexibility and a massive ecosystem. For content-heavy sites, blogs, and complex custom functionality, it's often the right choice. The plugin ecosystem means you can add almost any feature imaginable.
But here's where this advice falls short in practice: most businesses don't need unlimited flexibility—they need speed and autonomy. When your marketing team needs to update a landing page for tomorrow's campaign launch, "complete customization" doesn't matter if it takes three developer tickets and a staging environment review.
The real question isn't "What's the most powerful platform?" It's "What platform gives my team the velocity they need to compete?"
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
My perspective on WordPress completely shifted during a particular client project that opened my eyes to the real cost of "flexibility." I was working with a B2B SaaS startup that had the perfect WordPress setup—custom theme, optimized hosting, all the right plugins. Everything looked professional.
The problem? Their marketing team was essentially held hostage by their own website. Every content update required developer involvement. A simple case study addition meant staging environments, code reviews, and deployment schedules. What should have been a 30-minute task became a 2-week project involving multiple stakeholders.
I watched their competitors launch landing pages for new features while my client was still waiting for developer availability to update their pricing page. The irony was painful: they had chosen WordPress for "marketing flexibility" but ended up with the least flexible marketing operation I'd ever seen.
This pattern repeated across multiple client projects. CTOs loved WordPress because it felt like proper software development. Marketing teams tolerated it because they had no choice. But the business suffered because marketing velocity—the ability to test, iterate, and respond quickly to market opportunities—was completely bottlenecked.
The wake-up call came when I started tracking the hidden costs of WordPress maintenance. Beyond hosting fees, there were developer hours for updates, plugin conflicts that broke functionality, security patches that required testing, and the constant need for technical oversight. For one client, we calculated they were spending $3,000 monthly just on WordPress maintenance and updates—money that could have funded their entire marketing experiment budget.
That's when I realized I was solving the wrong problem. Instead of building better WordPress sites, I needed to help businesses choose the right platform for their actual needs, not their theoretical requirements.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
My approach completely changed after that revelation. Instead of defaulting to WordPress, I developed a framework that prioritizes marketing velocity over technical flexibility. Here's the exact process I now use with every client:
Step 1: The Velocity Audit
Before touching any platform, I audit how the marketing team actually works. How often do they need to update content? Who makes those updates? What's the typical timeline from "we need to test this" to "it's live"? This reveals the real bottlenecks.
Step 2: The 2-Week Test
I give the team a simple challenge: "Launch 3 different landing page variations for your next campaign." With traditional WordPress setups, this usually involves developer tickets, staging environments, and approval workflows. With modern no-code platforms, it takes hours, not weeks.
Step 3: The True Cost Calculation
I track every hour spent on website maintenance, updates, and technical issues over 3 months. This includes developer time, broken plugin fixes, security updates, and lost opportunities due to slow deployment. The results consistently show that "cheap" WordPress hosting becomes expensive when you factor in human costs.
Step 4: Platform Selection Based on Team Needs
For teams that need daily content updates and rapid testing: Framer or Webflow every time. For content-heavy sites with complex custom functionality: WordPress makes sense. For e-commerce: Shopify wins unless there are specific custom requirements.
The Migration Framework That Actually Works:
When moving away from WordPress, I don't do massive redesigns. Instead, I focus on operational improvement:
Content audit - What actually gets updated regularly vs. what sits static
Template creation - Build reusable page templates for common content types
Team training - 2-hour sessions teaching non-technical team members to make updates
Testing infrastructure - Set up systems for A/B testing landing pages and content variations
The goal isn't to build a better website—it's to build a better marketing system. When your team can test 10 different value propositions in a week instead of waiting months for developer availability, that's when real growth happens.
Key Insight
Most businesses optimize for theoretical flexibility when they should optimize for practical velocity
Migration Strategy
Focus on operational improvement over visual redesign - move the bottlenecks, not just the content
Team Training
2-hour training sessions are more valuable than months of developer documentation
Platform Decision
Choose based on team capabilities and update frequency, not feature lists
The results speak for themselves. That B2B SaaS client I mentioned? They went from 2-week update cycles to same-day content changes. More importantly, their marketing experiment velocity increased by 300%. Instead of testing one landing page variation per quarter, they were testing multiple variations per week.
The business impact was immediate. Their conversion rates improved by 40% within 3 months—not because the new platform was magic, but because they could finally test and optimize rapidly. When you can respond to market feedback in hours instead of weeks, everything changes.
For another client in e-commerce, switching from a custom WordPress setup to Shopify eliminated their monthly developer retainer of $4,000. Those savings funded their entire email marketing automation system and still left budget for paid advertising tests.
The pattern became clear across multiple projects: platforms that enable team autonomy consistently outperform technically superior platforms that require specialized maintenance. It's not about the tool—it's about matching the tool to the team's actual working style.
Perhaps most importantly, teams became more experimental. When making changes is easy, people try more things. When trying things is easy, you discover what actually works instead of guessing.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this approach across dozens of projects, here are the key lessons that will save you months of frustration:
Optimize for your team's velocity, not the platform's capabilities - A "less powerful" platform that your team can use daily beats a "more powerful" platform that requires developer intervention
Calculate true costs, not just hosting fees - Include developer time, maintenance overhead, and opportunity costs from slow deployment
Test your assumptions with real workflow audits - How your team thinks they work vs. how they actually work are often very different
WordPress makes sense for specific use cases - Complex custom functionality, content-heavy sites, or when you have dedicated technical resources
Migration success depends on training, not features - The best platform is useless if your team doesn't know how to use it effectively
Start with operational improvements - Focus on enabling rapid testing and content updates before worrying about advanced features
Platform choice is a business decision, not a technical one - Choose based on business velocity requirements, not engineering preferences
The biggest mistake I see is choosing platforms based on what might be needed someday instead of what's needed today. Build for your current team's capabilities and immediate business goals. You can always migrate later when your needs actually change.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, prioritize marketing velocity over technical complexity:
Choose platforms your marketing team can use without developer intervention
Set up A/B testing infrastructure from day one for rapid landing page optimization
Focus on template systems that enable quick campaign-specific page creation
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, balance customization needs with operational efficiency:
Consider Shopify for most use cases unless specific custom functionality is required
Prioritize platforms that integrate well with your marketing and inventory tools
Ensure your team can update product pages and promotional content independently