WordPress and an agency, or a coded site run by Claude?
Most WordPress sites for a business come with an agency or a freelancer, a maintenance plan and a stack of premium plugins. Here is how that compares with a site in code that Claude runs, line by line, and when staying put is the better call.
Side by side
How do the two compare, line by line?
| WordPress and an agency | Coded site run by Claude | |
|---|---|---|
| Who edits | Your team edits in wp-admin or the page builder. Anything the builder can’t do goes to the agency’s queue. | You ask for the change in plain English. Claude writes it, and a person on your team approves the preview before it goes live. |
| What you pay for | Hosting, premium plugin licences, a maintenance plan, developer hours and an agency or SEO retainer. | Hosting in your own Cloudflare account and our monthly Run fee. The jobs plugins did are part of the site, so there are no licences. |
| Speed | Depends on the theme, the plugins and the caching set-up. Pages are built from the database when they are asked for, unless a cache has them. | Pages are built ahead of time and served from Cloudflare close to each visitor. We check the Lighthouse mobile score before every launch. |
| Security | Core, the theme and every plugin need updates, and wp-admin is open to the internet. | The live site has no wp-admin, no PHP and no plugins. Forms and any APIs are what is left to protect, and we keep their packages up to date. |
| Lock-in | WordPress is open source. The lock-in sits in page-builder layouts and premium plugins, whose content breaks when they are switched off. | Standard code in your GitHub and hosting in your Cloudflare account. Any developer who knows the framework can take it over. |
| If you leave | The agency hands over the logins. The site keeps running while the hosting and the licences are paid. | You keep the repository and the accounts, and the site keeps running. Changes then need a developer, or Claude on your own subscription. |
| Editing it yourself | Anyone with a login can change a page in the visual editor. | There is no visual builder. You ask Claude, or edit the text files directly if you prefer. |
- 48.3% of WordPress origins passed all three Core Web Vitals on mobile in September 2026: 1,284,360 of 2,658,175. Source: HTTP Archive, Core Web Vitals Technology Report.
- 11,334 new WordPress vulnerabilities were found in 2025. 91% were in plugins, and 46% had no fix by the time they were disclosed. Source: Patchstack, State of WordPress Security in 2026.
Be fair
When is staying on WordPress the better choice?
We tell people to stay when the numbers say so. These are the cases we see most.
Your site has few plugins and an in-house WordPress team
If the people who run the site already work for you and the plugin list is short, most of what a move saves is not on your bill.
Many people publish every day in wp-admin
A newsroom with editors, roles, scheduling and review steps in WordPress may lose more in retraining than it saves. We would test the workflow with your editors before suggesting a move.
The business runs on one complex plugin
A course, membership or booking plugin with years of custom rules can cost more to rebuild than its licence costs to keep.
The site costs little and rarely changes
If nobody pays a retainer and the site changes twice a year, the saving is small. Add it up in the calculator first.
Before you decide
Add up the costs, then read how a move works.
WordPress Cost Calculator
Add up what your site costs a year in hosting, plugins and people.
What it costs to run a WordPress site in 2026
Every line of the bill, with each price and where it came from.
WordPress to Claude
How we move a site off WordPress, and what changes after.
Find out what your site would cost to run in code.
Thirty minutes with both founders. Pick a time below. If there is a fit, a one-page agreement follows within 24 hours.
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