Quick answer
WordPress development in Melbourne costs around $1,499 for an eight-to-ten page business site with us, and from $3,500 for custom theme development. For comparison, freelance WordPress developers in Melbourne charge $50–$150 per hour and specialist WordPress agencies charge $200–$300+ per hour. Most business sites take about three weeks.
WordPress still runs a large share of the web, and for good reason — it's flexible, well understood, and cheap to maintain once it's built properly. The problem is that "built properly" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Here's what we build, what we won't build, and what it costs.
WordPress is the right call for service businesses, content-heavy sites, blogs and most brochure-style websites. It's where it starts to strain that matters:
- Product-led ecommerce with real inventory and shipping complexity — we'd point you to Shopify instead, see our Shopify development page.
- Application-like tools — booking engines, client portals, dashboards — are better suited to a custom build than a WordPress plugin stack.
- Straightforward business sites, service pages and blogs are exactly what WordPress does well, and where we recommend it without hesitation.
- Custom themes, not heavy page builders — the difference between a site that loads instantly and one that doesn't
- A deliberate plugin budget, not a plugin collection. Every plugin is a maintenance liability and a potential entry point for attackers
- Core Web Vitals measured before launch, not assumed to be fine
- A staging environment so updates and changes are tested before they touch your live site
- Monthly updates handled for you under a care plan, with a tested rollback if something breaks
- Custom WordPress websites, built to your brand rather than a theme marketplace template
- Custom theme development for businesses that have outgrown an off-the-shelf theme
- Migrations from Wix, Squarespace, Joomla or static HTML, with a full URL map and 301 redirects
- Speed optimisation for existing WordPress sites that are slow on mobile
- Security hardening — firewall rules, login protection, malware scanning
- WooCommerce stores for businesses selling a manageable product range alongside services
- Headless WordPress for businesses that need WordPress content with a custom front end
- Ongoing maintenance and care plans covering hosting, backups and updates
Slow loading
Usually a combination of unoptimised images, a heavy page builder and a plugin stack that's grown over years. We rebuild the theme lean and compress everything that doesn't need to be full-size.
Plugin conflicts
Two plugins fighting over the same functionality is a common cause of a site breaking after an update. We audit what's actually needed and remove the rest.
Hacked sites
We remove malicious code, close the vulnerability, and move the site to hardened hosting so it doesn't happen a second time.
Unusable editors
If updating a page currently means calling a developer, that's a sign the build wasn't handed over properly. We rebuild it around the block editor and train you to use it.
Unmaintainable Divi or Elementor builds
Both are fine tools for a small site, but a large one built entirely in a page builder becomes near-impossible to maintain. We rebuild these as custom themes.
Rankings dropped after a rebuild
Almost always a missing redirect map. See our website redesign page for how we prevent this on every rebuild.
| Lite $49/mo | Standard $99/mo | Pro $199/mo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting & SSL | Included | Included | Included |
| Backups | Weekly | Daily | Daily |
| Core & plugin updates | Monthly | Monthly | Weekly |
| Uptime monitoring | — | Yes | Yes |
| Support time | Email only | 1 hour/month | 3 hours/month |
| Monthly report | — | — | Yes |
- A page builder so heavy the homepage takes six seconds to load on mobile
- Dozens of plugins installed "just in case", each one a maintenance and security liability
- No staging environment, so every change is tested live on your actual website
- Login credentials held by the developer instead of handed over to you
- No update schedule, so the site quietly falls a year behind on security patches
- A theme sold as "custom" that's actually a marketplace template with colours changed
- No plan for what happens if the site gets hacked
With us, around $1,499 for an eight-to-ten page business site, and from $3,500 for custom theme development. Freelance WordPress developers in Melbourne generally charge $50–$150 per hour, and specialist WordPress agencies charge $200–$300+ per hour. Most business sites take about three weeks from content being finalised.
Yes, when it's built properly. WordPress itself doesn't rank you — the site's structure, speed and content do. We build custom themes rather than relying on heavy page builders, which keeps the code lean enough for Core Web Vitals to actually pass.
WordPress for content-led sites, service businesses and blogs. Shopify for product-led ecommerce where checkout, inventory and shipping are the core of the business. If you're selling a handful of products alongside services, WordPress with WooCommerce can still be the right call — we'll tell you which fits after a quick look at what you're selling.
Usually, yes. Slow WordPress sites are almost always caused by bloated page builders, unoptimised images, too many plugins, or cheap shared hosting. We audit first and tell you honestly whether it needs a speed pass or a full rebuild — we don't default to the bigger invoice.
Yes. We remove the malicious code, patch the vulnerability that let it in, update everything, and move you to hardened hosting so it doesn't happen again. If Google has flagged the site, we also handle the removal request afterwards.
We can work within an existing Elementor or Divi site for updates and fixes, but we don't recommend either for a new build. Both add significant page weight and tend to become unmanageable once a site has grown past a dozen pages. We build custom themes instead.
Yes, from Wix, Squarespace, Joomla or static HTML. We map every existing URL, rebuild the content and design in WordPress, and put 301 redirects in place before launch so you don't lose the rankings the old site already has.
Under a care plan, we handle core, theme and plugin updates on a schedule, with a staging copy tested before anything goes live on your actual site. Left unmanaged, WordPress updates are one of the most common causes of a site breaking overnight.
Yes. Every WordPress build we hand over comes with a training session and written notes, and the block editor lets you add pages, change text and swap images without touching code.
It can be, but it needs looking after. Most hacked WordPress sites we see got in through an outdated plugin or weak hosting, not a flaw in WordPress itself. Hardened hosting, minimal plugins and regular updates cover almost every real-world risk.
Ready to start?
Book a free thirty-minute call. We'll look at your current site and top competitors, tell you which package actually fits, and send a fixed-price quote within two business days.
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