Leading website development since 1995.
Questions and answers
Agentic AI is new to most people. Here are plain answers to the questions we hear most, with no technical background needed.
The basics
It's AI that carries out tasks on its own. You've probably used a chatbot that writes a paragraph when you ask. An AI agent goes further. Give it a task, like "build a page that lists our upcoming events," and it writes the code, checks its own work and fixes what doesn't run.
Websites are built from code, and writing code has always been the slowest and most expensive part of a website project. AI agents now write that code well and fast. That changes what a custom website costs and how quickly it can change.
For years, a fully custom website meant paying programmers by the hour for weeks or months. Most businesses couldn't justify that, so they settled for page builders and plugins: tools that let you assemble a site without code. Those tools made websites affordable, but they also made them slow, cluttered and harder to keep secure. Now the custom option costs a fraction of what it did, so you no longer have to make that trade.
Low code means building websites with drag-and-drop tools instead of writing code. We championed that approach for years, because it freed clients from expensive programmers. It came with costs, though: heavy pages, piles of plugins, monthly plugin fees and more ways for hackers to get in. AI agents remove the reason we accepted those costs. The custom-coded site is affordable again.
A page builder, such as Elementor, lets you design pages by dragging blocks around. To do that it loads a lot of extra code on every page, whether the page uses it or not. Most builder sites also need several add-on plugins to get the features they want. That extra weight makes pages slower and adds more software that has to be updated and kept secure.
No. We work with you on the parts that take judgment: what the site needs to do, how it's organized, how it looks and who it's for. Then our AI agents write the code, following our playbook and design standards. We review everything they produce, steer it and test the result before anything goes live.
Cost
Coding has always been the biggest cost in a custom website. AI agents have cut the cost of that coding by about a factor of ten. The rest of the project, like planning, design, review and testing, still takes experienced people. The largest line in the budget is now about a tenth of what it was.
Not the whole project. The coding portion is where costs dropped by a factor of ten. Planning, design decisions, testing and launch still take expert time. Even so, because coding used to be the largest share, the total usually comes out far lower than you'd expect.
Usually, yes. If you're happy with your content, structure and design, there's little planning to do and no redesign. The work is mostly rebuilding, testing and review, and rebuilding is the part that got ten times cheaper.
If all you need is a few basic pages, you may not. But a set of pages that any AI can produce is not the same as a working website with search, forms, analytics and the behind-the-scenes structure that helps search engines and AI tools understand it. Someone also has to decide what the site should do and check that what the AI produced is right. That's the part we bring, with thirty years of building websites behind it.
Quality and safety
On its own, AI output varies. That's why we don't use it on its own. Our agents work inside our playbook and design standards, and we review, test and correct their work before launch. You get the speed of AI with experienced people checking the result.
A simpler site has fewer weak points. Most WordPress security problems start in plugins, and a typical builder site runs many of them. Our sites replace most of those plugins with our own lean theme and code, so there is less software for attackers to target and less to keep patched.
Yes. Our sites load only the code each page uses, without a page builder and a stack of add-ons loading on every visit. Faster pages are better for visitors and for search rankings.
For even more speed, we offer static hosting as an optional add-on. Our own tool publishes your WordPress site as plain HTML pages served from Cloudflare's worldwide network, so visitors never wait on WordPress at all. It's faster still, and more secure, because visitors' requests never reach WordPress, which leaves attackers far less to target. You keep editing in WordPress exactly as before, and your changes appear on the live site within a minute or two.
We plan for that. Before rebuilding, we review your content and your existing page addresses. Where an address changes, we set up a redirect so visitors and search engines land in the right place, and we test those redirects before launch.
Accessibility is part of our testing. We check layouts, forms and functionality before launch.
Editing your site
Yes. Your site runs on WordPress, the most widely used website system in the world. We replace the bloated layers on top of it, not WordPress itself.
While you can certainly use WordPress as normal, we have also made basic content editing even easier through our Simply Edit tools.
Simply Edit is our own editing tool, included with our sites. You open the page you want to change, click the text or image, make your edit, then save a draft or publish. You never have to find your way around the WordPress dashboard or load a page builder.
Yes. Simply Edit is an option, not a requirement. You or your team can work in the regular WordPress dashboard whenever you prefer.
Rebuilding your site
Yes. We review your content, forms, integrations and URLs, then rebuild and test on staging.
We review your current site, then rebuild it on our framework on a private staging copy where nothing affects your live site. We test layouts, accessibility, forms and redirects, review the site with you, work through your changes and set up your content editing. Then we launch.
We can do that too. A new site starts with planning and a grayscreen prototype, a simple layout of every page that lets us agree on structure before any visual design. Then we design, build and test. We can steer an AI design process for a lower cost, or work with our creative director when a project calls for full branding.
Yes. We can extend your custom code and connect other tools as your needs change.
No. Bring your website and tell us what needs to change. We'll help you make a plan and decide whether to convert the site you have or start a full redesign.
After launch
We do, if you'd like. Our base support retainer starts at $149 a month and covers hosting, hosting support, WordPress and plugin maintenance, and security checks. We back up your site before every update and review it afterward. Agreements are month to month.
Yes. You can keep your own content up to date with Simply Edit or WordPress, or add unlimited content updates to your retainer and let us handle them.
Support requests beyond your retainer are $160 an hour, and new features handled as mini projects are $180 an hour, both billed in 15-minute increments. Major projects are quoted at a fixed fee. If a request may take more than three hours, we'll tell you the estimate before starting.
Yes. We can help with the tools connected to your site, including email marketing, your CRM, forms, Google Analytics and Tag Manager, and your domain and DNS settings.
Yes. Agencies bring the client relationship and creative direction, and we help with scoping and development, including questions that come up before you win the project.
