WordPress and WooCommerce development: custom themes, no bloated builders, a site your team can edit.
- 14-day standard build
- Fixed price, in writing
- You own everything
( The short version )
WordPress development, defined in one paragraph.
WordPress development, done properly, is a custom theme written for your content — not a premium theme with a page builder layered on top. American Web Guild builds WordPress and WooCommerce sites for businesses across the United States from Sacramento: block-based themes your team edits in the native editor, a short list of plugins each chosen for a reason, and hosting you hold the account for. Website packages are $349, $689 and $1,299 for three, ten and fifteen pages; WooCommerce stores use the e-commerce tiers from $600. Standard builds launch in 14 days, the homepage concept is free within 72 hours with no call, and the theme, the content and the domain are yours.
Who it is for
- Businesses whose blog and content are the marketing engine.
- Companies with an existing WordPress site that has grown slow or hard to edit.
- Small retailers who want a store and a content site under one roof with WooCommerce.
- Agencies and in-house teams that want a clean theme they can maintain themselves.
- Organisations that need many editors with roles and permissions.
( What you get )
BUILT IN, NOT BOLTED ON
Every WordPress build includes the following. If something you need is missing, it goes in the quote before work starts — not in an invoice after.
A hand-coded block theme
Built on WordPress's block editor with theme.json, custom block patterns and locked templates. Your editors see your brand's components when they add a page — not a blank canvas and a thousand options.
No page builder, by design
Elementor, Divi and WPBakery each add their own CSS and JavaScript to every page and lock your content inside shortcodes. We write the layouts as native blocks, which is why the site stays fast and the content stays portable.
A plugin list you can read in one breath
Typically an SEO plugin, a forms plugin, caching, security and backups — each one maintained, widely used and replaceable. Everything else is built into the theme, so there is less to update and less to break.
WooCommerce built as a store, not an add-on
Product templates designed for your catalogue, cart and checkout styled to match the site, payment gateways configured, shipping classes and tax set up, order emails branded. One admin for articles and products.
Hosting chosen for WordPress
Managed WordPress hosting with server-level caching, a staging environment and daily backups, set up in an account you own. We tune it; you hold the keys and the invoice.
Security hardened from day one
Admin URL protected, login attempts limited, file editing disabled, two-factor on, automatic minor updates, a web application firewall. Most WordPress compromises come through abandoned plugins, which is the other reason the list is short.
Search structure that WordPress does well
Clean permalinks, a category and tag architecture planned for your topics, schema via the SEO plugin, XML sitemaps, an editorial workflow for the blog. WordPress is still the best publishing CMS, and we build to that strength.
Editing training on your own site
A recorded walkthrough of your admin: adding a page from a pattern, publishing a post, updating a product. Plus a one-page cheat sheet for whoever joins the team later.
( Honest fit )
When WordPress is the right call — and when it isn’t.
Pick WordPress when
- You publish regularly and want the best editorial workflow available at no licence cost.
- You need something WordPress's plugin ecosystem already does well — membership, courses, events, multilingual.
- Your team already knows the WordPress admin and does not want to learn a new tool.
- You want to own the whole stack: open-source software, your hosting account, your database.
We’d point you elsewhere when
- You want a visual canvas where staff drag sections around freely. Webflow or Squarespace does that with less to maintain; WordPress without a page builder is a content editor, not a layout tool.
- The store is the whole business and you do not want to manage hosting, updates or PCI. Shopify carries all of that for a monthly fee.
- The site is really an application — accounts, dashboards, real-time data. Bending WordPress into an app costs more than building the app.
( How it works )
Fourteen days, four stages, no mystery.
- Day 0–1
Brief. A short form or a 20-minute call. We ask what you sell, who buys it, and what a lead is worth.
On WordPressWe audit any existing WordPress install — plugin count, theme age, hosting, PHP version — and list what carries over and what gets rebuilt.
- Day 2–3
Free concept. You get a custom homepage design. No payment yet. This is the decision point — approve, revise, or walk.
On WordPressThe homepage concept is designed as the block patterns it will become, so what you approve is exactly what your editors will see in the admin.
- Day 4–10
Build. Remaining pages designed, copy written, everything coded. One shared link, updated live, so you're never waiting on an email.
On WordPressTheme built on a staging server with your real content imported, plugins installed and configured, then a performance pass before anything goes live.
- Day 11–14
Review & launch. Two rounds of revisions, testing across devices, analytics installed, then live. You get the walkthrough video the same day.
On WordPressRedirects verified, forms tested to your inbox, caching warmed, DNS switched, and the staging copy kept for 30 days as a rollback.
Day 15+ 30 days of unlimited changes, included. Then a care plan if you want one.
( Pricing )
Website Design Packages, from $349. Published, fixed, in writing.
Basic Plan
$349For a new business that needs a credible site live fast.
What’s included →- Most picked
Professional
$689The most-picked package: a full site for an established service business.
What’s included → Elite
$1299For a larger site, or a brand that wants every page designed on its own.
What’s included →
The Website Design tiers cover a custom WordPress theme of three, ten or fifteen pages. A WooCommerce store maps to the E-Commerce tiers instead — from $600 for up to 100 products, under the E-Commerce tab on the pricing page. WordPress itself is free software; the running costs are hosting and any premium plugin licences, both billed to accounts in your name.
Not in the tier price
- Managed WordPress hosting, billed by the host to your own account
- Premium plugin licences where a free plugin will not do (forms, membership, courses)
- Paid WooCommerce extensions (subscriptions, bookings, advanced shipping)
- Rush delivery, +$500
( Migrations )
Moving to WordPress — or away from it — without losing what ranks.
- Wix
- Wix has no export for the design and a partial one for content, so pages are rebuilt from the live site and posts imported through the RSS feed or by hand. The domain moves to a registrar you control; we handle the DNS cutover.
- Squarespace
- Squarespace exports posts and pages as an XML file WordPress can import. Images are re-uploaded, galleries rebuilt as blocks, and the URL structure mapped with 301s so nothing that ranked today breaks tomorrow.
- A page-builder WordPress site
- Content is extracted from the Elementor or Divi shortcodes and rebuilt as native blocks on a new theme. This is the migration with the largest speed gain and the most cleanup, and the builder licence is cancelled at the end.
- Shopify to WooCommerce
- Products and customers exported as CSV, imported into WooCommerce, and payment gateways re-authorised. Usually chosen by merchants whose content outgrew Shopify's blog, or who want to stop paying a platform fee.
( Proof )
Work our team designed and shipped.
Design and product work by our team. Shown as proof of craft, not as builds on this platform.
( Questions )
WORDPRESS, EXPLAINED
Our WordPress builds are fixed and published: $349 for a three-page site, $689 for ten pages and $1,299 for up to fifteen, each on a hand-coded theme with no page builder. WooCommerce stores start at $600. Hosting and any premium plugins are the ongoing costs and are billed to your own accounts. The full market range by business type is here.
No. WordPress still powers more of the web than any other platform, the block editor has matured into a genuine design-system tool, and the plugin ecosystem is unmatched for publishing, membership and events. What is outdated is the way most WordPress sites are built: a bought theme, a page builder and thirty plugins. Built as a lean custom theme, it is fast, secure and easy to edit.
The build price is the same with us — $349 to $1,299 either way. Running costs differ: Wix bundles hosting into a monthly plan you pay for as long as the site exists; WordPress is free software on hosting you choose, so a small site can run for less, though a premium plugin or two closes the gap. Over several years WordPress usually wins on cost and always wins on portability. WordPress versus a custom build covers the next step up.
Yes — much of our WordPress work is redesigns and migrations. We keep your content, URLs and rankings, rebuild the theme, cut the plugin list down, move hosting if yours is the problem, and map every old URL to its new one. Here is the redesign process step by step.
Yes. WooCommerce is the right choice when the store sits alongside a lot of content, when you want no platform fee, or when you need a product type Shopify handles awkwardly. Stores use our E-Commerce tiers from $600 for up to 100 products; you pay card processing to your gateway and nothing to WooCommerce itself. For a store that is the whole business, we will often suggest Shopify instead and say why.
Your choice. Thirty days of unlimited changes are included. After that, a care plan covers core, theme and plugin updates, backups, uptime monitoring and a set number of change hours a month; or your team runs it, which the short plugin list makes realistic. Here is what maintenance should cost.
Yes. Pages are built from block patterns that match your design, so adding a service page or a case study is choosing a pattern and filling it in. Posts use the standard editor. Anything structural — a new template — is a developer task, and the theme is documented so any WordPress developer can do it, not only us.
Three reasons. Speed: builders load their own framework on every page. Lock-in: your content is wrapped in shortcodes that break if the builder is removed. Upkeep: each builder is one more licence and one more thing to update. The block editor now does what builders were invented for; we write the blocks to your design instead.
( Before you decide )
Before you hire anyone for WordPress development, read these.
( Other platforms )
Not sure WordPress is the one? Compare the others.
Yours could be next.
Send your site and what you sell. Custom homepage concept back in 72 hours — free, no call required.