Headless WordPress

Headless WordPress without breaking your editors

I build decoupled stacks where WordPress keeps the content and a Next.js frontend delivers the speed, with live preview intact so writers never publish blind. If your project doesn’t actually need headless, I’ll tell you before you pay for the complexity.

Order the audit See what’s included

850+ clients served, so I know when headless is the wrong answer

Replies within 24 hours, usually the same day

What you are buying

From ₹1,50,000Starting price, GST included

From $1,799In dollars

Work delivered for, or alongside, teams at:

IBM
Adobe
HubSpot
Canva
monday.com
IATA
FreshBooks
Acer
ASUS
Airtel
BYJU’S
AppSumo
StellarWP
Copyleaks
Depositphotos
accessiBe

What it costs

A full decoupled build, not a half-finished experiment.

The price covers both halves: a hardened WordPress backend and a production frontend with the deploy pipeline to run it. Half-built headless is worse than no headless.

Headless build

From ₹1,50,000 From $1,799per project

Content modeling and custom fields done for API consumption
Next.js or React frontend with static and edge rendering
REST or WPGraphQL data layer tuned for your actual queries
Live editor preview so writers see drafts before publishing
Hardened WordPress behind a firewall, only the API exposed
CI/CD deploy pipeline on Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare, documented

Scope my headless build

Auth, search, and multi-frontend delivery are scoped as add-ons.

All prices include GST.

How this runs

You will know the price and the plan before I touch anything.

Model

I map your content types, frontends, and traffic patterns, then pick REST or WPGraphQL based on what you’ll actually query. Architecture decisions get written down, with reasons.

You leave with: an architecture document you can challenge.

Backend

Content gets modeled in WordPress with a clean API surface, and the admin goes behind a firewall. Editors keep their workflow while the attack surface shrinks to one endpoint.

You leave with: a locked-down CMS serving a clean API.

Frontend

The Next.js or React frontend gets built with static generation, edge rendering, and incremental regeneration, so updates go live without full rebuilds. Live preview is wired in, not skipped.

You leave with: a staging frontend with working preview.

Ship

Deployment lands on Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare with CI/CD, monitoring, and documentation. Your team gets a stack they can operate, not a science project.

You leave with: a documented pipeline your team can run.

A note from me

How I approach headless

The first thing I check is whether you need headless at all. For a standard brochure site or blog, a well-built block theme is simpler, cheaper, and just as fast. I’ve talked more people out of headless than into it, and the ones I build for are glad it went that way.

When headless is right, I refuse to ship it without live preview. Most headless builds break the editing experience and writers end up publishing blind. Getting preview working is fiddly, which is exactly why most developers skip it.

The stack I hand over is boring on purpose: standard Next.js patterns, documented deploys, no clever abstractions the next developer will curse.

— Gaurav

Before you write in

This isn’t for every site.

Worth starting

You’ve genuinely maxed out caching and CDN work, and PHP rendering is the ceiling left.
Your frontend needs app-like interactivity a theme keeps fighting.
One content source must feed multiple frontends: site, mobile app, displays.
Security policy wants WordPress off the public internet, API only.
You have, or are hiring, someone who can own a JavaScript stack long term.

Look elsewhere

Your budget is under ₹1,50,000. A fast block theme delivers most of the speed for a third of the cost.
You run a brochure site or blog. Headless adds complexity you’ll pay for twice: build and maintenance.
Nobody on your side can own a JavaScript stack after handover. Two systems means real upkeep.
Your site leans on frontend-heavy plugins: page builders, membership walls, visual forms. They don’t survive decoupling.
You want headless because a competitor did it. That’s a reason to ask questions, not to sign.

If you want to:

Load from the edge with pages prebuilt instead of rendered per visit
Keep the WP editor while developers get a modern stack
Feed every channel from one content backend: site, app, and beyond

Scope my headless build

Common questions

Not answered here? Ask directly and you will hear back within 24 hours.

Builds start at ₹1,50,000, including GST. The final quote depends on your content model, the number of templates, and integrations like auth and search. You get a fixed scope before work starts, and if a block theme would serve you better, I’ll quote that instead.

Two systems instead of one. You build, host, and maintain both a CMS and a frontend, preview and plugin compatibility need real work, and costs run higher for the life of the site. It’s worth it for the right project and a mistake for the wrong one.

No. Writers keep the same editor, blocks, and workflow, and live preview shows drafts on the real frontend before publishing. If a headless build breaks the editing experience, it was built wrong.

No. Prebuilt pages served from a CDN edge are extremely fast, but a badly built headless site can be slower than a well-optimized traditional one. The speed comes from doing the rendering strategy right, not from the word headless.

Usually Next.js on the frontend, WordPress exposed through REST or WPGraphQL, deployed to Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare. The exact choices follow your queries and your team’s skills, and every choice is documented in the handover.

Adjacent services

All services →

About me

So, who’s writing your code?

A WordPress Core contributor with plugins running on more than 10,000 sites.

Development clients get the person who ships his own plugins, not a project manager.

I was a teacher before I was a developer. I taught mathematics to competitive-exam students, which is why I explain hard things plainly instead of hiding behind jargon.

What I am actually good at is the join: technical SEO, fast front-ends, and content treated as one system instead of three vendors blaming each other.

WordPress Core contributor
Plugins on 10,000+ sites
wp-mcp, listed on the LobeHub marketplace
850+ clients since 2008
$38M+ client revenue influenced
Building for the web since 2008

More about me See the full track record

Describe the ceiling you’ve hit.

Tell me what the site does today, what’s too slow or too limiting, and who maintains it. I’ll reply with whether headless is justified and what the build would cost.

Message on WhatsApp

Replies within 24 hours, usually the same day