WordPress runs 39.6% of all websites, according to W3Techs (17 October 2026). If you’re weighing up WordPress web design in Perth, the useful questions are what it takes to keep running and whether it suits your business. This guide answers those.

If you want your site on WordPress, CatalystHub will build it on WordPress. We’ll recommend the setup that suits your project, and the choice is yours. If you want the general case first, read is WordPress worth it for a small business website.

The short version: WordPress is still a strong choice for a site that publishes constantly, runs a big catalogue or depends on a particular plugin. If you want WordPress, we’ll build your site on it, with the price fixed in writing before you pay. For a typical small business site we’d usually suggest our usual setup instead, which isn’t WordPress: a custom five-page website for $500 flat including GST, live in seven business days, with free hosting on your own account. Already on WordPress? We can rebuild it.

Can CatalystHub build my site on WordPress?

Yes. If you specifically want WordPress, we’ll build your site on it. We aren’t tied to one platform. We’ll tell you which setup we’d recommend for your project and why, and you choose. There’s no set WordPress price: we quote your project and fix the price in writing before you pay. A WordPress site needs a server that runs its software and a database, so the hosting is confirmed in the quote too.

We’d usually recommend our usual setup instead when your site is a typical five to ten pages that needs to look professional, load fast and turn a search into a phone call. That setup has no plugin stack to keep patched, scores 95 or more on mobile in Lighthouse (Google’s free page-speed test), and is hosted free on your own Cloudflare account. If you publish all the time, run a big catalogue or need a plugin that works with WordPress alone, WordPress can make sense (see when WordPress makes sense). Either way, we work it out with you on the call.

What to do next: See what each package includes on our pricing page, or start your project. Weighing up your current WordPress site? Read maintain or rebuild first.

What it costs

Perth WordPress designers whose pages we read on 17 October 2026 publish build starting prices from $895 to $6,995 and care plans from $65 to $495 a month; for what a website costs in Perth on any platform, with two-year totals, see our guide to how much a website costs in Perth.

Speed on a phone

WordPress builds each page from a database when someone visits, so its speed depends a lot on the hosting, the theme and the plugins. It has got faster: the 2024 Web Almanac from HTTP Archive notes that WordPress 6.3 alone added more than 170 performance improvements. Even so, in the same report only 40% of WordPress sites scored “good” on all three of Google’s Core Web Vitals on a phone, up from 28% a year earlier. Core Web Vitals are Google’s measures of how fast a page loads, how quickly it responds to a tap and how steady it stays while loading, and Google’s ranking systems use them.

Our usual builds are made for phones first. Every Standard build ships with a Lighthouse Performance score of 95 or more on mobile (Lighthouse is Google’s free page-speed test), and we design for sub-second loads on patchy 4G.

Upkeep: plugins and security updates

Plugins are add-ons that give WordPress extra features: forms, galleries, bookings and so on. The official directory lists over 76,000 free ones. They’re also where most WordPress security holes turn up. Patchstack, a WordPress security company, counted 7,966 new ones in the WordPress world in 2024. 96% were in plugins, 43% could be used without logging in, and a third weren’t fixed before they were made public. Sucuri’s 2023 report found 39.1% of hacked sites it cleaned were running out-of-date software.

So a WordPress site needs someone to apply updates to WordPress itself, the theme and every plugin. WordPress.org’s own advice is to back up the site before updating, so it can be restored if something goes wrong. That’s what Perth WordPress care plans are selling, and why one Perth designer says it “strongly advise[s]” a maintenance package after launch.

Paid plugins add a yearly cost too, either billed to you or built into a care plan. One Perth WordPress studio lists the page builder Elementor Pro at US$96 to US$348 a year and the form plugin Gravity Forms at US$59 to US$259 a year, and its plans include both licences. W3Techs counts Elementor, free version included, on 31.6% of WordPress sites.

Hosting

WordPress needs a server that runs its software and a database. WordPress.org recommends a host that supports recent versions of PHP and MySQL or MariaDB, and warns that older versions “may expose your site to security vulnerabilities”. If we build your site on WordPress, it needs that kind of host too, and we confirm the hosting in your quote. Our usual sites are built ahead of time into finished pages, so there’s no database to run on each visit. They’re hosted free on Cloudflare, on your own account.

Who owns the site

WordPress itself doesn’t lock you in. It’s open source software under the GPL licence, and one Perth WordPress studio points out that its sites and content are portable. What matters is whose name is on the accounts. If the domain or hosting sits in the designer’s account, you can’t move the site without them. Ask before you sign, and read who owns your website for the questions to ask.

On our usual setup you own the code, the domain and the hosting from day seven. At handover you get the GitHub repository (where your site’s code is stored) as owner, the Cloudflare login, the editor and Google Analytics access.

Editing your own site

WordPress is good at this. It has drafts, scheduled posts and saved revisions, and WordPress.org says if you’ve ever created a document, you’re already a whizz at creating content with it. The trade-off is the admin area, with its update prompts and plugin settings.

Our usual sites use TinaCMS, an editor where you change copy and swap images like you’d edit a Word document. No plugins, and no admin panel to log into every week.

When WordPress is the better choice

WordPress makes sense when:

You publish all the time. A blog, news site or resource library with new posts every week suits WordPress’s publishing tools.
You run a big catalogue, memberships or courses. Here WordPress’s flexibility pays for the upkeep. WooCommerce, its shop plugin, runs on 19.8% of WordPress sites.
You need one particular plugin. If your booking system or industry tool only plugs into WordPress, that can settle it.
Your team already works in WordPress every day.
Your current WordPress site is only two or three years old and you’re happy with it. Then the question is the running cost, and our maintain or rebuild guide does that maths.

How CatalystHub usually builds

Most small business sites are a handful of pages. For that job we build every Standard site on Astro (a modern website framework), with TinaCMS for editing and Cloudflare for hosting. This setup doesn’t use WordPress, so there’s no plugin stack to keep patched. There’s still a little code to update now and then, and our optional care plan covers it.

Standard build: a custom five-page website, $500 flat including GST, live in seven business days, with unlimited revisions until you’re happy.
Advanced: from $700, the Standard build with an animated or 3D design.
Specialist: from $1,500, up to 15 pages.
Custom Shopify theme: from $700.
About nine pages: around $900, as a custom quote.
Logo design: $199.
Care plans: from $49 a month, first month free with a new build, and optional.

A WordPress build is quoted for your project, with the price fixed in writing before you pay.

Bigger projects and corporate sites get a scoped custom quote, and we do those too. We designed the new corporate website for Carey Group, which is in development now. You can see live builds for Aesir Legal, a Perth law firm, Nathan Fischer, a WA stonemason, and Sim Dhaliwal, an Adelaide speech pathologist, and there’s more on our work page. The full list of what’s included is on the pricing page.

Already on WordPress?

We can rebuild it. Moving off WordPress with us is a new build on the packages above, sized to how many pages your current site has. Your words, images and domain are yours to bring across. If your page addresses change, Google’s advice is to redirect each old address to its new one. Google says permanent redirects don’t lose ranking value, though rankings can wobble for a while during a move. When we rebuild a WordPress site, we set up those redirects from your old page addresses for you.

Start your project, or call (08) 6288 0080 to talk it through.

Frequently asked questions

Does CatalystHub build WordPress websites? Yes, if you want WordPress. We aren’t tied to one platform. We’ll recommend the setup that suits your project, and you choose. Our usual setup builds every Standard site on Astro, with TinaCMS for editing and Cloudflare for hosting. A WordPress build is quoted for your project, with the price fixed in writing before you pay.

Can you rebuild my WordPress website? Yes. A rebuild is a new build on our usual packages. A five-page site is live in seven business days, and bigger sites have bigger packages.

My site isn’t on WordPress. It’s on my old developer’s own system. Can you still move it? Yes, the same way: we rebuild it as a new build on our usual packages, sized to how many pages it has, and your words, images and domain come across. You own the code, the domain and the hosting from launch, so you’re not locked in again.

Is WordPress bad for Google? No. Google’s ranking systems use Core Web Vitals, which measure speed and stability, and a WordPress site can do well on them if it’s kept fast and up to date.

Will I still be able to edit my site without WordPress? Yes. Our usual sites come with TinaCMS, so you change words and photos like you’d edit a Word document.

Figures: WordPress prices read on each business’s own website on 17 October 2026. “From” prices are starting prices. Usage figures are from W3Techs (17 October 2026) and the HTTP Archive Web Almanac 2024 (mobile data from June 2024).