Your website doesn't have to be WordPress.
Most of what GoatCloud does runs on WordPress, and if you asked us to pick a platform from scratch, for the great majority of projects that's what we'd pick. But plenty of perfectly good websites are built on Squarespace, Wix and Shopify — and if yours is one of those, or on something else entirely, you're not out of luck here.
We'll work on it. We'll also tell you, honestly, where that platform is going to limit us, because you deserve to know that before you pay anybody.
Some common scenarios we encounter. Which of these describes your situation?
You want off, and onto WordPress
This is the most common reason people call us about these platforms. Your subscription went up again, or you've hit a wall on something you need, or you've realized you can't take your site with you if you leave.
We do these migrations. We'll be straight with you about what survives the move and what has to be rebuilt by hand, because it is never a one-click job and anyone who says otherwise hasn't done one.
You want a new site, and you want it on one of these platforms
Sometimes that's the right call. You may already be paying for the subscription, your team may already know the editor, or the platform may do one specific thing you need. We'll build it there and build it properly — real structure, real page titles, working forms, correct mobile layout, analytics that actually record something.
We'll tell you first if we think WordPress would serve you better, and why. Then we'll do what you decide.
You have a Squarespace or Wix site and nobody's looking after it
Content changes you don't have time to make. A form that stopped sending. Photos that need swapping out. A page that looks wrong on a phone. Somebody built it for you and has since stopped answering email. We'll take over the day-to-day — you send us what needs doing and it gets done.
You like your site fine — you just want people to find it
Being online and being found are two different problems, and the second one doesn't care what your site is built on. Search engine optimization, Google and Microsoft ads, your Google Business listing, analytics that tell you something useful. We do all of that on platforms we didn't build and wouldn't have chosen.
Why we'd usually steer you toward WordPress
We're not going to pretend we're neutral, so here's the actual reasoning. Take it or leave it — some of our clients have heard all of this and stayed where they are, quite sensibly.
You're renting, not owning. The price can go up, a feature can go away, the terms can change, and you get no vote. WordPress is free software that runs on a host you choose; if we ever irritate you, you can take the whole site somewhere else intact.
Which brings up the part almost nobody checks before signing up: leaving is hard on purpose. Wix says it plainly in its own help center — a Wix site "needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers," and their architecture "does not support external hosting." There is no export. Squarespace does offer an export, but its own documentation lists what doesn't come with you, and the list is long: store pages, index pages, album and portfolio pages, calendar pages, page-specific headers and footers, video and audio blocks, dropdowns, custom CSS, and all of your style settings. You get your words. You don't get your website.
There's a ceiling on what we can fix. When we work on a WordPress site and something needs changing at the server level — a redirect, a caching rule, a piece of structured data a search engine wants — we change it. On a hosted platform, we can only reach what the platform chooses to expose. Sometimes the answer to "can you fix this?" is "not on this platform, by anyone." We'd rather you hear that from us in the first conversation than six months in.
And the monthly cost is worth doing arithmetic on. Compare what you're paying per month, plus any paid add-ons, against what a WordPress site actually costs to host and maintain. Sometimes the builder wins. Often it doesn't, and people are surprised.
A word about Shopify specifically
Most of the above is about website builders, and Shopify, well, that's not it's focus. It's a serious e-commerce platform, and if you're running an actual store on it, we will almost never tell you to leave. We'll work on it, connect it to what you need, and handle the marketing side. The renting-versus-owning tradeoff is still real there; so is what you get for the rent.
None of which means you should switch
If your site works, you edit it yourself, and you're happy — stay. If you depend on something the platform does well, stay. If the cost of migrating is more than the problem you'd be solving, stay, and we'll say so. We're not in the business of selling you a project you don't need, and we've talked people out of this move more than once.
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Let's Talk Cost
Work on a non-WordPress site is quoted by the job or billed at our hourly rate, and for clients who need regular help we'll set up a support arrangement so you're not getting an invoice every time you need a photo swapped.
Migrations to WordPress are quoted after we look at the site, because the honest number depends entirely on how much of it has to be rebuilt by hand rather than carried over. A five-page brochure site and a fifty-product store are not the same job and we won't pretend they are.
SEO, advertising and local listings are quoted after a free audit, on any platform. Anyone who gives you a number before looking at your site is guessing.
Tell us what you're working with
Send us the address of your site and what's bothering you about it. We'll look at it for free, tell you what we'd do, and tell you if the answer is "nothing — this is fine."