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Philip O'Brien — web design & IT support
Website design & development

A second way I build websites: faster to load, and cheaper to keep running.

Most sites I build use WordPress. For sites that rarely change, there's a second option — a static site, which will be faster to load, with less that can go wrong, and a lower cost to maintain. Want to know more? Carry on reading for what that means, and what the trade-off is for you.

Good fit forSites that change rarely, where you're happy for changes to go through me.

Not a fit ifYou want to log in and edit content yourself.

What "static" actually means

A normal WordPress site runs live software on the server every time someone visits — checking a database, running plugins, assembling the page on the fly. That's powerful, but it's also the whole reason WordPress sites need ongoing security work: updates, monitoring, and they carry a login page that's a permanent target.

A static site has none of that running live. Every page is built in advance into plain files, then simply served with nothing to hack, no database to break into, and nothing that needs monthly patching. It's a genuinely different set-up, with a much lower chance of anything going wrong.

What stays the same / what's different

Stays the same

  • Same design process, same attention to your actual content
  • Same build pricing — see below
  • Mobile responsive, properly built, no jargon

What's different

  • No login for you — there's no admin area to log into
  • All changes go through me, billed at £50/hour
  • Hosting & maintenance costs less — see below

Pricing — the same as a WordPress build

You're paying for the design and development work, not the platform underneath it — so the build price is the same as a WordPress build: Quick launch from £350, Simple site £500, Multi-page from £800. Full detail on what each tier includes is on the main Wordpress page.

Hosting & maintenance — genuinely lower

A WordPress site needs the ongoing work covered by the £180/year Managed hosting tier — core, plugin, and theme updates, security monitoring, an admin login that needs watching. A static site doesn't carry any of that workload, so it doesn't cost the same to keep running.

Static hosting

£6/month

  • Hosting
  • I'm the point of contact if anything breaks
  • No CMS to patch — nothing to actively monitor

Which should you choose?

Choose static if

  • Your site rarely changes once it's live
  • You're happy for me to handle updates when they're needed1
  • Lower ongoing cost matters more than self-editing

Choose WordPress if

  • You want to log in and edit content yourself
  • You'll be adding pages, posts, or images regularly
  • You want that flexibility even if you don't use it often

Changes after launch

[1] Same rate as everywhere else on this site — £50/hour, and most requests take under an hour. If you're likely to want frequent changes, that's usually a sign WordPress is the better fit from the start and I'm happy to talk through which makes more sense for what you need.