Our service100% WordPressNo build step

Hand-coded website to 100% WordPress

Hand-Coded to WordPress Block Theme

You already have a site built in code, but changing a single line of copy means calling a developer. We move the whole thing onto WordPress: it looks the same, your team edits every page, and a change is live the moment you save.

Starting price

2,500 THB/ small site

Priced by the pages and page types you actually have

Send us your URL for a quote Can my site be converted? ↓

Hand-coded website converted into a WordPress Block Theme by the Southern Whale development team

2,500 THB

Starting price

Build steps after handover

390 / 1440

Every page compared at 2 widths

All

Old URLs redirected

A beautiful site you cannot edit is a cost you pay every month

What this service is

Sites written in code tend to be fast and good-looking. But when a price needs updating, a promotional image needs swapping, or a new service page needs adding, everything has to go back through whoever wrote the code. If that person is busy or unreachable, the site simply sits there.

We rebuild your existing site as a full WordPress site, as a Block Theme made from your current design. All of the content moves into the admin as real content, not a single block of pasted HTML. Your team can then change copy, swap images, reorder sections, add new pages and edit the menus themselves.

And there is nothing extra to maintain after handover. No Node on the server, no cron job, no waiting for a build, because WordPress renders the pages itself. Hit save and it is live. Any ordinary host that runs WordPress will do.

What we can convert from

Not just Astro

The principle is the same every time: take the design and content out of the original, then reassemble it on WordPress. With the source code it is faster and cheaper; with nothing but a live site, it is still perfectly doable.

Plain HTML / CSS / JavaScript

Hand-written sites, purchased templates, and exports from design tools. This is the most direct conversion of all.

Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS

Your classes and design survive intact. We compile the CSS once and ship it inside the theme, so the server never needs to know what Node is.

Astro

The one we do most often, because layouts, components and content collections map almost one-to-one onto templates, patterns and post types.

Next.js and Gatsby (React)

Content sites that can be exported as static convert completely. Genuine app screens — logins, dashboards — are quoted separately.

Nuxt and Vue

Pages and layouts become a block theme. Interactive pieces such as tabs, sliders and filters are rebuilt as small scripts attached to each block.

Hugo, Jekyll, Eleventy, Hexo

Static sites written in Markdown. All content moves into real WordPress posts and pages, with images placed in the media library.

Hand-written PHP and Laravel Blade

PHP sites with no CMS behind them, or anything that renders to HTML. We pull the markup apart into templates and reassemble it on WordPress.

Locked-in website builders

Sites on closed platforms you can view but not restructure. We extract the pages and content and rebuild them on WordPress, where they belong to you.

Headless setups you want to drop

For teams tired of triggering a build every time a sentence changes. We move you to plain WordPress: hit save, it is live.

If your site is not on this list, send us the URL anyway. We will open it and tell you straight whether it can be converted — and whether it should be.

Hand-coded site versus WordPress

The honest trade-offs

Neither side wins on every line. Choose based on who has to edit the site, and how often.

Topic	Your current hand-coded site	WordPress Block Theme
Who can edit the content	Only someone who writes code	Your own team, in the admin
Time for content to go live	Wait for a build and deploy	Live the moment you hit save
Page speed	Fastest possible — flat files	Close to it, with caching and a CDN
Security	Very small attack surface	Needs regular updates and hardening
What the host must support	Varies — some stacks need Node or CI	Any ordinary PHP host that runs WordPress
Finding someone to maintain it	You need someone who knows that framework	WordPress developers are everywhere
Adding a new page	Someone has to write a new file	Create a page and pick a prepared layout

What you get once the conversion is done

Why this service

Your team edits everything, no developer needed

Text, images, buttons, menus, section order and list items are all editable in the admin. Our goal is to leave no copy hard-coded anywhere.

Save and it is live

No build step, no cron job, no deploy hook to wait on. WordPress renders the pages itself, so a change is visible the moment you publish it.

The site still looks like your site

We hit visual parity before we improve anything: every page compared against the original on mobile and desktop first, design changes discussed afterwards.

SEO and existing URLs stay intact

Titles, descriptions, canonicals, structured data, sitemap and robots all come across. Where a URL genuinely has to change, we set up the redirect.

Runs on ordinary hosting

All you need is a host that runs WordPress — no Node, no SSH, no cron. That keeps long-term costs down and makes the site easy to hand to anyone else.

Editing it will not break it

We lock the structural pieces that should not be touched, limit which blocks are available, and enforce one H1 per page, so your team can edit safely.

Deliverables

What is handed over

A WordPress Block Theme built specifically for your site, with a theme.json holding your brand colours, fonts and spacing
Every page of the old site moved in as real, editable WordPress content — not a screenshot and not one lump of HTML
Ready-made layouts (patterns) so you can build new pages yourself in the same style as the original
Menus, footer, contact details and site-wide values turned into settings you can edit in the admin
All images in the media library, with generated sizes and the alt text carried over from the original
The full SEO set: titles, descriptions, canonicals, structured data, sitemap, robots and redirects for the old URLs
Baseline caching and security: file editing disabled in the admin, XML-RPC off, and user roles scoped to what each person actually does
A short English handbook plus one live training call over video

The drawbacks you should know before deciding

Written honestly

Moving to WordPress trades easier editing for more maintenance. We would rather you saw both sides before you commit.

1. WordPress now serves the pages, not static files

Once WordPress renders the site, caching and security become real work. We configure caching and close the common holes before handover, but plugins and PHP still need updating on a regular cycle.

2. Slower than static files if caching is not set up

A page rendered on request will never beat a flat HTML file sitting on disk. That is why we set up page-level caching, and a CDN where it is warranted, to get back as close to the original speed as possible.

3. Some interactive pieces have to be rebuilt

Tabs, sliders, drawers, filters and animations tied to your old framework need a WordPress-native rewrite. That work is quoted per piece.

4. Real applications should not be converted

Systems with logins, complex carts, or screens that differ per user do not belong in a content site. We will tell you that during the assessment rather than after.

5. Price depends on page count and page types

2,500 THB is the starting point for a small site. The more pages and the more distinct page layouts you have, the more work there is, so we always count both before quoting.

Suitable for

Company, brand and profile sites where the marketing team should own the content
Sites whose original developer has moved on and nobody dares touch the code
Static sites where a one-line copy change means waiting for a build every time
Sites that regularly need new pages, such as per-location or per-product pages
Businesses that want to run a blog and do SEO continuously without booking a developer
Agencies that design well but would rather not maintain the back end themselves

Not suitable for

Sites that are really applications, with logins and per-user screens
Shops whose cart and checkout are more complex than the norm
Teams who want control of every line of code and no admin at all
Sites that must keep static-file speed with no compromise whatsoever

From 2,500 THB, priced by site size

Pricing

Small site, few pages, straightforward layouts

2,500 THB

Starting price · one-time payment, no mandatory monthly fee

What pushes the price up

The number of pages, and the number of distinct page layouts
The number of languages
Interactive pieces that need rebuilding, such as sliders, tabs and filters
Lists that must become manageable content types, such as products, projects or team members
Migrating a large archive of existing articles

Send your URL for a free assessment

PromptPay / bank transfer · Invoice available

How we work

Process

Survey the existing site and count the work

We walk every URL, identify how many distinct page types there are, where content repeats, and how many interactive pieces exist, then turn that into a conversion plan with a price.

Set up the theme and content structure

Colours, fonts and spacing become theme.json. We build the templates, header and footer, and decide what should be a page and what should be a list your team can add to.

Migrate the content and compare visually

Text and images move into real blocks, then every page is compared against the original at 390px and 1440px.

SEO, caching, handover

We check SEO against the original, set the redirects, configure caching, close the security gaps, then train your team and hand over the handbook.

What to have ready: the URL of the current site, the source code if you have it, the hosting details where WordPress will be installed, and a list of the people who will be editing content, so we can set their permissions and lock the parts that should not be changed.

Related services

Work we do in house

Headless WordPress with a static front end

Want the speed of static files but still edit in WordPress? Saving rebuilds the site in about 30 seconds. From 5,000 THB.

Custom WordPress plugin development

Need a function no off-the-shelf plugin covers? We write it as your own plugin. From 999 THB.

WordPress development

Themes, plugins, headless setups and ongoing care — everything we build on WordPress, in one place.

Web development

New sites built from scratch, with the structure, speed and SEO groundwork handled from day one.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

My site was not built with Astro. Can you still convert it?

Yes. We convert from just about anything written in code: plain HTML/CSS/JS, Bootstrap or Tailwind templates, Astro, Next.js, Gatsby, Nuxt, Vue, Hugo, Jekyll, Eleventy, Hexo, hand-written PHP and Laravel Blade. What we need is a site we can open in a browser. If you can also give us the source code, the job is faster and cheaper, because we can lift the colours, fonts and page structure straight out of it.

What is a Block Theme, and how is it different from an off-the-shelf theme?

A Block Theme is WordPress's newer theme format: you edit the whole site — header, footer and layouts included — in the same editor you use to write content. The difference from an off-the-shelf theme is that yours is built from your existing design, with none of the unused features a commercial theme carries. The result is lighter and matches your brand exactly.

Do I need Elementor or another page builder on top?

No. We work mainly with WordPress core blocks, which means no annual plugin fees and none of a page builder's weight. That said, if your team already knows Elementor or Bricks, tell us and we will fit the build to the tool you use.

What does the 2,500 THB starting price cover?

It covers a small site with a handful of pages and only a few distinct layouts — a home page, about, services and contact, for example. The real price is based on the number of pages, the number of distinct page types, the number of languages, and how many interactive pieces need rebuilding. We itemise all of that before quoting, and we do not start until you have confirmed it.

Will my Google rankings drop?

Our aim is for every existing URL to keep working. Where one has to change, we add the redirect, and we carry across titles, descriptions, canonicals, structured data and the sitemap so they match the original. We check it all again once the new site is live. The remaining risk is speed, and we handle that with caching.

Can you handle a multilingual site?

Yes. Our preferred approach is one page per language, linked together, which means you do not have to buy a translation plugin at all. If you already run WPML or Polylang, we can keep using it. Cost rises with each language, since the content has to be migrated and checked in every one.

How long does it take, and does my current site stay online?

Small sites usually take three to seven working days; medium to large sites two to four weeks. We work on a staging environment throughout, so your current site stays online as normal and we only switch over once everything has passed review.

I want static-file speed but still want to edit in an admin. What should I choose?

That is a different service of ours: headless WordPress, where the front end is static files and the back end is WordPress. It suits sites that want maximum speed and security, in exchange for waiting roughly half a minute after you hit save. Ask us on LINE and we will walk you through the trade-off.

Send us the URL first

We will open your site, count the pages and page types, and come back with whether it can be converted, how long it will take and what it will cost — before you decide anything.

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