Executive Summary
LUBUS, a development agency specializing in WordPress and Laravel, faced challenges with variable hosting costs and maintenance for their clients. They needed a solution that offered fixed costs, high performance, secure web hosting, and reliable service and support. LUBUS decided to test WordPress.com and, after witnessing positive results, confidently recommended it to their clients.
The migration to WordPress.com led to faster site load times, improved stability during traffic surges, and significant cost savings of 50-90% for clients. This allowed LUBUS to concentrate on its core services and offer a more straightforward solution to its clients without the need for DevOps budgets or ongoing maintenance costs. WordPress.com provided an all-in-one solution, ensuring a stable, secure, and cost-efficient experience for LUBUS's clients.
Introduction
We recently spoke with Ajit Bohra, the Founder and WordPress Engineer of LUBUS, a development agency specializing in WordPress and Laravel. LUBUS, established in 2008, creates high-quality websites for clients in India and across the globe. They have experience building a wide variety of websites, including healthcare, renewables, publishers, telecommunications, music news, online stores, and more.
Their commitment to delivering "friendly solutions" in WordPress website development led them to seek a solution that provides their clients with:
- A website with fixed costs and no hard limits
- A high-performance, secure web hosting platform
- A host managed and maintained by WordPress experts
- Reliable service and support
LUBUS chose to test WordPress.com and, after witnessing positive results, confidently recommended it to many of their clients.
The LUBUS Story
LUBUS has a team of 12 WordPress designers and developers, serving 8 to 10 new clients annually. About 60% of their clients retain LUBUS's maintenance and consulting services after the initial site development and launch.
Previously, they hosted clients on AWS (Amazon Web Services) and similar cloud hosting services. While these solutions were suitable for clients who required more complex control, they presented difficulties for many others.
The Challenges and Needs of Various WordPress Website Clients
LUBUS aimed to provide the best service to their clients while keeping their workload focused on core offerings.
Stable Costs and Hosting
For many clients, particularly those in emerging markets or with smaller budgets, the variable billing costs of providers like AWS were often disruptive. These clients needed to budget for exact costs without unexpected charges at the end of a pricing period. Some clients experienced large traffic spikes that either caused their websites to crash or resulted in increased costs to cover additional resources. Neither scenario supports effective growth and scaling.
Ajit Bohra, the LUBUS founder, shared an example where they migrated a heavy metal client's website to WordPress.com. When the band Metallica shared one of the client's articles, the site effortlessly handled the traffic surge without incurring additional costs or experiencing any performance issues.
Maintenance and Worry-Free Hosting
In the absence of managed hosting, clients either had to maintain the environment themselves or pay LUBUS for maintenance. This extra time and cost were prohibitive to clients and diverted LUBUS from its primary focus.
"We needed to move away from DevOps and concentrate on our core services. We searched for a straightforward solution that clients could manage themselves without DevOps budgets or ongoing maintenance costs. We aimed to provide clients with a reliable hosting service we could endorse without hesitation, ultimately resulting in satisfied clients. We found that service with WordPress.com," explained Ajit Bohra, LUBUS founder.
Why LUBUS Chose to Migrate Clients to WordPress.com
Ajit and his team members often attended WordCamps, where they conversed with WordPress.com representatives. Eventually, Ajit felt confident enough to trial WordPress.com with a budget client who wanted to manage their site independently in the future. Factors that contributed to his decision to test WordPress.com included:
- Eliminating security concerns for both LUBUS and the client
- Removing worries about performance or speed
- The platform's development by the same team behind the open-source WordPress application
- Clients feeling confident enough to manage their own site, knowing they're protected by Jetpack backups, activity logs, and backed up by excellent WordPress.com support
- Giving clients an option for a lower and more reliable cost model.
The Migration Process
LUBUS found the migration process smooth and cost-effective, significantly reducing DevOps and maintenance expenses.
As LUBUS migrated more clients to WordPress.com, they continued to experience smooth, error-free migrations. Even in challenging situations, the WordPress.com Happiness Engineers (support team) resolved issues efficiently, providing a positive experience for LUBUS.
The Results: Speed, Stability, and Cost Savings
We were eager to learn LUBUS's thoughts on their experience with migrating clients' sites to WordPress.com. Here's what we discovered.
Faster Sites
Although LUBUS focuses on well-developed sites optimized for fast load times, developers cannot control the server's TTFB (Time to First Byte). TTFB measures the time it takes for the first byte of the page to load in the client's browser, reflecting the server's responsiveness. On average, LUBUS observed a 60-70% improvement in TTFB speed after migrating sites to WordPress.com. This improvement can mean the difference between users staying on the site or leaving due to frustration with load times.
Stability
Some hosting providers hinder a client's website success and growth. When a site experiences a traffic surge due to a successful marketing or social campaign, some hosts either fail to allocate the necessary resources to keep the site running or charge substantial fees for the extra resources. In both cases, the client's potential gains from the traffic surge are negatively impacted.
LUBUS clients appreciate that WordPress.com aims to help them succeed rather than penalize them for their success. With high-performance CPUs and automated burst scaling, clients can trust that their sites will withstand traffic surges without incurring additional costs.
Cost Savings
LUBUS founder Ajit Bohra stated, "Many of our clients saved a considerable amount of money, ranging from 50% to over 90%, on hosting charges after moving to WordPress.com. This significant savings offers a tremendous boost for clients, especially in countries like India, or those with basic sites, blogs, webzines, mid-level traffic eCommerce sites, and startups."
The End Result
"There are many reasons we recommend WordPress.com to clients.
—Clients want us, and their hosting provider, to simplify their lives.
—We don't want clients to be intimidated by WordPress, and WordPress.com makes it much easier for them to adapt.
—Clients are skeptical about relying on plugins for tasks that should be managed by hosting, which WordPress.com does.
—Clients want everything in one place, such as support, domain, content, marketing tools, and hosting.
—Clients want to know their site will be stable, secure, and cost-efficient.
WordPress.com makes it simple to meet our clients' needs."
—Ajit Bohra, LUBUS founder
WordPress.com + Your Agency = Satisfied Clients
WordPress web design and development agencies are discovering the power of WordPress.com hosting and the benefits it offers to their clients. With full-stack performance, robust security, and developer-friendly features, WordPress.com provides agencies with a platform they can confidently recommend to their clients. Discover what we can do for your agency.
Looking for a development agency focused on providing friendly solutions to big or small ideas? See how Lubus can help you.
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