Answer · WordPress Web Design
What’s Headless WordPress?
The short answer
Headless WordPress decouples the editor from the front-end. WordPress runs as a content API (via REST or WPGraphQL); the public-facing site is built in Next.js, Astro, or similar. Performance gains are real (0.4-0.8s LCP vs 1.1-1.6s) but the build cost is 2-3× higher and the complexity is real. Right for ~15% of mid-market sites.
№ 01The longer answer
Architecture: WordPress lives at a separate domain (e.g. cms.yoursite.com) and is locked to authenticated requests + your team’s IPs. The public site (yoursite.com) is a Next.js or Astro front-end that fetches content from the WordPress API at build time or request time, renders to HTML, and serves from a CDN edge.
Worth it when: site traffic is 100K+ monthly sessions, the team has React engineers, the front-end has interactive complexity beyond forms and content, programmatic SEO at scale (1,000+ template-driven pages), and the build budget supports $20K+ initial.
Not worth it when: under 100K traffic, no React engineers on the team, front-end is mostly content + simple forms, build budget under $20K. For 85% of mid-market B2B, traditional WordPress with good hosting and FSE delivers 95% of the performance benefit at 30% of the cost.
Trade-offs people don’t mention: authoring preview is harder (requires extra plumbing), plugin marketplace doesn’t fully apply (you re-implement Yoast SEO output, Gravity Forms submission handling, etc. on the front-end), and hiring is harder (React + WordPress engineer is a smaller talent pool at 2-3× the hourly rate).
№ 02What stack do you use for headless?
WordPress + WPGraphQL on Kinsta. Next.js 14 App Router on the front-end, deployed to Vercel. Static generation for marketing pages, ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration) for blog/news. Cloudflare or Vercel image optimization.
№ 03How much does headless WordPress cost to build?
$18K-$45K depending on complexity. Plus $75-$250/mo infrastructure for low-medium traffic, $300-$800/mo for high traffic.
№ 04Can I migrate from traditional WordPress to headless?
Yes — content stays in WordPress, you build the new front-end. Migration is typically 30-60 days. We’ve done it three times for mid-market clients with serious traffic / programmatic SEO needs.
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