Headless CMS: When It's Worth It, and When Standard WordPress Is Enough
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A headless CMS is worth it when page speed and staying online matter to your business, or when your content also has to appear in a mobile app. For a website your team builds with a page builder like Elementor, standard WordPress is usually the better CMS solution.
Headless CMS vs Traditional CMS:
Which Fits Your Business?
Headless CMS
Page speedFast by default
If the CMS breaksPages stay live
Adding a mobile app laterEasy to connect
Page builders like ElementorDon't work
Best forSpeed and uptime
Standard WordPress
Page speedNeeds heavy caching
If the CMS breaksSite can go down
Adding a mobile app laterTakes extra work
Page builders like ElementorWork as usual
Best forPage builder sites
Choose headless when page speed and staying online matter to your business, or when product details, prices or opening hours also have to show in your mobile app.
Choose standard WordPress when your team builds pages in a page builder like Elementor, or relies on plugins that show on the website, such as a booking calendar or an online shop.
What Is a Headless Content Management System?
A headless CMS is a content management system that stores your content and hands it to a separate website or app to show. Traditional content management systems run the editing screen and the website as one system.
HOW WE BUILD WEBSITESOur own website runs headless: we edit it in WordPress, and a Next.js front end shows it to visitors. Headless is our default WordPress website build, at our usual website design prices, and we build a standard site when it suits the project better or the client asks.
Headless CMS Architecture: How the Editor and the Website Split
Traditional CMS platforms like WordPress keep your words and images and also build each page a visitor sees. A headless CMS separates content management from the frontend, so the editor your team logs into and the website visitors see become two halves that talk to each other. That split is the whole concept of a headless CMS, which is why it is also called a decoupled CMS.
- The editor. The CMS focuses on content alone. Your content team writes in the editing screen the CMS provides, a content repository that stores content in separate fields, such as a title, a summary and images. That set of fields is the content model.
- The website. A separate front end takes that content and decides how the content is displayed. It is designed and built on its own.
- The connection. The two halves deliver content through APIs, a standard way for one system to fetch data from another. The same structured content can feed the website and a mobile app.
A headless architecture decouples content from presentation, so each half can be updated and changed on its own.
Benefits of a Headless CMS for a Business Website
Compared to traditional CMS websites, the benefits of headless CMS platforms show up for visitors first, then for the people running the site.
Pages That Load Fast
The front end prepares each page ahead of time and serves it ready to show. A standard build makes each page on request and needs heavy caching to match that speed.
Set up well, a busy day also puts less load on the server, according to the Next.js documentation. A page that appears at once keeps a visitor on a phone.
A Site That Stays Up Through Updates
On our builds, a headless CMS allows the website to keep showing the last good version of every page if a CMS or plugin update fails.
Visitors keep seeing a working site until the fault is fixed behind the scenes.
One Source for Your Website and Mobile App
A headless CMS enables one product description to reach the website, a mobile app or any other digital platform.
For a business publishing content across multiple platforms, content delivery comes from one place, so each update is written once.
An Editing Screen Kept Out of Sight
Visitors only ever reach the front end, so the login page and plugins sit out of their reach. The editing screen has its own address, which can be locked down separately.
Both halves need security updates and monitoring, and our support plans cover each of them.
Get a Straight Answer on Headless
for Your Website
Tell us what your website has to do. We will tell you whether to use headless or a standard build, and quote a fixed price with a launch date.
Book a Free Discovery SessionThree Types of Headless CMS Platform
and What Each Costs
A studio that pitches headless is usually offering one of three kinds of CMS platform. Each kind of CMS built for headless keeps your content in a different place and comes with its own monthly bill.
Hosted Platforms
Hosted headless CMS systems such as Contentful keep your content on their servers and serve it to various platforms for a subscription. Contentful’s pricing page lists a free plan with set limits, and its Lite plan for smaller businesses at US$300 a month. Hosting for the website itself comes on top.
The fee runs for as long as the website does, and switching later means moving your content and its connections to a new system.
Open-Source Systems
Open-source headless CMSs cost nothing to licence and run on a server your developer sets up. You pay for that hosting and for someone to keep the system updated and secure. Some also sell a hosted version with support for a monthly fee.
Before choosing a less common system, check how easily another developer could take it over.
Headless WordPress
WordPress costs nothing to licence and can hand its content to a separate front end, so your team keeps the editor it already knows. You pay for hosting both halves and their upkeep, which with us starts at $50 a month.
If your team already uses it, the best headless CMS is often the one you have. Our websites are built this way. It runs about 40% of all websites, according to W3Techs, so plenty of developers can look after the editing side.
Headless Content Management:
What Changes for Your Editors
What Stays the Same
- Logging in and publishing. Content editors log in, manage content and publish it the way they did before, in the same editor.
- Editor plugins. Plugins that add content management features inside the editor, such as user roles, keep working.
- Forms and SEO settings. On our builds, contact forms and SEO settings come built in, so editors fill them in as usual.
What Works Differently
- Previewing a page. In a headless content management system, a preview has to be built in. On our builds, editors press Preview and see the finished page first.
- Page builders and sliders. In a headless setup, they do nothing on the website until a developer builds that feature in.
- New kinds of section. Editors choose from the sections the developer built. A new one is web development work, quoted at a fixed price.
Is a Headless CMS Good for SEO?
It can be, when the front end serves complete pages. Google’s own guide recommends serving pages ready-made, because it makes a website faster for users and for Google’s crawler. Three things decide it at launch:
- Pages Google can read. Each page arrives with its text in place, and the editing system is kept out of search results.
- SEO settings on the public site. Page titles, descriptions and the sitemap show up correctly on the website visitors see.
- Redirects from the old website. If page addresses change, each old one points to its new page from launch day, to help search engines carry its history across.
With a headless approach, whoever looks after the website updates both halves together.
So, Should You Choose a Headless CMS?
Four checks match your use case to a headless build or to one of the traditional CMSs. Speed or a mobile app points to headless, and a page builder your team relies on points to a standard build.
Ask How Much Speed Matters
If customers reach you on their phones from ads or search, page speed affects sales, and a headless build serves each page ready to show. A small site with little traffic gains less from it.
Count Where Your Content Goes
If the website is the only place your content appears, a standard build covers it. If a mobile app needs the same content, it pays to use a headless CMS.
Check Whether You Rely on a Page Builder
If your content creators build new pages with a page builder plugin such as Elementor and want to keep doing so, choose a standard build. On a headless site, page builders do nothing, so using a headless CMS suits a team that edits text and images in set sections.
Compare the Running Costs
Ask each studio what hosting both halves costs each month, plus any platform fee, and see the editor preview working before you sign. We build both kinds at the same price, from $2,999 + GST, so with us the choice rests on the first three checks.
Get a Fixed Price
for Your Headless Website
We scope your website on a free call, then quote a fixed price and a launch date for building it.
Book a Free Discovery Session