Newsroom-grade WordPress builds, by a developer who shipped at one of Canada’s largest news networks across more than a dozen metro newspaper sites. If your newsroom runs on WordPress and the platform is fighting your editors, your ad ops team, and your performance budget at the same time, you do not need another redesign. You need someone who has been inside that exact problem.
WordPress since 2007 · custom post types, REST endpoints, Gutenberg blocks, WP-CLI, and site-specific plugin architecture · 21 plugins published on WordPress.org · $275/hr CAD · Fort Erie, Ontario
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The problem you’re sitting in right now
Newsrooms have a specific kind of WordPress problem. The site is publishing 30 to 300 articles a day, the ad stack is paying the bills, the front-end is fighting Core Web Vitals, the editors want a CMS that respects deadline pressure, and somewhere in the middle is a paywall or membership system that nobody fully understands anymore.
Most agencies who pitch newsroom work built brochure sites last and assume scale is a hosting problem. It is not. It is an editorial-workflow problem, an ad-integration problem, a caching-strategy problem, and a “what happens when the same story is updated nine times in two hours” problem. All at once.
What I build for newsrooms
- Editorial workflows that respect the desk. Custom post statuses, embargo handling, version notes, byline and contributor models that match how your newsroom actually credits work.
- Ad-stack integration that does not destroy LCP. GAM/GPT, header bidding, lazy-loaded slots, sticky units, sponsored-content models, and the cache-friendliness work that lets all of the above coexist with a serious performance budget.
- Performance at scale. Object caching, page caching, edge rules, image pipelines, and the database hygiene that keeps the admin usable when the post table crosses a million rows.
- Paywall and membership. Metered access, registered-reader walls, subscription integration, and the “let search bots in but not the freeloaders” patterns that paid news depends on.
- Section and topic architecture. Taxonomy design that holds up across a decade of editorial drift, with the redirects to back it when sections get reorganised.
- Migration support. Off legacy CMS platforms, off WordPress versions that are too old to update safely, off custom infrastructure built by a vendor who is no longer around.
What this is not
- Not editorial. I do not write your news, manage your desk, or set editorial policy. I build the platform that lets the newsroom do its job.
- Not ad sales. I integrate the ad stack you already have, and I will tell you when the stack itself is the problem. I do not sell ad inventory.
- Not print production. Web only.
- Not “we’ll just install a newspaper theme from ThemeForest.” If that was the right answer, you would not be reading this page.
Who this is for
- Fit. Local and regional newspaper sites running WordPress whose editorial volume has outgrown the original build.
- Fit. Independent and not-for-profit news organizations who need a platform that punches above its budget.
- Fit. Newsroom networks consolidating multiple legacy properties onto a shared multisite or shared-codebase WordPress deployment.
- Not fit. Hyperlocal blogs publishing under five posts a week. WordPress out of the box already serves you well.
- Not fit. Publishers committed to a platform other than WordPress. I will not pitch you off Drupal or Arc just because I would prefer to build in WordPress.
What happens after the call
The 20-minute discovery call is free. We talk through your editorial volume, your current pain points, your ad and paywall stack, and what success looks like 90 days from now. By the end of the call I will tell you whether the next step is a paid scoping engagement, a fixed-fee build, an audit, or a referral elsewhere.
Why work with me on this specifically
- Prior portfolio work for one of Canada’s largest news networks during the 2011–2012 platform migration. More than a dozen metro newspaper properties, shared codebase, real editorial volume, real ad-stack constraints.
- 19 years on WordPress. The newsroom-specific work is on top of a long base of general WordPress engineering.
- Author of practical WordPress and SEO articles read by site owners across Canada and the United States. Speaker at WordCamp Toronto.
- Senior-developer rate, $275 CAD/hr. Newsroom engagements are quoted fixed-fee or retainer; the rate informs the quote.
- Independent client work, off the day-job hours at Sherwin-Williams.
Common questions
What proof do you have of the newsroom work?
Publicly available proof is limited right now: newsroom clients from more than a decade ago have not cleared named case studies, and a newsroom-specific case study is in preparation, waiting on the next engagement to close with the buyer’s permission. The published case studies on this site cover corporate training and finishing-industry builds; the newsroom chapter will appear when permission clears. A discovery call is the practical option if you want to hear what the newsroom work involved.
Do you support Multisite networks?
Yes, and I have been building and maintaining multisite networks since WordPress 3.0, including a large-scale newsroom deployment. Whether multisite fits your network depends on your editorial governance model and how much theme and component variance exists across your sites. Working through the fit question is a discovery-call conversation.
Can you integrate our existing GAM and header-bidding setup?
Yes, I work with your existing GAM and header-bidding setup rather than asking your ad ops team to rebuild what already runs. I’ll be straight with you when the stack is creating more drag on performance than it needs to.
What about paywalls: piano, pico, custom?
I’ve integrated Piano and Pico in production and built custom metered access for publishers whose needs don’t map cleanly to commercial platform constraints. Choosing between those paths comes down to your subscriber volume and whether your existing billing infrastructure ties into a CRM you already trust.
How quickly can you start?
A discovery call typically happens within the same week you reach out. Scoping work begins within two weeks of a signed agreement, and build start dates depend on the size of the engagement and what is already on the calendar.
What a newsroom engagement costs
The senior-developer rate is $275 CAD/hr. Newsroom builds ladder by publication volume, ad stack, and paywall sophistication:
- Local Leader (from $8,000): Community and weekly newspaper sites. Editorial workflow, schema, performance pass, basic ad-slot integration.
- Regional News (from $20,000): Regional publishers with a serious ad stack, paywall or metered access, and editorial volume that needs proper post-status workflow.
- National Influencer (from $75,000+): Multi-property newsroom networks, GAM/header-bidding integration, sticky-unit performance work, multi-author governance, archive integrity at scale. See the canonical newsroom service page.
Most newsroom engagements start with the deep-dive audit ($2,200), the procurement-ready report that scopes the build and routes the engagement. Audit hours credit forward against the build.
When you are ready
If your newsroom WordPress site is the bottleneck rather than the asset, the 20-minute call is the lowest-friction way to figure out the next move.