Portus vs WordPress

You can have a professional website without managing WordPress or plugins. Compare what Portus takes care of with the work involved in your chosen WordPress setup.

The practical choice

WordPress is a good fit when direct publishing control and a flexible content management system are important, and someone is ready to operate the setup. Portus fits a small professional-services firm that wants a website created, written and kept current without managing that system.

There is no single WordPress arrangement. A self-hosted website involves choices about the host, themes, plugins and maintenance provider. WordPress.com and other managed arrangements handle different parts of the work. The practical comparison is with the actual setup you intend to use.

If you mainly need service explanations, team information, resources and contact pages, Portus gives that work a continuing home. You can concentrate on the information your business needs to share.

Compare the work and the service

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Compare the work and the service
Decision	Portus	WordPress
What you buy	Creation, writing and continuing website care	CMS software and the hosting/provider arrangement you choose
Best fit	Small informational sites with low owner involvement	Direct publishing, flexible CMS workflows and broader customization
Content and design	We organize, write and build from your information	You or a hired provider produces and maintains the content
Hosting and upkeep	Hosting, SSL, backups and maintenance included	Responsibilities vary between self-hosted and managed arrangements
Routine changes	Send requests; unlimited under fair use, no fixed SLA	Edit in the CMS or use a retained provider
Search work	Technical SEO/AEO plus ongoing content and optimization	Depends on configuration, themes, plugins, content and retained expertise
Performance	Controlled-page 90+ standard with the conditions below	Depends on hosting, implementation, assets and maintenance
Security architecture	Static core without a public CMS database or plugin stack	Managed and self-hosted configurations differ; updates and access still matter
Language, scale and email	Plan-based languages/scale; one Workspace seat	The chosen setup and additional services determine the provision
Dynamic features	Lightweight connections; complex apps and ecommerce excluded	Broad plugin and customization options can suit dynamic requirements
Costs and ownership	Published monthly service and minimum commitment	Include hosting, production, themes/plugins and support; portability depends on arrangement

Lake starts at $99/month USD with a 12-month minimum. Sea is $249/month and Ocean $449/month, each with a six-month minimum. Lake includes one language; Sea and Ocean include English and Spanish. Roughly 50, 100 and 200 pages describe scale over time, not caps or launch quantities. Monthly card billing starts on day one, with payment required before production; after the minimum, renewal is month to month. An unpaid minimum remains due if you leave early.

Your domain and original materials remain yours. The assembled website files transfer once the applicable minimum is fully paid. Every plan includes one Google Workspace email seat; additional seats cost Google’s applicable list price plus 20%, with a normal fit ceiling around 20 seats. Direct billing with Google is also an option.

Our 90+ PageSpeed Performance standard covers mobile and desktop pages we build and control under agreed measurement conditions. We remediate controlled code and asset problems. External services, outages, embeds and client-added code outside our control are excluded; Google Tag Manager is not automatically excluded when we control its implementation and tags. Neither a performance score nor SEO/AEO work guarantees rankings, AI citations or business results.

Choose for the work you want to own

Imagine a small consultancy with useful proposals and an outdated website, but no one who wants to maintain plugins or publish pages. Portus can turn the existing knowledge into the site and handle routine changes. That is a reason to choose the service even when a more flexible CMS is available.

Now imagine a firm with an active publishing team, established WordPress workflows and a dependable technical provider. Keeping direct CMS control may be the better decision. Plugin-driven commerce, memberships or complex dynamic behavior can also justify a different model from Portus’s standard informational site.

The choice should follow your publishing needs and who will do the work. Compare service and builder responsibilities.

Questions about this choice

Is Portus a WordPress hosting company?

No. We generally build static informational websites and manage them as an ongoing service. See the static-versus-WordPress explanation.

Is WordPress a poor choice for a small business?

No. Its flexibility can be valuable when someone owns the decisions about setup, content, updates, performance and security. Managed providers can take on parts of that responsibility.

Can you use my existing WordPress content?

Existing copy, images and business information can be starting material. The work needed to replace or migrate a site depends on its content and functionality; a migration is not automatically a routine edit.

Does every Portus plan include SEO?

Yes. Search engine optimization (SEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) include a technical foundation and ongoing monitoring, optimization and useful content work. Results are not guaranteed.

What if I need a store or customer portal?

Those need a different or separately defined solution. They are outside the standard Portus informational-site model.

See what Portus would take care of

You do not need to organize every file or master WordPress before moving forward. Tell us what the current site needs to do and send the useful material you already have.

Start today · Compare the full plans · See selected work