ManicSoup Labs · Questions
Questions, answered straight.
No sales language. If an answer is going to cost you money or take longer than you'd like, it says so.
The platform
Why WordPress?
Because you can leave. WordPress is open source, and your site, your content, and your data belong to you. If you ever stop working with me, your site keeps running, and any WordPress developer in the world can pick it up where I left off.
That last part is the whole argument, and it's the one nobody selling you a closed platform will make.
Squarespace, Wix, and the church-specific site builders own the box your website lives in. Your content is inside their system, built with their tools, on their servers. When you leave — and organizations do leave, usually over price increases or a feature that never arrives — you leave with a copy of your text and nothing else. No design, no structure, no functionality. You start over.
There's a second reason, and it's the one that matters for the work I do: WordPress is the only platform where, when it can't do the thing you need, the thing can be built. On a closed platform, "it doesn't do that" is the end of the conversation. Here it's the start of one.
Isn't WordPress insecure?
WordPress itself is not the problem — outdated plugins, weak passwords, and cheap hosting are. A maintained WordPress site on decent hosting is as secure as anything else on the web. An abandoned one is a liability, and that's true of every platform.
This is exactly why I sell care plans, and why I publish an activity log plugin. A site nobody is watching is a site waiting to be a problem.
Why Divi?
Because your staff can actually use it. Divi is the page builder I build on, and Divi 5 is a genuine rewrite with a faster rendering engine and cleaner output. But the real reason is this: the person who runs your office can change service times, swap a photo, or post an announcement without calling me, and without being able to break the design.
I take that seriously because I've watched the alternative play out. A site that only the developer can update is a site that goes stale within six months. Announcements get old, the calendar shows last year's events, and eventually the organization stops pointing people at their own website. The most elegant custom build in the world loses to a slightly plainer one your team keeps current.
Isn't Divi slow and bloated?
Divi 4 earned some of that reputation. Divi 5 is a rebuild, not a patch. And in practice, most slow Divi sites are slow because of unoptimized images, no caching, and cheap shared hosting — not because of Divi.
If your current Divi site is slow, that's usually a fixable configuration problem, and it's one of the first things I look at.
I'm on Divi 4. Do I have to move to Divi 5?
Not immediately, but you should plan for it. Divi 5 is where development is going, and staying on 4 indefinitely means falling further behind on performance and features. A migration done carefully is not disruptive — done carelessly, it breaks layouts. The care is the whole job.
I do these migrations regularly and can tell you, after a look at your site, whether yours is straightforward or complicated, before you commit to anything.
Working with me
Who builds your site?
Larry Hearn, RScP, CADC-II, ICADC, SAP. You talk to the person doing the work. There is no account manager relaying messages, and nothing gets handed off to someone who has never spoken to you.
I built my first website in 2000 and have not stopped since. More than 50 are live and under my care right now, and I publish two WordPress plugins in the official WordPress directory. I handle the SEO and social media side too, because a site nobody finds isn't finished.
I'm also a certified substance use disorder counselor and educator, and I've spent years training and mentoring other counselors. I mention it because it shapes how I work: the principle I was trained on is unconditional positive regard — meeting people exactly where they are, without judgment. Most people come to me a little embarrassed about their website. Nobody needs to be.
Why you instead of a bigger agency?
Because an agency will assign you a junior and bill you for a project manager. I work alone on purpose — you get the person who is actually accountable for the result, and the price reflects work rather than overhead.
The honest trade-off: an agency has more hands, so if you need twelve pages by Friday, that's a real advantage. For a system that has to be right, one person who understands it end to end beats a team that hands it off three times.
What kinds of businesses do you work with?
Independent professionals, small service businesses, and member organizations. A home-services company needing a site that books work and tracks punch lists, a professional association needing a credential registry, a publisher needing subscriptions — the underlying problems are more alike than they look.
I don't have an industry I only serve. I have a kind of problem I'm good at: a site that has to do real work, built so the owner can still run it.
Ownership and continuity
Do I own my website?
Completely. You own the domain, the hosting account, the content, the database, and the site itself. I don't hold anything hostage, and there is no clause that makes leaving expensive. If you want to move to another developer, I hand over everything and help with the transition.
Can my staff or volunteers update the site after you're done?
Yes, and that's the design goal, not an afterthought. I build so that a non-technical person can change text, swap photos, post announcements, and add events without touching code. Every project includes training for whoever will be doing that, plus written documentation.
I'll also be honest about where the line is. Editing a page is easy. Restructuring how a giving system calculates designated funds is not, and you shouldn't want it to be.
What happens if you become unavailable?
Your site keeps running, and any WordPress developer can take it over. That's a deliberate consequence of building on standard WordPress with proper documentation, rather than a proprietary system nobody else can touch. You have the logins, the documentation, and full access to everything.
Fair question to ask any small shop. The answer should never be "don't worry about it."
Money and logistics
What does a project cost?
Refreshes start at $1,800, new builds at $3,500, and custom systems at $7,500. Hosting is $19 a month and care plans start at $95. Those are published on the services page — I don't make you email to find out whether you can afford me.
Every number is a starting point, not a wall. Tell me your budget and what you actually need, and I'll tell you straight what's possible inside it — or whether you'd be better served by something simpler. I'd rather scope a project you can afford than sell you one you can't.
Every project gets a written scope and a fixed price before you pay anything, so the number you agree to is the number you pay. See the full pricing.
My budget is small. Can you still help?
Probably, but maybe not with a custom build. Tell me the number and what you need, and I'll tell you honestly what fits inside it.
I'd rather point you somewhere honest than sell you a project you can't afford.
Do I have to change hosting?
No, I can work with your existing host. But if you want me to handle it, I offer hosting at $19 a month, which is usually less than organizations are already paying for hosting nobody is managing.
If your current host is the reason your site is slow or keeps going down, I'll say so.
What's included in a care plan?
Updates, backups, uptime monitoring, security watching, and a person who answers when something breaks. Essential is $95 a month; Priority is $195 a month for sites running payments or memberships, where downtime costs money.
WordPress sites are not appliances. The ones that stay healthy are the ones someone is actually watching.
My site is broken right now. Can you just fix it?
Yes. White screens, fatal errors after an update, and plugin conflicts are their own service — you don't need to commit to a rebuild.
I publish Culprit, the plugin that finds what broke a WordPress site, which should tell you how often I deal with this.
Still have a question?
Ask it. Thirty minutes, free, no pitch.