Boutique WordPress operations.
Senior engineers, end to end. No junior handoffs, no offshore ticket queues, no Slack channel where your emergency goes to die. We take fewer clients on purpose — and run their sites like we run our own.
I started WP Pirates because too many businesses were getting burned.
“I'm Andrew Ivanov. I started WP Pirates in 2020 after years of watching businesses lose customers to slow, unmaintained, and quietly hacked WordPress sites — usually because their previous ‘agency’ had three layers between the site and someone who actually knew what was wrong. I built WP Pirates to be the opposite: senior engineers on every engagement, direct access, written reports.”
We're boutique by design. Senior engineers run your work end to end — no juniors bouncing your site between staging and prod at 11pm, no account manager translating between you and the people doing the work.
If that's the model you want — direct access, no upselling, plain-English reports — let's talk.
Six years of WordPress, one focused practice.
WP Pirates begins
Andrew founds WP Pirates after years of cleaning up other people's WordPress disasters.
First retainer fleet
Crossed 50 sites under continuous management — staging-tested updates, weekly health reports, off-site backups.
Premium SLA introduced
Contractual 30-minute emergency response added for revenue-critical clients with that need.
150+ sites, senior-led throughout
Same model: senior engineers, named access, written reports, no agency layers.
Specific commitments, not platitudes.
The vague stuff every agency claims (integrity, excellence) is table stakes. These are the specific rules we run engagements by.
Every change is tested in staging first
No exceptions, even at 3am. If you don't have staging, the first thing we do is set one up.
You get a written report, not a sales call
Findings, prioritized fixes, what's urgent vs. nice-to-have — all in plain English, in your inbox.
Named access, never shared credentials
We get our own named admin users with audit logging — removed when the engagement ends.
If we can't help, we'll tell you
Some sites don't need maintenance, they need a rebuild. We'd rather lose the deal than take it under false pretenses.
Cancel anytime, no contract lock-in
Maintenance plans are month-to-month. If we're not earning the retainer, you should be able to leave without a fight.
Backup before every update
Off-site, encrypted, restorable. The plugin update that breaks your checkout shouldn't also lose you yesterday's orders.
Where we focus — and where we don't.
Boutique works because we're selective. These are the engagements we politely decline — and where we'll point you instead.
Greenfield design from scratch
We're not the right shop for net-new brand sites. We'll occasionally rebuild for an existing maintenance client when their site has reached the end of its life — but greenfield isn't what we're here for.
Sites outside our wheelhouse
If the platform fits a different specialist better — Shopify migrations, custom web apps, marketing automation builds — we'll say so and point you at someone who'll do well by you.
Race-to-the-bottom retainers
We'd rather work with a few dozen clients who value the work than a few hundred who treat WordPress maintenance like a $29 commodity.
Want to see what we'd do with your site?
Send us your URL. You'll get a written assessment back — performance, security, maintenance gaps — within a business day.