Advisory, architecture, and migration
Headless CMS Consulting for Growing Teams
Pick the right platform. Model your content so editors love it and developers can live with it. Plan a migration off WordPress with eyes open — not with crossed fingers. Vendor-neutral, written deliverables, senior-led.
NJ SBE & MBE certified · Building for NJ businesses since 2014 · Senior-led · Free, no-pressure estimate
Most headless projects do not fail because the platform is wrong
They fail because the content model was designed by developers in a vacuum, because no one interviewed the editors, because preview never worked, or because the migration plan was a Notion page with “move content” as a single bullet. The platform matters, but the decisions around it matter more.
We have been on both sides of this — shipping headless platforms for clients and rescuing headless projects that went off the rails. The pages below explain what we actually do and what we will not pretend to do.
Who we work with
- Marketing teams outgrowing WordPress, Drupal, or Sitecore
- Product teams building on Next.js who need a CMS that editors will actually use
- Agencies evaluating a headless stack for a client engagement
- Engineering leads auditing an in-flight headless build that is going off the rails
- Founders choosing between Strapi, Sanity, Contentful, Hygraph, and WordPress headless
What we actually do
Platform selection and trade-off analysis
Vendor-neutral comparison of Strapi, Sanity, Contentful, Hygraph, Payload, Storyblok, and WordPress headless against your team size, editor needs, localization, budget, and scale. You get a written recommendation you can hand to stakeholders.
Schema and content-model design
Content models that editors understand and developers can live with for years. Reusable blocks, sensible relations, preview and draft workflows, and a migration path for when requirements change.
Migration from WordPress, Drupal, or a monolith
Migration planning done properly: content mapping, URL and redirect strategy, image pipeline, search console and analytics continuity, editor re-training. We are honest about the risks — every migration has them — and we plan so they are small, known, and monitored, not invisible.
Architecture and integration review
Audit of an existing headless stack — preview, caching, ISR/SSG/SSR boundaries, build times, webhook reliability. You get a prioritized punch list you can execute with your team or with us.
Editor UX and preview workflows
Most headless builds fail because editors hate the CMS. We design live-preview setups, block libraries, and role-based workflows that marketing actually wants to use.
Vendor negotiation and right-sizing
We have sat on the other side of Contentful and Sanity pricing conversations. We help you avoid buying a tier you do not need and plan for the scale where upgrades make sense.
Deliverables
- A written recommendation document with the platform(s) we chose and why, and what we ruled out
- A content model (ER diagram + field-level spec) your team can implement in any of the top headless platforms
- A migration plan with URL map, redirect list, timeline, and risk register
- A sample pilot implementation (usually one content type wired into a preview environment) so your team can evaluate before committing
- A training session for editors and developers on the chosen stack
Platforms we regularly evaluate and implement
We are vendor-neutral. The right answer depends on your team and your content — not on what we happen to know best.
Strapi
Self-hosted, open source, great when you need custom logic in the CMS itself.
Sanity
Real-time collaboration, powerful query language, excellent editor UX.
Contentful
Enterprise-friendly, localization, strong workflow features — at a price.
Hygraph
GraphQL-first, good content federation across teams.
Payload
TypeScript-native, self-hosted, lives inside your Next.js monorepo.
WordPress headless
When you need Gutenberg but a modern frontend, WPGraphQL makes this viable.
Storyblok
Visual editor that non-technical users love; good for marketing-heavy sites.
How we work
01
Free 30-minute scoping call
You walk us through the problem: current stack, team, timeline, constraints. We tell you honestly whether consulting is the right move or if you should just hire a dev shop to execute.
02
Discovery and stakeholder interviews
We interview engineering, marketing, and leadership to capture the real requirements. Most headless projects fail because this step is skipped.
03
Written recommendation and content model
You get a document, not a slide deck. Platform recommendation, trade-offs, content model, and a pilot plan. We walk you through it and revise once.
04
Pilot implementation (optional)
Two to three weeks of hands-on work: one content type wired into a preview environment on the recommended stack, with your developers pairing if desired.
05
Handoff or continued partnership
Your team takes it and runs, or we scope an implementation engagement and build it with you. Either is fine.
When we are not the right fit
- If you already know which platform you want and you just need implementation, go straight to our CMS integration service.
- If you want an ads agency or SEO content farm, we are not it — we consult on the engineering side of content operations.
- If you want a vendor recommendation that comes with a kickback to us, we do not take referral fees. Our recommendations have no financial conflict of interest.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from your CMS integration service?
Our CMS integration service builds and ships the system. This is the advisory and strategy work that should happen before a build — platform choice, content modeling, migration planning. Some clients do consulting with us and then implement in-house; others do both with us in sequence.
How long does a consulting engagement take?
Strategy-only engagements typically run three to six weeks. Add a pilot implementation and you are at six to ten weeks total.
What does it cost?
It depends on the size of your content, the number of stakeholders we need to interview, and whether you want a pilot implementation on top of the strategy work. We do not publish a rate card because a three-stakeholder strategy engagement and a ten-stakeholder audit-plus-pilot are very different projects. After the scoping call we send a written, fixed-scope estimate.
Do you take referral fees from CMS vendors?
No. Our recommendations have no financial conflict of interest. We occasionally partner with vendors for joint enterprise deals, and when we do, we disclose it up front.
Can you work with our in-house engineers?
Yes, and most of our consulting engagements are structured this way. We can also pair with your team on the pilot if you want to build internal capability while we advise.
We already started a headless migration and it is not going well. Can you help?
Often, yes. We do short audit engagements where we review the existing architecture, talk to the team, and deliver a prioritized punch list plus a go-forward recommendation. If the project should be rebooted, we will say that — and explain why.
Ready to build? See our CMS integration service, or learn about the WebBits team.
Ready to get your CMS strategy right?
Book a free 30-minute consultation with our team. We'll listen, share honest feedback, and help you map out a plan—no pressure, no jargon.