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DecisionsStack foundation: WP + Etch + ACSS + ACF Pro

Stack foundation — WordPress + Etch + ACSS + ACF Pro

Context

Blackbyrd is productizing a non-profit web service offering. The stack choice anchors the entire offering — its build velocity, its ecosystem, its hireability, its margins. Default options considered:

  • WordPress + visual builder (Bricks, Etch, Breakdance, Elementor)
  • WordPress block themes (FSE) with custom blocks
  • Headless WordPress + Next.js
  • Greenfield Next.js + headless CMS (Sanity, Payload, Strapi)

Decision

WordPress + Etch (theme + plugin) + Automatic.css + ACF Pro is the default stack for all non-profit clients. Hosted on GridPane on Vultr, fronted by Cloudflare.

Rationale

Three factors drove the call:

  1. Editor UX wins for non-technical content editors. NP boards, EDs, and volunteer staff are familiar with WordPress. Switching costs to Sanity / Payload / Strapi are real (training time, error rate). The productization play targets NPs that need a system their existing people can use, not a system that requires a developer in the loop.

  2. Unit economics break at headless price points. WP hosting + license amortization runs ~$25–35 per client per month. Headless equivalents (Vercel Pro + Sanity Pro + managed Postgres) start at $80–150/mo per client. Care plan margins evaporate at headless cost structure unless we charge $600+/mo, which most NPs can’t support. The premium Headless tier targets for-profit businesses precisely because it requires those price points.

  3. Etch’s roadmap closes the developer-velocity gap. Etch ships Recipes (importable code snippets), Components API (3rd-party native element registration), and PHP Authoring inline — features that make WP+Etch competitive with code-first frameworks for build velocity. See reference_etch_roadmap.md in memory.

Consequences

  • Every NP client repo is blackbyrd-creative/[slug]-site with the same plugin stack
  • Build patterns (CPTs, ACF field groups, Etch templates) compound across clients — onboarding target is 4 weeks for typical NP rebuild after the first
  • The premium Headless tier is a separate product line, not an upgrade path. Different stack, different buyers, different price points. Documented separately.
  • Etch’s roadmap matters — re-check at each major project milestone for new features that change the workflow.
  • decisions/2026-04-27-hangar-unified-platform.mdx — the platform that ties it all together
  • decisions/2026-04-27-license-centralization.mdx — the licensing model
  • stack/overview.mdx — the canonical stack reference
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