Build

Headless CMS development

Your marketing team waits days for content changes. That's a revenue problem.

100+

Sites shipped

0.8s

Avg page load

12

Weeks to launch

Trusted by teams at

VodafoneNikeGeneral ElectricMicrosoftT-MobileBank of America

The Problem

What problem does this service solve?

Your marketing team can't publish content without developer involvement. Every landing page change, blog update, and campaign page runs through a ticket queue that delays launches, burns cycles, and kills content velocity.

A 3-day average delay on 50 content updates a month is 150 lost publishing days a year. Meanwhile, only 36% of WordPress sites on mobile pass Core Web Vitals - so your pages rank lower than they should while your team patches the plugin stack that causes 97% of WordPress security issues.

What you get

  • A marketing site where content teams publish independently - no tickets, no code
  • Sub-second page loads with Core Web Vitals scores that beat WordPress alternatives
  • SEO infrastructure that runs automatically instead of depending on 14 plugins

Overview

What is Headless CMS development?

Your marketing site should work for your content team, not against them. We build headless CMS architectures where editors publish, preview, and iterate - without code, without tickets, without waiting.

Marketing teams lose weeks every month waiting for developers to make content changes. Every landing page tweak, blog post, and campaign page runs through a ticket queue that kills momentum right when the team has it.

We build headless CMS architectures where your content team publishes, previews, and iterates without writing code or opening a ticket. The frontend is fast, SEO-clean, and decoupled from the content layer so both teams move at their own speed.

You get a publishing system that strips developer dependency out of content ops and delivers sub-second page loads search engines actually reward.

Experience Signal

Shipped 100+ web applications including headless CMS sites for SaaS marketers, media publishers, and multi-brand platforms. 12 weeks is our default, not our stretch goal.

What we build

Headless CMS development services we deliver

WordPress and Drupal migrations

Full migration to a headless stack with URL preservation, redirect mapping, and a clean transfer of the SEO equity you already earned.

Marketing site builds

Component-driven Next.js marketing sites where marketers build landing pages from reusable blocks - not from a ticket to engineering.

Editorial and publishing platforms

High-velocity publishing workflows for media and content teams with authors, categories, cross-references, and automated internal linking.

Multi-brand and multi-tenant CMS

Shared frontend with per-brand content workspaces so three marketing sites don't need three engineering teams.

Structured content modeling

Content models built around how your team actually writes and publishes - not a default template the CMS vendor shipped with.

Live preview and editor workflows

Live preview, draft states, and role-based workflows so editors ship with confidence and never publish broken pages.

SEO infrastructure automation

Sitemaps, meta tags, JSON-LD structured data, and redirect handling generated automatically - no plugin spiderweb.

Core Web Vitals performance

Static generation, ISR, and CDN caching tuned to hit green Core Web Vitals under real traffic, not a lab test.

Fit

Is this service right for you?

Good fit

  • Marketing teams tired of filing tickets for every content change
  • SaaS companies iterating on messaging weekly instead of quarterly
  • Media publishers and editorial teams that live and die by velocity
  • Orgs moving off WordPress or Drupal to something faster and less fragile
  • Multi-brand operators running separate marketing sites on different platforms

Not the right fit

  • Brochure sites with under 10 pages and almost no content changes
  • Teams looking for WordPress theme customization
  • Projects where content ops isn't actually a bottleneck

Process

How does Headless CMS development delivery work?

1
Phase 1· Week 1-2

Content model and CMS selection

We audit existing content, map editorial workflows, and design a content model that matches how your team actually works. CMS choice - Sanity, Contentful, or Strapi - lands here based on team size, content complexity, and publishing patterns.

Deliverables

  • Content model with structured types and relationships
  • CMS platform recommendation with rationale
  • Editorial workflow design with roles and permissions
2
Phase 2· Week 2-4

Frontend build and CMS integration

We build the Next.js frontend with component-driven pages that pull from your CMS. Live preview lands for editors, and performance budgets get enforced from the first page.

Deliverables

  • Next.js frontend with all page templates
  • CMS integration with live preview
  • Component library mapped to content types
3
Phase 3· Week 4-10

SEO infrastructure and content migration

We wire structured data, sitemap generation, meta tag management, and redirects. Existing content migrates with URL preservation so the search equity you earned doesn't evaporate on launch day.

Deliverables

  • Automated sitemap and meta tag system
  • JSON-LD structured data on every page type
  • Content migration with redirect map and SEO audit
4
Phase 4· Week 10-12

Editor training and launch

We train your content team, run load tests, configure CDN caching, and deploy to production. Post-launch monitoring keeps performance inside the budget we set in week one.

Deliverables

  • Editor training sessions with documentation
  • Performance testing and CDN configuration
  • Production deployment with monitoring

Outcomes

  • A marketing site where content teams publish independently - no tickets, no code
  • Sub-second page loads with Core Web Vitals scores that beat WordPress alternatives
  • SEO infrastructure that runs automatically instead of depending on 14 plugins
  • Traffic that holds or grows through migration instead of collapsing

Deliverables

  • Next.js frontend with responsive page templates
  • CMS setup with content models, roles, and editorial workflows
  • Live preview for editors before publishing
  • SEO infrastructure with structured data and sitemap generation
  • Content migration from existing platform with redirect handling
  • Editor training and CMS runbook

Success Metrics

  • Content publishing time from draft to live
  • Core Web Vitals scores across key pages
  • Developer tickets for content changes per month
  • Organic search traffic after migration
  • Editorial throughput per contributor

Engagement models

12-week delivery for a complete headless CMS site with content migration, SEO infrastructure, and editor training.

Best forTeams building a new marketing site or replacing WordPress with a modern stack.

Core technology stack

Next.js
React
TypeScript
S
Sanity
C
Contentful
S
Strapi
Tailwind CSS
Vercel
M
MDX

Use Cases

Common use cases for Headless CMS development

SaaS marketing site migration from WordPress

A B2B SaaS runs its marketing site on WordPress. Page loads sit at 3.5 seconds. Marketing files 40+ dev tickets a month and campaign pages take a week to go live.

How we build it

We migrate to Next.js with Sanity. Structured content models let marketers build landing pages from reusable blocks. Live preview shows changes instantly. Static generation with ISR delivers sub-second loads.

Outcome

Page load drops from 3.5s to under 1s. Marketing publishes same-day without engineering. Organic traffic climbs 35% inside 3 months on stronger Core Web Vitals.

Content hub for a media company

A digital media team publishes 20+ articles a week. The current CMS can't handle structured content, cross-references, or automated linking. Editors spend more time formatting than writing.

How we build it

We build a Next.js frontend with Contentful. Structured types handle articles, authors, categories, and cross-references. Editors write in a clean interface while the system handles SEO, linking, and formatting.

Outcome

Editorial publishing time drops from 45 minutes to 10 per article. Internal linking runs automatically. The site handles 200+ articles without slowing down.

Multi-brand marketing platform

A company runs three brands on three different CMS platforms. Content gets duplicated by hand, branding drifts, and every site needs its own dev team.

How we build it

We build a shared Next.js frontend with Strapi as the multi-tenant backend. Each brand gets its own workspace with shared components and brand-specific theming. One codebase serves all three.

Outcome

Three sites maintained by one team. Content shared across brands when it matters. Infrastructure cost drops 60% compared to three WordPress instances.

What clients say

Real feedback from real teams

I spent years at Amazon fighting static surveys. RaftLabs built a working prototype in four days that already outperformed every survey tool I'd used. Twelve weeks later we had a full SaaS that product teams actually want to use.

Founder

Ex-Amazon PM - Perceptional

We went from text surveys that nobody finished to AI phone interviews that people actually enjoy. The voice agents handle the whole conversation, and the analytics tell us what we need to know without reading a single transcript.

Cherian Koshy

Behavioral Strategist - USA Today Bestselling Author

Proof

Recent headless cms development work

BuildFast content-driven SaaS for Perceptional
4 days

Prototype

12 weeks

Full SaaS

Working prototype in four days. Full SaaS in twelve weeks.

Read case study

Industries

Headless CMS development for your industry

Frequently asked questions about Headless CMS development

Sanity, Contentful, and Strapi. Sanity for teams that want flexibility and real-time collaboration. Contentful for enterprise teams with complex content models and governance needs. Strapi for teams who want open-source, self-hosted. We recommend based on your team size, content complexity, and budget.

Related Services

Next Step

Ready to stop filing tickets for content changes?

Tell us where your current CMS is slowing you down. We'll show you what a headless architecture looks like for your content and your team - and what it takes to get there.