Sites At Scale

agency Success Story

Improving how they deliver Care Plan services and transforming their workflows with Staq

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🏷️ About the Agency

Sites At Scale (formerly Lightning Sites) is a high-performance digital agency that helps small businesses around the world grow their online presence. Backed by a team of elite engineers, marketers, and strategists, they manage over hundreds of WordPress websites for clients in industries ranging from coaching to retail to professional services.

Their mission? Build high-impact digital assets — at scale — without compromising on speed, security, or quality.

⚠️ The Challenge

As their portfolio of sites grew into the hundreds, Sites At Scale hit the breaking point with their infrastructure:

🚫 Infrastructure & Operational Pains

  • Hosting directly on AWS required extensive DevOps knowledge.

  • Senior engineers were spending up to 90% of their time managing EC2 and Lightsail instances.

  • Frequent DDoS attacks required manual mitigation from top staff.

  • Multiple people were handling plugin and core updates manually across hundreds of sites — a full-time job on its own.

  • Downtime after hours became a recurring problem, with no safety net in place outside 9–6 work hours.

They weren’t just managing websites — they were buried in infrastructure.

🚀 The Migration to Staq

Sites At Scale partnered with Staq to modernize their platform and reclaim their resources.

“We pressure-tested the Staq platform and it didn’t just meet expectations — it gave us the confidence to scale our company for the future.”
— Justin Kavanaugh, CEO

🛠️ What Staq Delivered:

  • End-to-end migration of hundreds of WordPress sites

  • Seamless rollout with step-by-step collaboration between both engineering teams

  • Auto-scaling cloud infrastructure with 24/7 monitoring

  • Built-in DDoS protection, WAF, and platform-level security

  • Automated plugin & core updates with rollback if an update breaks the site

  • Advanced dashboards showing performance metrics, bandwidth, CPU, and memory

“It was almost too good to be true — until we saw it in action.”
— Aileen

✅ Results That Changed the Business

📉 Over 50% Reduction in Hosting Costs

  • Migrating from direct AWS to Staq cut hosting costs by over 50%

  • Savings were reinvested into growing the engineering team and exploring AI/web innovation

🧠 Talent Reallocation

  • 70% of DevOps workload eliminated — senior engineers now focus on innovation, not maintenance

  • Engineers now explore new tech, including AI-assisted builds and automated workflows

💡 Workflow Efficiency

  • Plugin updates went from manual and risky to automated with safety checks

  • Dashboard transparency lets Aileen (Director of Engineering) monitor usage, optimize sites, and keep infrastructure lean

  • Staging → Production sync is now one-click, reducing human error and speeding up deployment

  • SSL installation is instant, eliminating hours of delay

“It used to take an hour. Now it takes a button.”
— Justin

🤝 A Partnership, Not Just a Platform

The Sites At Scale team emphasizes the difference between a typical vendor and the Staq relationship:

“We’ve done many platform rollouts — this is the first one where the team didn’t just ‘do their part and walk away.’ The support and collaboration never stopped.”
— Justin

“Our engineers love that they can raise tickets confidently and get fast, helpful responses. That alone has dropped internal support requests significantly.”
— Aileen

📊 Business Impact

Metric Before Staq After Staq
Hosting Cost $16,000–$20,000/month (AUD) Around 50% lower
DDoS Attacks Frequent, manual response Practically eliminated
Plugin/Core Updates Manual, high risk Fully automated w/ rollback
Developer Time in DevOps ~90% Now ~30%
Client Complaints Regular Nearly zero
Site Downtime Daily risk Mitigated in seconds

💬 Would They Recommend Staq?

“100%. The automation, the support, the insight — it’s transformed how we operate. We now focus on growth and innovation instead of infrastructure headaches.”
— Aileen, Director of Engineering

“Staq gave us confidence — in our systems, our uptime, and our ability to scale. We’re no longer just a hosting provider — we’re a digital growth partner.”
— Justin, CEO

🏁 Final Takeaway

For digital agencies managing WordPress at scale, Staq replaces complexity with clarity. Sites At Scale transitioned from high-stress DevOps to a secure, scalable, and automated infrastructure — and unlocked new growth opportunities in the process.