York businesses tend to reach out about ExpressionEngine for one of two reasons: a site that's stable but overlooked, or one that's actively broken while the previous developer's stopped responding.
Karl deals with it, and only Karl. Expression 37's worked in nothing but ExpressionEngine and Craft CMS since founding it in 2007. There's no account manager standing between you and him.
He works through the site properly before recommending anything. Depending on what turns up, that's a fix, an upgrade, or an ongoing retainer.
Where this tends to come up:
- Tourism and hospitality sites with booking systems that see genuine seasonal peaks, where a slow checkout during a bank holiday weekend has a direct cost.
- Financial and insurance firms where accuracy and uptime matter more than most, and where a badly maintained CMS quietly becomes a compliance risk.
- Firms with Salesforce or Stripe wired into the site, often set up by a developer no longer around to explain how.
- Sites several major ExpressionEngine versions behind, where every add-on needs an honest compatibility check before an upgrade is safe.
How a typical engagement starts:
Most York clients get in touch after something specific: a booking system that struggled during a busy weekend, a security notice on an add-on nobody's touched in years, or simply the realisation that nobody currently on staff could explain how part of the site works. Karl audits the codebase directly before any quote is given, and most engagements move from a fixed-scope first project into an ongoing retainer once that initial work is done.
Common questions York clients ask:
Do you need to be based in York to support our site properly?
No. The work, code review, deployment, testing, happens remotely, and York is easily reachable for the rare case an in-person conversation is genuinely useful. Most clients find direct access to the developer gets things resolved faster than going through an agency.
Our traffic spikes hard around certain times of year, does that change how you approach things?
It changes what gets prioritised. A tourism or hospitality site needs stable hosting and a tested booking flow well before the next peak arrives, not a scramble once it's already underway.
Can you take over a site from an agency that's stopped supporting ExpressionEngine?
Yes, this is one of the most common starting points. Establishing what's genuinely custom-built versus a modified add-on takes an honest read of the code first, before anything else is decided.
Is an old ExpressionEngine version a serious problem?
Less than most people assume. The core software itself rarely causes issues. The real exposure sits in whichever add-ons haven't been maintained alongside it.
Do you handle the Salesforce or Stripe side too, or just the CMS?
Both. Those connections are usually wired directly into the ExpressionEngine templates, so treating the CMS and its integrations as separate problems tends to be exactly where things get missed.
What does pricing look like?
Defined pieces of work, an audit or an upgrade, are quoted as a fixed cost. Ongoing support runs as a monthly retainer. Either way, the number is agreed before work starts.
What's the first step?
A short call about the site, its current version, and what's currently working or not. That's enough to give an honest view of what's involved before anything is committed to.
Ready to get started?
If your website is business-critical and needs a specialist who will take proper long-term ownership of it, get in touch. Karl will respond personally and give you an honest view of how we can help.
