Frequently Asked Questions

Seven service lines: WordPress Development, Custom Web Development, Agency Partnerships, AI Integration & Development, Technical Advisory, Project Rescue, and Maintenance, Security & Support.

Yes. WordPress development has been 84EM's core focus for 14 years, part of 31 years engineering for the web. Bespoke plugins, AI integrations, APIs, and custom workflows. See case studies for examples.

Yes. Custom AI tools, LLM-powered features, and automated workflows that plug into your existing stack. If you started an AI project that stalled, 84EM audits the work, fixes what's broken, and brings it to production. See AI Integration & Development for the full scope.

Yes. Technical Advisory engagements cover architecture reviews, AI adoption strategy, proposal and RFP review, codebase review, team enablement, and ongoing advisory. Retainer or per-engagement. See Technical Advisory.

Yes. Proposal and RFP review is a common advisory engagement. A senior technical assessment of scope, architecture, cost, and risk before you commit. Useful for non-technical founders and technical leaders alike.

Stalled builds, vendor abandonments, brittle codebases, and half-finished platforms. If a previous team couldn't deliver, 84EM figures out what's salvageable and builds a plan to ship. Any platform, any stack, including stalled AI builds from Replit, Cursor, or similar. See Project Rescue for details.

Yes. Malicious code removal, site hardening, and breach monitoring implementation.

Yes. Diagnosis covers hosting, database, plugin, image, and caching issues with real performance measurements.

Yes. Monthly retainers include development, consulting, support, maintenance, and security. See Maintenance, Security & Support.

Yes. 84EM targets WCAG 2.2 AA with semantic HTML, ARIA attributes, keyboard navigation, and color contrast compliance.

Yes. HubSpot, Salesforce, banking platforms, healthcare systems, payment processors, and more. Custom API connections built as needed.

No. Clients own their hosting accounts directly. 84EM provides recommendations and configuration assistance.

Past engagements have ranged from a few hours of discovery work to multi-year retainers in the six figures. It depends on scope.

Both. Ad-hoc work is hourly. Project-based work is fixed-fee. Retainers available for ongoing work with flexible billing schedules.

No minimum. A short discovery document or a small fix is just as welcome as a multi-month build.

One principal engineer on every engagement with direct client access. No middle layer, no junior handoffs, no rotating teams. The person who scopes the project is the same person who architects it, writes the code, and ships it. 31 years of web experience, a 100% on-time delivery record, fast response times, clients ranging from solo founders to enterprises over $1B in revenue.

Large agencies route everything through a middle layer that relays messages to a rotating team. Details get lost. Timelines slip. 84EM engagements skip the middle layer entirely. You talk to the engineer. The engineer does the work. No translation loss, no scheduling conflicts between internal teams, no turnover mid-project. Agencies have relied on that model for over a decade, with a 100% on-time delivery record.

Yes. See case studies covering Financial Services, Healthcare, E-Commerce, AI platforms, and automation solutions.

Contact 84EM to discuss your requirements, timeline, and budget. No commitment required.

Yes. Many engagements begin with a smaller scope, such as a fixed-price discovery phase, a scoped advisory engagement, or a defined first project. Ad-hoc hourly work can also serve as a starting point. This is a common way to establish working fit before committing to larger work.

Yes. 84EM offers both white-label and client-facing agency partnership models. See Agency Partnerships for details.

No. 84EM serves clients across the USA and internationally. Based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (US Central Time), work happens over video conferencing and project management tools during standard business hours.

Yes. Every 84EM engagement is handled by a principal engineer. Andrew is the point of contact and the accountable party from scoping through deployment. For larger engagements, a trusted network of developers and specialists is brought in, but communication and accountability stay with Andrew.

For larger or cross-discipline engagements, 84EM brings in a trusted network of vetted engineers, designers, and specialists. Every contributor works under a signed NDA, in US business hours, with code review and final sign-off by the principal engineer. Andrew stays the point of contact and the accountable party throughout the engagement.

Yes. Technical Advisory retainers are available for architecture guidance, code review, AI adoption strategy, and general senior technical input. Useful for teams that need a principal engineer on call without hiring full-time. See Technical Advisory.

Video conferencing, email or Slack, Trello (or your preferred tool), screen sharing, reference documents, and fast response times.

Yes. All custom code is owned by the client. Full access provided. Documentation included. No lock-in.

Fixed-price: minor changes absorbed, larger ones require change orders. Hourly: estimates adjust as needed.

Small fixes and hourly tasks: a few business days. Small-to-mid projects like plugin builds or focused integrations: a few weeks. Complex builds like custom applications or platform integrations: 2 to 4 months. Enterprise engagements: 6 to 12+ months.

30-day free post-launch support period. Monthly maintenance retainers available for ongoing development, security, monitoring, and support.

Across 31 years, work has spanned Financial Services, E-Commerce, Automotive, Nonprofit & Arts, Publishing & Media, Healthcare, Real Estate, Education, Agriculture, and other sectors.

Yes. Patient portals, provider directories, appointment systems. HIPAA considerations implemented; a formal compliance audit is recommended.

Yes. Financial Services is a core sector. Custom banking integrations, loan workflows, and secure portals built with compliance in mind. See Financial Services and Regulated Work.

Yes. E-commerce, catalog sites, dealer and vendor sites, custom portals, marketing automation, are just some examples.

Yes. Payment integrations, custom product types, shipping logic, subscription workflows, external data integrations, automation, even AI enhancements.

WordPress powers over 40% of the web. It's flexible, well-supported, and cost-effective for most sites. It's not ideal for highly interactive applications or specialized performance needs. 84EM provides an honest recommendation based on your actual requirements, not a platform preference.

WordPress.org is self-hosted with full control and unlimited customization. WordPress.com is a hosted service with plugin and theme limitations. 84EM works with WordPress.org and can assist with migration.

Yes, when properly maintained. Security depends on updates, passwords, hosting, and plugins, not WordPress itself. Best practices are implemented on all projects.

Regular updates, vulnerability scanning, malware detection, access controls, two-factor authentication, strong password enforcement, SSL/TLS, database hardening, file monitoring, audit trails, least privilege principle, and backup/disaster recovery.

Secure payment gateways (Square, Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net), tokenization, SSL/TLS encryption, secure hosting, regular updates, and PCI-compliant hosting recommendations.

Eighty Four M.

Three dogs, three cats. They're part of the team.

Yes. 84EM builds commission logic beyond what off-the-shelf affiliate platforms support, with automated order synchronization and one-click reporting. That ends the spreadsheet reconciliation and disputes that start when a program outgrows its platform.

84EM builds self-service affiliate dashboards that give affiliates real-time access to their own referral and commission data, so they stop emailing support for numbers.

84EM builds direct server-side integrations that restore full-journey attribution where browser privacy tools block conventional tracking. For one wellness brand, this recovered attribution across seven stages of the customer journey, so marketing could allocate ad spend against complete data.

Yes. Invitation codes validate in real time against the CRM, and referral attribution carries from the invitation code through signup and the entire onboarding flow. 84EM built exactly this for a financial platform's controlled early-access launch.

Yes. 84EM builds cross-system synchronization that moves data automatically between websites, CRMs, listing services, and internal systems, in whichever direction it needs to go. Hundreds of records stay current without manual entry.

84EM builds synchronization across hundreds of positions with full change visibility for compliance teams. Every change is logged with context, so a reviewer or auditor can see exactly who changed what and when.

Yes. 84EM generates recurring reports on behavior, conversion, and revenue from live data, replacing manual spreadsheet assembly. For one e-commerce business, automated subscription reporting surfaced patterns that manual work had hidden.

84EM matches incoming transactions and inquiries to existing records automatically, keeping one record per relationship instead of creating duplicates. Automation doesn't multiply the mess it replaces.

Yes. 84EM moves order data from the website into inventory and fulfillment systems automatically, with no manual re-keying. For one fulfillment team, an on-demand refresh tool cut urgent order response from hours to seconds.

84EM builds automated delivery tracking with real-time status across multiple carriers, visible to customer service inside their own tools without carrier portal logins.

Yes. 84EM builds custom subscription behavior off-the-shelf platforms don't ship: one-time product additions to upcoming deliveries, accurate revenue segmentation, and reporting that survives the edge cases.

84EM syncs purchases, subscriptions, quiz responses, and customer behavior to email marketing platforms in real time, and automates review invitations without staff involvement.

Yes. 84EM builds registration that flows from your website to the webinar platform automatically, with no per-event data entry. For a financial services firm running high-traffic virtual events, it removed hours of manual entry per event and cut errors.

84EM embeds full ticketing, donation, and membership purchases inside your own website instead of a third-party checkout domain, with centralized staff control. A performing arts organization recovered sales it had been losing at the redirect to an external checkout.

Yes. 84EM builds modular event landing page systems that editors assemble and publish themselves, so editorial no longer waits on a developer for each conference or event page.

84EM builds activity tracking with location verification and live leaderboards, replacing honor-system reporting with proof organizers can trust.

Yes. 84EM connects directly to gift card provider APIs and handles the full lifecycle: order creation, card assignment, fulfillment confirmation, and delivery by email or download, the moment an order is placed. No logging into provider portals.

84EM builds custom points and rewards systems that run inside the site you already have, awarding more than purchases: consultations, assessments, renewals, or whatever behavior the program is meant to drive.

Yes. 84EM builds store credit systems that convert refund requests into retained revenue, with balances, expiration rules, and reporting built in.

You own the code outright, built into whatever stack you already run, with no per-card fees or vendor lock-in. That is the difference from an off-the-shelf fulfillment platform.

Yes. 84EM builds single sign-on that gives members one login across connected applications, with centralized administration of who can reach which tools.

84EM builds custom text-message and multi-step 2FA with full control over security policy and no ongoing per-user subscription. One client replaced a third-party 2FA service with a custom system for exactly that reason.

Yes. 84EM builds multi-step identity verification that screens applicants before access is granted, designed so sensitive personal data never lands on your servers. It was built this way for a financial institution.

84EM builds passwordless access through time-limited links instead of accounts and passwords, removing the friction that discourages submissions and improving completion rates.

Yes. 84EM builds board and staff portals with passwordless login and full access tracking, replacing email attachments and shared drives, built inside the website your firm already runs.

84EM imports and organizes hundreds of documents across multiple funds automatically, with consistent metadata, replacing multi-day manual uploads.

Yes. 84EM builds gated access to sensitive documents with role-based permissions, automated lead capture, time-limited access windows, and download tracking.

84EM builds audit trails recording every access, download, and change, ready when a reviewer asks. 84EM applies security and data-handling best practices and works alongside your auditors or legal counsel where formal certification is required.

Yes. 84EM builds routing that delivers website inquiries to CRMs and customer or resident management systems the moment they're submitted, eliminating manual data entry and the delay it creates.

84EM builds pre-qualification and application flows: multi-step forms that save partial progress, verify identity inline, and score prospects, so sales only sees leads that clear the bar.

Yes. 84EM builds lead intelligence that analyzes professional backgrounds and business needs automatically and attaches it to the lead, so sales teams open every conversation informed.

84EM builds automated daily monitoring that verifies forms across every site and location still deliver, surfacing failures within 24 hours instead of the month it takes sales to notice leads stopped arriving.

Yes. 84EM consolidates dozens of per-client installations into a single multi-tenant platform where each client keeps separate branding, users, and course library, while maintenance happens once.

84EM unifies sales from multiple platforms into one dashboard and grants enrollment automatically at purchase, with consistent onboarding across every channel.

Yes. 84EM builds automated email branding across dozens of partner domains, so every message carries the correct partner's brand without maintaining a separate template per partner.

84EM builds multi-client learning platforms where each corporate client operates independently on one codebase, with its own branding and users. One was built for enterprise leadership development.

84EM builds continuous automated scanning that catches unauthorized file changes within hours, before they cause visible damage, replacing manual checks that catch problems days late.

84EM hardens configuration, headers, and access controls, measured against independent security ratings, and usually achievable without changing how the site works.

Yes. 84EM runs structured vulnerability remediation: resolving every finding, modernizing the codebase, and verifying afterward, then treats routine updates as safe again.

84EM builds ongoing security and uptime programs with strict access controls and controlled change processes for platforms that can't absorb downtime. One financial services platform saw 100% uptime over 12 months.