Headless CMS Integration — cover image
Service · Engineering Capability

Headless CMS Integration.

Give your editors a modern authoring experience without giving up frontend speed. Directus, Sanity, Payload, and Contentful — modelled around how your team actually publishes.

The Shift

From what's slowing teams down, to what unlocks growth.

01The Problem

Traditional CMSs lock content behind developers.

Most CMS projects fail not because the technology is wrong but because the schema was designed by the engineers who never had to write in it. Every new page becomes a developer ticket. Every campaign becomes a compromise. Editors give up and paste content into WordPress just so they can ship.

A good headless CMS starts with the editorial workflow and works backwards to a schema — not the other way around.

02The Approach

Editors design the schema. I implement it.

I run schema-design workshops with your editors before I write a single field. We map how they actually publish today — the reusable blocks, the campaign-specific fields, the SEO overrides they've been begging for — and turn that into a schema flexible enough for one-offs but structured enough for search and personalization.

  • Editor-first schema workshops.
  • Directus / Sanity / Payload / Contentful — chosen for fit, not fashion.
  • Preview environments hooked directly into your PR flow.
  • Migrations for your existing legacy content, done piece by piece.

Most CMS projects fail because the schema was designed by the developers who never had to write in it. I run the schema design sessions with your editors first, then model the collections around how they actually publish — flexible enough for one-off campaigns, structured enough for your search and personalization needs.

Result: fewer developer tickets from the marketing team, faster time-to-publish, and a schema that scales as new content types appear.

What's included in this build

Every headless cms integration engagement is a premium, end-to-end delivery tailored to your specific business rules.

Editorial Workshops

Two-to-three sessions with your content team to map current workflow, pain points, and future needs — before any schema is written.

CMS Setup & Configuration

Directus, Sanity, Payload, or Contentful — self-hosted or SaaS — configured with the schema, roles, and permissions your team needs.

Content Migration

Scripted migration from your existing WordPress / Drupal / homegrown CMS, preserving URLs, redirects, and image metadata.

Preview Environments

Live preview wired into your PR workflow — editors see their drafts on a real staging URL before publish, not just a form.

Roles & Permissions

Fine-grained editorial roles (writer, editor, approver) with per-collection permissions and audit logs on every change.

Handover Training

Recorded walkthroughs and a written playbook for your editors, plus one live training session with Q&A after go-live.

At a glance

  • Editor-driven content modelling workshops
  • Directus / Sanity / Payload / Contentful — chosen for fit, not fashion
  • Preview environments hooked directly into your PR flow
  • Migrations for your existing legacy content

Powered by the modern web stack

DirectusSanityPayloadContentfulNext.jsTypeScriptPostgreSQL

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about headless cms integration engagements.

Which CMS should I pick?
It depends on team size, self-hosting appetite, and content complexity. During discovery I'll shortlist two options and demo both against your real content — pick after seeing, not before.
How much editor training is needed?
For Directus and Payload, most editors are productive in under an hour if the schema was designed around their workflow. Sanity's block editor takes a bit longer to learn but rewards teams that want editorial flexibility.
Can you migrate our old WordPress content?
Yes. I write one-off migration scripts (typically in Node.js) that pull from WP-JSON, transform to the new schema, and preserve URLs. Any URL changes get 301 redirects generated automatically to preserve SEO.
What does hosting cost look like?
Self-hosted Directus or Payload runs $10–50/mo on a small VPS for most sites. Sanity is free up to 3 users and modest content volume. Contentful starts around $300/mo for the community tier and scales up steeply — worth it only for enterprise workflows.

Something you need shipped
this quarter?

Send a two-line brief with the outcome you're after — a build, an audit, a rescue, a second opinion. I read it personally and reply within one business day. No agency middle-layer. No sales funnel.