Midwest born, wherever you are
The websites small businesses actually run on.
45Squared is a web development studio. We build WordPress and WooCommerce sites for small businesses. We have done this since 2015 and host more than 30 sites today. A new site takes about a week. A migration takes 48 hours.
You own what we build. No rebuild you didn’t ask for. No platform you can’t leave.
Get a free audit in about a minute
We’ll crawl your site for search visibility and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, then email you the findings in plain English. No call, no obligation.
Trusted with
Three things, done properly
We kept the list short on purpose. These are the things we do every week, for businesses roughly your size.
Web development
We build sites you own. That covers design, build, and the dull work after launch: updates, backups and fixes.
- Custom WordPress builds
- WooCommerce and product catalogues
- Ongoing maintenance and support
SEO and accessibility audits
We tell you why search engines cannot find you. We also test your site against WCAG 2.1 AA. Failing it is a legal risk now, not just a design flaw.
- Technical SEO and site structure
- WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility review
- Plain-English remediation plan
Venture studio
We fund and build our own products. We also partner with founders who need a technical team, not a contractor. Those are long-term deals, not projects.
- Our own product work
- Technical partnership
- Long-term, not project-by-project
Selected work
Wilde Thyme Foods
E-commerce and photography
Online store and custom product photography for a family‑owned food brand selling direct to its customers.
Boulder Creek Golf Club
Web development
A site that showcases more than just the course — built so the team can keep it current themselves.
Stuck on a platform you’ve outgrown?
Page builders work until they don’t. Then the fee rises and the site stays the same.
We move you to WordPress in 48 hours, with your content, rankings and redirects intact. Migrations start at $1,500 and include 30 days of support after launch. You own what you end up with.
Managed hosting
Your site, on its own server
Your site gets its own server for $29 a month. Not a shared box with 300 neighbours. That includes a global CDN, SSL, daily backups and uptime monitoring. We apply every core, plugin and theme update, then check the site still works.
If you’d rather host it yourself, we’ll hand it over cleanly. It’s your site.
Managed WordPress
$29 / month
Per site. No setup fee.
- A dedicated server per site — no noisy neighbours
- Global CDN and SSL included
- Core, plugin and theme updates applied and verified
- Daily backups you can actually restore from
- Uptime monitoring, and a human who answers
Venture studio
We build our own products, too
45Squared is a studio as well as an agency. We needed tools we could not buy, so we built them. Then we sold them.
It’s also why our client work is sharper: we run the same software we sell.
45Squared LLC is run by Aaron VanSledright, who has built and maintained WordPress sites for small businesses since 2015.
SEO Score API
Live
The scoring engine behind our audits, available as an API for anyone who needs search, accessibility and performance grades programmatically.
Covey
Live
Membership software for organizations that would rather run their community than wrangle their tools — members, events, dues and communications on one platform, at one price. coveyhq.com
GridIron Data
Live
A fantasy football API we run and populate ourselves, covering both historical seasons and live in‑season data — for the developers and tools that need it.
Who you are actually hiring
45Squared is run by Aaron VanSledright. He has been building websites since 2010 and founded 45Squared in 2015. There is no account manager layer. The person who scopes your project is the person who builds it.
Today 45Squared hosts and maintains more than 30 live WordPress sites, including e-commerce stores, a golf club and a sheet metal fabricator. The oldest client site we still run launched in 2016.
More about Aaron: aaron.vansledright.com/about
How the free audit works
Three steps. It takes about a minute and costs nothing. You do not need an account or a card.
Enter your website address
Type your domain into the form. That is all we need to start.
We crawl the site
We check search visibility, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility and page speed. This takes about a minute.
You get the report by email
Findings arrive in plain English, ordered by what we would fix first. No sales call.
What the audit checks
Every report covers the same ground, so you can compare one month to the next.
| Area | What we measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Search | Titles, meta descriptions, headings, structured data | Decides whether you show up at all |
| Accessibility | WCAG 2.1 AA: contrast, labels, landmarks, alt text | A legal risk, and it blocks real customers |
| Speed | Load time, page weight, render blocking | Slow pages lose buyers before they read |
| AI visibility | Whether assistants can read and cite your pages | More people now ask an assistant first |
What does it cost?
Prices are fixed and published here. You do not need a call to find out if you can afford us.
| Service | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Website audit | Free | Search visibility and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, emailed as a written report |
| Managed hosting | $29 / month | A dedicated server, global CDN, SSL, backups, monitoring and applied updates |
| Migration sprint | From $1,500 | Full move to WordPress with redirects mapped, plus 30 days of support after launch |
| New website | Quoted per project | Fixed scope and fixed price, agreed before any work starts |
Common questions
What does 45Squared do?
45Squared is a web development studio. We build WordPress and WooCommerce websites for small businesses, host and maintain them, and audit sites for search visibility and accessibility. We also build our own software products.
How much does a website cost?
A migration to WordPress starts at $1,500. Managed hosting is $29 a month per site. New websites are quoted per project, with the scope and price agreed before work starts. A website audit is free.
What is a website audit?
A website audit is a report on how well your site performs for search engines and for people using assistive technology. Ours covers search visibility, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility and page speed. We email it to you in plain English, whether or not you hire us.
Do I own my website?
Yes. You own the files, the content and the domain. If you want to move to another host or another agency, we hand everything over cleanly. Nothing we build locks you in.
Why does website accessibility matter?
Accessibility is increasingly a legal question rather than a design one. Sites that fail WCAG 2.1 AA can face complaints and lawsuits. Accessible sites are also easier for search engines to read, so the same fixes usually improve rankings.
Do you work with businesses outside the Midwest?
Yes. We are based in the Midwest and work with clients across the United States. Everything we do runs over email, calls and screen shares.
How long does a new website take?
About one week for a new small business site. A migration from another platform takes 48 hours. We agree the scope and the price before we start, so the timeline does not move.
How long has 45Squared been in business?
45Squared LLC was founded in 2015. Aaron VanSledright, who runs it, has been building websites since 2010. We host more than 30 live sites today.
Let’s talk about your site
Web development, SEO and accessibility auditing, and a venture studio. We are in the Midwest; our clients are wherever they are.