A look back at WPMarmite in 2025

Happy New Year 2026!

Every January, I take the time to review the past year and share the progress of our projects with you.

You can count on me to share the full report with complete transparency: our mistakes, what worked, and our goals for 2026.

To put it briefly: 2025 was the most intense year for WPMarmite since its launch in 2011!

There were doubts, short nights, and “man, this is tough here!” But also clarity at the end of the tunnel.

A great way to start our fifteenth year, right? 🤠

In any case, despite the storm I apply my motto: give your all and never give up.🫸🤛

Note: For a global vision, you can check out the reports from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.

The year 2025 at WPMarmite

To look back on 2025 without going in all directions, let’s go step by step.

Free content

You must have come across WPMarmite thanks to its free content.

Blog articles, guides, thematic resources, newsletters, YouTube videos, vertical videos, and social media posts: there is something for everyone.

Blog content

On the articles side, we published and updated 23 articles out of a total of 248 available on the blog.

That’s fewer than last year, but it’s not the only type of content we publish!

There are also pages, notably:

• The WordPress plugin comparison pages, which we have continued to improve, so you can find the best resources categorized all in one place.
• The “thematic silos” on WordPress agencies (in French only), WordPress hosting providers, and also digital marketing courses (in French) launched at the end of 2025.

Overall, content production for WPMarmite was not high enough. We had to handle several projects (I’ll tell you about those in the products section) that kept us busy.

Still, AI allowed us to produce backup content. Did you notice?

To tell you more about our process, articles created on the blog were always human-proofread to enrich them and bring our added value (the WPMarmite touch 😉).

Videos

On the video side, we uploaded 23 videos on our YouTube channel (in French), compared to 25 last year.

Regarding live streams, we managed only 3 to showcase plugins in 2025. I would have liked to do more because I love that format, but it couldn’t fit into the editorial schedule.

Positive point: since November, I’ve been having fun with vertical videos!

Depending on the platforms, sometimes several thousands watch them. They even perform better than classic YouTube videos!

Considering the effort, that’s quite amazing! That said, you have to be where the audience is.

Newsletters

The WPMarmite newsletter (the best way to follow us) underwent a lot of changes this year as we switched sending software.

Clearly, the investment needed to use ActiveCampaign was disproportionate (over $4000). After much research, we went with Kit.com (affiliate link).

With the Gutenberg editor offered by WordPress, I have become quite picky about content editors. And frankly, when you browse the available solutions, the options are quite poor.

Only Kit, besides offering a good price, is up to the task.

Another nice feature: they offer “Snippets,” reusable pieces of content from one email to another. Handy when you want to change the header or footer content!

Apart from these technical details, we keep the same recipe: WordPress content to help you progress.

By the way, here is what reader Sandrine recently told us:

I get the WPMarmite newsletter like my little treat of the day! I always find good advice and tips that are easily actionable. It’s perfect for a freelance webmaster!

Sandrine, WordPress Webmaster at SCrines

Let’s move on to WPMarmite News (in French only), our second newsletter, which shares the latest WordPress news every two weeks with our audience.

We closed the year with the 142nd edition on December 22. Thanks to Thibaut for his active watch and his qualities as a WordPress journalist!

We are quietly approaching the 150th edition (crazy!), which allows us to stay on top of ecosystem developments!

WPMarmite on social media

In 2025, we kept up our momentum to support you on your favorite social networks (mainly in French).

I’m happy to see we manage to keep the pace thanks to our collaboration with Julia. She creates beautiful visuals and carousels to share info, transmit knowledge, and entertain you during your online wanderings.

International development

WPMarmite started its 6th year in English!

The English article count has reached 261, with 23 new publications and updates in 2025.

We also continued to translate other strategic content into English, such as hosting comparisons.

The 2025 novelty is the arrival of the first contents in Spanish!

We are fine-tuning the translation process to offer quality WordPress content to our Spanish-speaking friends.

I never thought I’d make WPMarmite accessible in an additional language, but again, AI changes the game. Combining a plugin like WPTranslation with Polylang, we do wonders!

Sponsored content

In 2025, we structured our partners offers. As a matter of fact, we now offer sponsored content to a wide range of players in the WordPress ecosystem, including plugin publishers, agencies, and hosting providers.

Running a media outlet is not easy. And with AI entering the picture, adaptation is essential. That’s why we now work with advertisers to build win-win partnerships.

Throughout 2025, we published:

• Presentation pages for WordPress agencies to help them convert and reassure their prospects
• Tests of hosting providers and their specific features
• Highlights of plugins and services related to WordPress on the blog (in FR and EN) and on the YouTube channel (only in FR)

In addition, we carried out various promotional campaigns such as newsletters and website banners (and banners inside newsletters 🤣).

At the end of the year, we also changed how we work with the French hosting company o2switch. I became their official ambassador!

As such, French readers will see content related to their services more regularly. In any case, it doesn’t change much; we’ve been recommending them for years! I trust them 100%.

Premium content

As I shared in the 2024 report, we stopped producing large courses for many reasons.

The market is changing, learners’ expectations are no longer the same, and it no longer fits what we stand for.

However, WPMarmite Pro did not close its doors!

Students keep accessing the courses they have access to (sometimes even 5 years later!) and although we do nearly no promotion, new learners keep trusting us. 🧡

That said, we found it useful to offer some themed workshops on WPMarmite Start (a secondary site where we offer ready-to-use WordPress sites — more on this below).

In these workshops, we condense our expertise into a short series of videos to help learners understand the needs of a specific type of website (currently showcase site and vacation rentals).

Additionally, we reissued the “audit week,” where I give concrete video feedback on WordPress sites made by subscribers.

It’s an exercise I really enjoy because it forces me to give the maximum advice in a minimum time.

WPMarmite products

Choosing to stop actively promoting our WordPress training courses caused a drop in revenue.

That’s why I said 2025 was an intense year. We continued developing projects launched in 2024.

Unfortunately, not everything went as planned.

There were too many pots boiling on the stove.

So, not enough focus to get concrete results.

Let’s break it down together.

WPMarmite Start

In June 2024, we launched WPMarmite Start: pre-configured WordPress site templates to save more than 10 hours on each setup (the counter has gone up to 17h since). This product is only available in French.

The promise was to help any site creators get started without technical constraints.

On paper, our templates do save time. However, our target audience has other things to do.

The installation process was too complicated, projects required too much support, and the business model was not sustainable.

Selling website templates or online courses is the same thing. There is no recurrence; you have to find new clients every month.

I’ll be brief but things became clear during the second half of the year: we need to offer ready-to-use WordPress sites.

Yet, I had always refused to create a WordPress agency!

I didn’t want to race for projects with bigger budgets, build a team to execute them, or become too “corporate” in short.

I admire those who offer this kind of service but it doesn’t fit me.

The solution: take the opposite path and target a broader audience, with a moderate budget.

You know, the kind of prospects that freelancers often avoid. 🤣

Half joking aside — those project holders have real needs but often end up locked into platforms like Wix, with bland websites they pay a premium for.

With WPMarmite Start, our goal is to offer turnkey WordPress showcase sites, at competitive prices and with hosting fully controlled by the client.

Thus, no site retention possible. The client is free. 🕊️

If they’re ever unhappy, they can walk away, site in hand.

WPMarmite Pay

Ahhh WPMarmite Pay… On this one, I admit I got carried away by something that seemed simple to implement but was not at all.

We went on a runaway path that had to be stopped. I talked about it in the previous report. We paused the project at the end of 2024.

But this idea of connecting Stripe to WordPress obsessed me! “We have to succeed; it will help many people and us too!”

So, we worked internally on a payment gateway with Stripe Checkout for WooCommerce to manage WPMarmite Start sales, but again: edge cases, ignoring problems, endless fixes. 🤪

In short, we are not mature enough to seriously manage a second project (and we don’t have the finances to support it).

End result, I cut the Gordian knot: I removed this gateway and do it the way I should have done from the start with WooCommerce.

The moral: trying to reinvent the wheel often takes more time and resources than it would save us.

Lesson learned. Thank you.

The WPMarmite network

Throughout WPMarmite’s jouney, we’ve launched various projects to meet specific needs, keep experimenting with WordPress, and put into practice what we teach in our courses.

That led to the birth of: WPTurbo, BeautifulPress, and WPSitter, as well as all the sites mentioned above.

In practice, we’ve stopped all activity on these sites. For WPTurbo, we discontinued the Pro plan, canceled existing subscriptions, and shut down the AI-powered code generation service for WordPress.

Today, there are much better tools, such as Claude Code and Cursor. We couldn’t compete against such giants, plus we had fixed costs that were not covered by revenues! It made no sense.

However, new users still sign up for the free version on a regular basis (over 4,000 to date, thanks to SEO)!

Team evolution

In 2025, there were many changes concerning the WPMarmite team.

Our economic transition (from courses to products then to a productized agency) meant we had to downsize several roles and find alternatives.

This explains the lower blog publication volume and the use of AI.

We started collaborating with Rémi since March. He took the role of WordPress project manager to handle client sites.

For the backstory, it happened by chance, reading one of his LinkedIn posts where he expressed wanting to join a team.

To assist him with more operational tasks and help realize the WPMarmite Start vision, we found other external providers via the Upwork platform and LinkedIn.

We also collaborated with Florence between May and December on the plugin projects I mentioned earlier. Although the collaboration was exciting in many aspects, I preferred to end it to focus solely on WPMarmite Start.

And of course, Aurore, our loyal content manager and sole employee, keeps an eye on things under the kettle. 🔥

Like last year, I regret not having been able to gather the team for our “WPMarmite Summit”…

Not being able to plan it for 2026, we will have the chance to meet several team members during WordCamp Nice 2026 in March (which we are pleased to sponsor, by the way).

Oh yes, I forgot someone! It’s our friend, artificial intelligence. 😉

Whether it’s Claude, Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT, or Mistral, these tools now accompany me daily to help serve you better.

Website creation and content creation will be (are already?) deeply transformed by AI, so better to ride the wave rather than get swept away by it, right?

WPMarmite objectives for 2026

If I had to sum up 2025 in a few words, it was a year of quest to find a sustainable business model.

The decision to stop producing training courses, the impact of AI, and France’s economic situation all tested our resilience.

The 2025 plan didn’t lead to the expected result, so we must continue to pivot until finding the right formula.

To summarize, we have 2 main focuses for 2026:

1. Make WPMarmite Start take off: First milestone of $10k per month to reach (then aiming for 50k and 100k eventually). To do this, we have to work on:
   • Acquisition: SEO, advertising, partnerships/affiliation, social media
   • Conversion: Sales calls, case studies, renewals
   • Delivery: Automation, AI, support, processes…
2. Keep the WPMarmite media alive: Minimum goal of $10k per month. To achieve this, we will need to:
   • Increase content production
   • Translate the site into Spanish (and other languages?)
   • Promote our partner offers
   • Establish recurring partnerships
   • Continue affiliate marketing
   • Create small products when relevant

As I often say on my personal social media: we give our all and never give up.🫸🤛

Conclusion

For the first time ever, WPMarmite’s revenue was cut in half! We clench our teeth and keep going.

However, it is in difficulty that we get stronger, revise priorities, and become creative.But it’s in difficult times that we grow stronger, reassess priorities, and become more creative.

You must always keep moving, iterate quickly, analyze, and adjust.

Our goal will always be to help as many people as possible get started with WordPress and improve their sites.

Even if I had energy drops at times, I am convinced I can give a new momentum to WPMarmite as it enters its 15th year.

Entrepreneurship means remaining a perpetual beginner.

If you want to help us, here is what you can do:

• Consult and interact with our content
• Click on our affiliate links to equip your sites (like the hosting provider SiteGround)
• Link to WPMarmite from your site
• Recommend WPMarmite to people who want to create a site

Here you are, you’ve come to the end of this 2025 report. Thanks for reading it entirely as it was particularly long.

Again, thank you for following WPMarmite and trusting us all these years. 🙏

See you next year for the next report! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. 😉

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About the author

Alex Borto

Creator of WPMarmite and co-founder of WPChef, he is dedicated to providing you with quality resources to help you create, customize and promote websites with WordPress.