The £5.23/Day Developer That's Changing Everything

Welcome to Week 31

Hi there,

For £5.23 a day - less than a pint in most UK pubs - I now have a full-stack developer working alongside me around the clock.

I’m not joking. Claude Code at $200/month (about £157) is genuinely changing how I build everything. In the last week alone, I’ve built features that would have cost me over £5,000 if I’d gone through a traditional agency or freelancer.

The maths is staggering.

But First… This Week’s Deep Dive

From 69 to 99 PageSpeed: Why Claude Code + Astro Beats WordPress Every Time

I bought Elementor Pro for £199, I wasted two hours fighting with containers inside containers, and then I built a 99/100 PageSpeed site in four days with Claude Code and Astro. The full article includes screenshots of the transformation, real costs, and the exact method I used.

The interesting part? Most WordPress sites I come across are stuck somewhere around 50-70 on PageSpeed, even after optimisation. Yet here’s my Astro site hitting 99/100 straight out of the box.

See the proof and full story here

What’s Really Working Right Now

After building sites for 26 years, here’s what I’m seeing work this week for UK businesses:

1. Static Sites Are Winning on Speed

My Astro sites are consistently hitting 95+ on PageSpeed while WordPress sites struggle to break 70. Google’s Core Web Vitals update means this directly affects your rankings. I built a new landing page for those considering a WordPress to Astro migration - if you’re curious about the switch, that’s the place to start.

2. Context-Driven Development Is Real (But Not Magic)

Claude Code isn’t replacing developers - it’s making good developers ten times faster. I’m building in hours what used to take me days, but I still need to know what to ask for and how to guide it.

What I built this week with Claude Code:

• I built a complete audit presentation system with PDF generation (90 minutes)
• I built a Wix invoice import system with payment reconciliation (2 hours)
• I built a marketing dashboard with email tracking (45 minutes)
• I built a WordPress to Astro migration landing page (30 minutes)

Each of those would have been a two to three day project before. The key? I need to understand the architecture and I need to guide the system properly. (I’m writing a complete guide to this for next week’s newsletter - stay tuned.)

3. Traditional Agencies Are Struggling

Agencies are finding it harder to justify their fees because business owners are learning to use AI tools themselves. ChatGPT for content, Claude for coding help, Canva’s AI for design - the tools are getting easier and more powerful every month.

The smart play? Position yourself as the person who knows how to use these tools properly. That’s worth paying for.

The 5-Minute Speed Test You Can Do Right Now

Here’s exactly how to check if your site is costing you customers:

Step 1: Test Your Speed (2 minutes)

1. Go to pagespeed.web.dev
2. Enter your website URL
3. Click “Analyse”
4. Wait for results

Step 2: Understand the Numbers (1 minute)

• 90-100: Excellent - you’re in the top 5%
• 50-89: Needs work - you’re losing visitors who won’t wait
• 0-49: Critical - you’re haemorrhaging customers every single day

Step 3: Quick Win If You Score Under 70 (2 minutes)

The fastest fix? Compress your images:

1. Go to tinypng.com
2. Upload your largest images
3. Download the compressed versions
4. Replace them on your site

This alone can improve your score by 10-20 points. I’ve seen it make a noticeable difference on almost every site I’ve tested.

This Week’s Real Development Win

What I Actually Built: I rescued a client from a database nightmare this week. Their e-commerce platform crashed and I used Claude Code to write custom SQL extraction scripts that recovered years of order data from corrupted backups.

Time taken: 3 hours (including testing) Traditional agency quote: “That’ll be £500 please” Cost with Claude Code: £1.96 (£5.23 divided by 8 hours, times 3 hours)

This is the reality of context-driven development - I’m solving real problems in hours, not weeks. Next week I’ll share specific client wins (with permission) showing exactly how I’m using these tools to transform UK businesses.

One Thing to Do This Week

If you do nothing else after reading this, do the PageSpeed test.

It takes two minutes and it’ll tell you exactly where you stand. If you score under 70, you’re losing money every single day.

The test: pagespeed.web.dev

What to do with the results:

• Under 50: This is urgent - reply to this email and I’ll give you three specific fixes
• 50-70: You need optimisation - I’d start with image compression
• 70-90: Good but could be better - focus on caching
• 90+: You’re doing great - focus on conversions instead

Next Week

The Complete Guide to Claude Code: How to Get a £5.23/Day Full-Stack Developer

I’m sharing everything - the exact prompts I use, how I structure projects, the common pitfalls I’ve learned to avoid, and real examples from this week’s builds. If you’ve been curious about AI development but don’t know where to start, this is for you.

Until next Thursday,

Tony Cooper Founder, We Build Stores

P.S. - If you’re still on WordPress and want to know whether switching makes sense for you, reply to this email. I’ll personally review your site and tell you exactly what platform would work best. No sales pitch, just honest advice.

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