Meet Our 2025 Agency Partner Awards Finalists!
These creators built some of the best performing, most attractive websites on WP Engine’s platform this year.
Innovation, creativity, and community impact take center stage in our second-annual Agency Partner Awards.
This year’s 160 submissions from more than 90 agencies around the world demonstrated best-in-class, WordPress-powered design and development, and the agency partners who built them drove truly impressive results for their clients.
Each of these sites built on WP Engine’s powerful platform reflects the depth of talent within our global network of agency partners, and with so many agencies delivering exceptional projects, selecting the finalists was no easy task.
In addition to the outstanding work recognized across five categories—Inclusive Design, Peak Performance, Future-ready Innovation, Business Transformation, and Committed to Give Back—WP Engine will bestow three Agency of the Year Awards and three Emerging Agency Awards (for North America, EMEA, and ANZ regions) next week when the official winners are announced.
In the meantime, check out these agencies that made it to the final round in each of our five design and development award categories, or click here to learn more about WP Engine’s Agency Partner Program!
Inclusive Design Award
The Inclusive Design Award honors agencies building sites that are as functional as they are beautiful.
Sites nominated in this category had to meet or exceed AAA accessibility standards, meet or exceed a PageSpeed Insights Accessibility score of 85, optimize both the frontend and backend for editor accessibility—and look good doing it.
Family Fund site by Mixd
The UK’s largest grant-making charity for families raising children with severe disabilities and illnesses required a revamp of its website to improve accessibility.
Talented technologists at Mixd agency built a new digital experience on WP Engine’s platform that earned Family Fund a perfect 100/100 Core Web Vitals Accessibility score.
Farm Credit site by Social Driver
When a nationwide network of customer-owned cooperatives migrated their existing site from Drupal to WordPress, the immediate benefits were astounding.
With the help of agency professionals at Social Driver, the site became significantly more accessible—earning the site a perfect Core Web Vitals Accessibility score—and Farm Credit is seeing five times more traffic post-migration.
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital site by Mixd
One of Europe’s biggest and busiest children’s hospitals, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, chose agency experts at Mixd to reimagine its digital presence.
The new site boasts a perfect PageSpeed Insights Accessibility score and a fully interactive 3D map of the hospital that visiting children and their families can explore to become more familiar with the space before arriving for appointments or procedures.
Goodwill OC site by 500 Designs
Goodwill of Orange County needed a new site that would both encapsulate the importance of donating and expand accessibility for users with disabilities who were seeking employment.
The innovators at 500 Designs brought Goodwill OC’s vision to life with a beautifully reinvigorated site design and a perfect 100/100 PageSpeed Insights Accessibility score.
Culinary Institute of America site by Vital Design
They say you eat first with your eyes, and if that’s the case, visitors to the new Culinary Institute of America site are certainly feeling full.
Creative professionals at Vital Design crafted delicious visuals and updated more than 200 pages to improve PageSpeed Insights Accessibility scores on both mobile and desktop.
Peak Performance Award
The Peak Performance Award honors agency-built sites that combine complex features with exceptional speed and reliable performance across all digital touchpoints.
Each entry had to achieve a PageSpeed Insights Performance score of 85 or higher on both mobile and desktop and prove significant before-and-after performance improvements.
Freeman site by WebDevStudios
Freeman is an events services company focused on making moments that matter for exhibits, corporate events, trade shows, and more.
Through innovative use of Advanced Custom Fields and database optimization best practices, agency experts at WebDevStudios increased the site’s PageSpeed Insights Performance score by more than 30 on both mobile and desktop.
Factorial Energy site by 500 Designs
Factorial Energy is a pioneering company that’s revolutionizing battery technology to improve performance, sustainability, and safety.
The new site, created by 500 Designs, emphasizes the clean energy potential of Factorial Energy’s technology through simple storytelling, effective design, and the power of WordPress.
Boomshot site by Coalition Technologies
Boomshot’s production experts are skilled at crafting distinctive, exceptional video content for their clients, but their own website was feeling the weight of that work and slowing down under the stress of heavy media files.
Digital experts at Coalition Technologies implemented a headless architecture and fully optimized the new Boomshot site, so the team’s award-winning videos now load and play faster than ever.
Ocean Outdoor site by Plug & Play
Ocean Outdoor is a specialist media company that asks companies to see beyond the smartphone and take digital advertising out into the world, turning spaces into places that bring a brand closer to its audience.
They tapped the experts at Plug & Play to help reimagine their own digital presence, which has since achieved a PageSpeed Insights Performance score of 96 on mobile and 98 on desktop, even while organizing hundreds of thousands of large high-resolution media files.
Victaulic site by Crowd Favorite
Victaulic delivers advanced technologies and engineering services to address complex piping challenges faced by residential and commercial engineers.
The complexity and multitude of services provided by Victaulic—and its immense digital content library—was no problem for the digital architects at Crowd Favorite, who optimized the massive database on WP Engine’s platform to make finding information simple and speedy for users.
Future-ready Innovation Award
The Future-ready Innovation Award acknowledges innovative agencies using AI, headless architecture, and other cutting-edge WordPress technologies to set a new standard for modern web development.
Each agency entry had to include before-and-after examples showing how the applied technology translated into operational efficiency, scalability, or cost savings for the client.
The New Home Company site by Wpromote
The New Home Company is passionate about building homes with the latest ideas and innovations in mind to create a truly personalized, curated home-buying experience.
Its new website, built by the experts at Wpromote, uses headless technology to provide buyers with real-time, regional pricing data on homes, leading to a huge spike in user satisfaction and a more than 20% increase in engagement.
Farber Debt Solutions site by Art & Science
Farber Debt Solutions Farber has helped more than 100,000 Canadians successfully get out of debt throughout its 43 years of financial counseling and services.
Creative experts at Art & Science tapped into the power of headless to transform Farber’s digital presence, leading to a more than 150% increase in organic leads from the new site!
ACI Worldwide site by Vital Design
Secure digital payment processing is a complicated but necessary component of modern commerce. ACI Worldwide processes billions of transactions per day, equating to trillions of U.S. dollars, through its suite of electronic payment software solutions.
When ACI Worldwide needed a new website to better illustrate the advanced, cutting-edge technology it provides, agency experts at Vital Design utilized WP Engine’s Headless WordPress Platform to improve scalability and performance.
I Hate It Here site by Refact
Burnout isn’t a buzzword—it’s a very real issue experienced by up to three-quarters of professionals at some point in their lives. I Hate It Here is a site that acts as equal parts a safe space and an advice column for HR professionals experiencing burnout.
A project for Workweek created by agency professionals at Refact, the site is an exercise in community building, providing a place to vent as well as actionable insights for changing company cultures through its associated newsletter and podcast.
Cleveland Institute of Art site by thunder::tech
Showcasing a maximalist, media-rich design, and a clean, sophisticated bottom navigation, thunder::tech has seamlessly interwoven artistic flair and simple, intuitive UX design for the Cleveland Institute of Art.
The private, nonprofit college of art and design, which has been a training ground for students for more than 140 years, now has a striking, modern digital face to attract emerging artists to enroll.
Business Transformation Award
The Business Transformation Award recognizes sites that drove impressive user engagement, conversions, or overall brand elevation after migrating or replatforming from another CMS or host.
These agencies created solid, scalable foundations on which their clients can continue to thrive in the modern market.
The Florey site by Spark Digital
Researchers at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health—the largest brain research center in the Southern Hemisphere—work tirelessly to identify causes, interventions, and cures for conditions that affect brain function, including dementia, epilepsy, and mental health issues.
Its new website—created by Spark Digital—requires lower IT support which has led to operational savings for the nonprofit, and visitors are viewing the site’s donation page 40% more post-migration to WordPress.
Financial Advice Association of Australia site by 3 Phase Marketing
The Financial Advice Association of Australia is (FAAA) the country’s leading professional organization for financial advisers.
After replatforming to WordPress and WP Engine, 3 Phase Marketing helped the FAAA dramatically reduce the total cost of ownership of their site and drive a 133% increase in user engagement by making sweeping changes to UX and SEO strategies and cleaning up more than 1,000 pages of content.
Safe Events site by Granite
When the “figure it out” safety people at Safe Events couldn’t figure out the best solution for their digital presence, agency artisans at Granite were there to help.
After a migration from ModX to WordPress, the new site and rebrand increased site session duration by more than 40% and decreased its bounce rate by more than 30%.
Halls Gap Zoo site by Defyn
Halls Gap Zoo, Victoria, Australia’s largest privately owned regional zoo, migrated its site from a custom CMS to WordPress with the help of digital specialists at Defyn agency.
In doing so, the zoo saw an increase in both site traffic and foot traffic thanks to a 230% increase in memberships sold through the site!
Prosper Home & Land site by DeltaV Digital
When agency experts at DeltaV Digital suggested that Prosper Home & Land move their website from Squarespace to WordPress, they could never have imagined the impact it would have on their digital performance.
The new site saw a 45% increase in conversions, a 30% increase in time spent on site, and a whopping 60% increase in organic traffic, helping this small second-generation family business thrive in the digital market.
Committed to Give Back Award
The Committed to Give Back Award celebrates agencies that are using their talents for good. Each entry had to demonstrate exceptional design and show that the site made a positive, real-world impact on a nonprofit organization.
These mission-driven sites foster support, generate engagement, and advance the missions of the important causes they serve.
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation by StrategiQ
Established in 1984 by conservationist David Shepherd, this nonprofit has helped turn the tide on species extinction.
Working pro-bono for a cause that resonated with their team, the experts at StrategiQ ended up completing a major site audit and refresh for the foundation, improving performance, functionality, and overall engagement.
Clooney Foundation for Justice site by Redback Solutions
Founded by George and Amal Clooney, the Clooney Foundation for Justice addresses human rights abuses on a global scale through on-the-ground investigations, trial monitoring, litigation, and advocacy.
Redback Solutions sought to center the people most affected by the nonprofit’s work by using high-quality, fast-loading video and multimedia content across the site.
weADAPT site by Flipside Group
One of the world’s leading collaborative platforms for climate change knowledge and collaboration now focuses on sustainability in its own site design, thanks to the creatives at Fipside.
weADAPT’s new site makes it easy for visitors to learn about the effects of climate change, contribute content related to climate news, or connect and discuss these topics with like-minded peers.
Cost of Inequity site by Online Optimism
The Cost of Inequity site explores scholarship related to the economic burden caused by racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities in the U.S. healthcare system.
Agency consultants at Online Optimism helped bridge the gap between data and storytelling with a new site that includes an interactive map of state-by-state statistics and other research done by Tulane University’s Institute for Innovation in Health Equity.
MIT MLK Scholars site by GraVoc
The MIT MLK Scholars Program welcomes outstanding scholars to MIT each year to share lectures, collaborate with other researchers, and deepen their scholarship.
The organization tapped agency experts at GraVoc to build its new site, providing a digital face for the impact of this auspicious program.
What are WP Engine’s Agency Partner Awards?
WP Engine’s Agency Partner Awards recognize outstanding digital agencies that deliver exceptional site design, development, and innovation for their clients.
Now in its second year, the awards aim to shine a light on some of the creative agencies enrolled in the company’s Agency Partner Program—the largest agency ecosystem in the WordPress community. You can learn more about 2024’s winners here.
Meet our winners next week!
Watch out for more news next week when we’ll share the winners for each of these categories!
In the meantime, check out some of the 2024 Agency Partner Award winners, or learn more about WP Engine’s Agency Partner Program!
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