What’s the right milestone schedule for a WordPress build?

40 / 40 / 20. Why 50 / 50 is worse than it looks.

The 40 / 40 / 20 case

• 40% on SOW signature. Covers discovery, design decisions, initial scaffold. The vendor is committed; the buyer is committed; nobody’s negotiating in week two.
• 40% at midpoint. Delivered against a written milestone: e.g., “all templates rendering on staging with placeholder content; admin UX functional.” If the milestone slips, the payment slips.
• 20% on handover. Loom walkthrough delivered, runbook delivered, repo transferred, warranty period begins.

Why not 50 / 50

Half the budget is leverage. If half is held to the end, the buyer’s leverage is concentrated in a single moment — handover. That moment is also when the vendor is most tired, the scope ambiguity is most evident, and the buyer has the least context on what’s actually been delivered. 50/50 looks fair; in practice it creates the worst handover meetings.

Why not 33 / 33 / 33

The middle milestone is too small to motivate. By month two of a four-month build, the vendor is operating on momentum, not invoice schedule. 40% at midpoint matches the risk profile.