3 Best WordPress Speed Optimization Services

With most people browsing on their phones and expecting pages to load right over, a slow site can quickly scare away visitors and potential customers.

WordPress is one of the most popular website platforms, powering millions of sites. But even WordPress websites can become sluggish if they’re not optimized properly.

Luckily, there are WordPress speed optimization services dedicated to making sites faster and smoother.

In this post, we’ll check out such services and see how they can transform your site from slow and clunky to fast and seamless.

What slows down your WordPress website?

Let’s look at what’s actually slowing down a website.

Once you know the main culprits, you can start implementing fixes to speed things up. A good rule of thumb? Aim for a page load time of under two seconds.

Each of these issues has a solution, but the first step is identifying them. Here are the most common problems we’ve seen when evaluating our clients’ WordPress sites—and the quick, cost-effective solutions we’ve developed to tackle them:

❌ Bad hosting solution

The hosting plan you choose can make or break your website speed.

For smaller sites, shared hosting might be enough. However, you’re sharing server resources with other websites, which can lead to slower performance. For content-heavy websites, managed hosting could be a good idea.

If your site is growing, upgrading to a better hosting plan is worth considering.

❌ Unoptimized images

Bulky, large images are a common reason for slow-loading WordPress sites.

Yes, you want your visuals to look great, but if they’re not optimized, they’ll drag down your page speed. Compressing images is key here. Both the ones you upload and the extra sizes WordPress generates automatically.

❌ Not using caching

Caching is one of the most effective ways to speed up your site.

By storing a static version of your pages, caching reduces the amount of data that needs to be transferred between your browser, the database, and your server. The result? Faster load times.

I personally recommend checking out FastPixel, a cloud-based WordPress accelerator plugin that acts similarly to a caching plugin.

❌ Poorly coded plugins

Installing plugins is easy, but too many or poorly coded ones can really slow things down.

Each plugin adds extra database queries and HTTP requests, which can lead to slower loading speeds or even crashes. Stick to well-maintained, essential plugins and avoid going overboard.

❌ Too many external scripts

External scripts, like the ones added by themes or plugins, can slow down your site, especially if they’re big.

They’re part of your site’s code, so they take time to load. But optimizing these scripts can make a huge difference in speeding things up.

❌ Heavy WordPress theme

Many WordPress users go for pre-built themes, but some of them are packed with features you’ll never use.

These extra features are often unnecessary and can seriously slow down your website. If you’re not using a lightweight, optimized theme, it’s time to consider switching.

The best WordPress speed optimization services

There are plenty of services out there that can help you boost the speed of your website. However, not all services deliver the same results.

In this section, we’ll explore some top services, each tested on their own demo site that we provided to show what kind of performance boosts you can expect.

Accelera

Accelera took a deep dive into our test site’s speed issues, handling both the obvious problems and smaller tweaks that can make a big difference.

Their focus was on improving performance without breaking any functionality, while keeping Core Web Vitals in mind —especially the tricky JavaScript files.

The full report is available here, but here’s a quick breakdown of what they did:

• Plugin updates & cleanup: Updated all plugins to the latest versions, removed unnecessary ones, and replaced heavier plugins with lighter alternatives.
• Database optimization: Cleared out irrelevant data, reduced the size of autoloaded options by almost half, and optimized the database tables.
• Image optimization: Compressed images and converted them to WebP with ShortPixel Image Optimizer. They also set up lazy loading for non-critical images and preloaded the key ones.
• Cache management: Swapped out WP Rocket for LiteSpeed Cache, better suited for the server being used.
• Performance optimization: Minified and deferred JavaScript and CSS, while making sure the website’s look stayed intact.
• Asset management: Disabled unnecessary assets from plugins on pages where they weren’t needed.
• Miscellaneous: Replaced WP-Cron with a server cron to avoid bottlenecks, tweaked Elementor settings, and recommended fixes for pre-existing console errors.

Accelera’s optimization transformed the site, making it faster and more efficient, while keeping everything working smoothly.

Here are the before and after results after a PSI test:

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
FCP	2.8s	1.5s	46%
LCP	4s	2.3s	42.5%
Total Blocking Time	2,200ms	50ms	97.7%
Speed Score	53	98	84.9%

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
FCP	0.8s	0.4s	50%
LCP	1.2s	0.6s	50%
Total Blocking Time	270ms	0ms	100%
Speed Score	84	100	19%

WPSpeedFix

WP Speed Fix took a unique approach to optimizing our test site, focusing on real-world performance rather than aiming for high scores on tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix.

Their method centers on improving Core Web Vitals, particularly by leveraging tools that offload work from the hosting server.

Here’s what they did:

• Core Web Vitals focus: They optimized LCP, CLS, and INP to ensure a smooth user experience. They aimed to enhance real-world performance, not just score high on tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix.
• Flying Pages & Speculative Loading: These plugins for WordPress were used to prime the page cache and improve loading times. However, they caused some intermittent issues with server performance, resulting in occasional “flat spots” and high TTFB due to possible PHP worker limits or other performance constraints.
• Cloudflare considerations: Typically, WP Speed Fix would rely on Cloudflare’s APO and WAF rules to offload work from the hosting server, handle brute force attacks, and manage caching more effectively. For this demo, they used EWWW Optimizer for CDN services, though it’s less ideal for SEO due to running a CDN from a different domain.
• Optimization balance: They aimed for a balance between speed and functionality, avoiding overly aggressive optimization that could break WooCommerce features or negatively impact SEO. While more aggressive JS and CSS optimizations could have improved test scores, they chose a more cautious approach to maintain site reliability and functionality.
• Future steps: In a production setting, WP Speed Fix would use their Vital Signs Tracker tool to monitor Core Web Vitals over a week and address any issues that arise.

Despite some hosting limitations, they managed to bring desktop performance scores to 90-100, but they emphasized that in a real-world setting, long-term tracking of Core Web Vitals would be key to maintaining this performance.

Here’s the PSI before and after results:

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
FCP	2.8s	1.4s	50%
LCP	4s	1.5s	62.5%
Total Blocking Time	2,200ms	430ms	80.5%
Speed Score	53	87	64.2%

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
FCP	0.8s	0.3s	62.5%
LCP	1.2s	0.9s	25%
Total Blocking Time	270ms	10ms	96.3%
Speed Score	84	91	8.3%

WPService.pro

WPService.pro also took on the challenge of optimizing our demo site, and the results speak for themselves.

They were the first to complete the optimization, finishing everything in just one day.

On top of that, they provided the most comprehensive report. You can view the full report, but let’s take a look at their approach and the improvements they made in short.

Before optimization, they mentioned the site struggled with outdated code and sluggish performance, especially on mobile devices. Initial tests revealed significant issues, including a slow Time to First Byte (TTFB) and high Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores.

Here is what they did:

• Updated plugins: They updated to the latest versions of Perfmatters and WP Rocket, fine-tuning settings for lazy loading, file optimization, and database cleanup.
• Image optimization: Switched from Smush to EWWW IO for bulk image optimization and converted images to WebP format.
• Clean-up: Removed unnecessary plugins and a slider image from the homepage, opting for a fixed hero image instead.
• Database: Checked and managed the database autoload size and made necessary updates.

After their work, the Google PSI score for mobile jumped from 57 to 91 — a huge improvement. On WebPageTest, they brought the LCP down to 2.39 seconds, while also cutting the number of requests and reducing page size.

For future maintenance, they recommend uploading images in WebP format to keep things running smoothly. Keeping a clean database, along with only necessary themes and plugins, is also a good idea. They also suggest looking into alternatives to Akismet and Jetpack for a performance boost.

The site now runs much faster without losing any functionality or breaking visuals. WPService.pro backs their work with a one-month guarantee and is available for future optimization or support.

Here are some screenshots of the PSI before and after results:

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
FCP	2.8s	1.6s	42.9%
LCP	4s	2s	50%
Total Blocking Time	2,200ms	420ms	80.9%
Speed Score	53	91	71.7%

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
FCP	0.8s	0.5s	37.5%
LCP	1.2s	0.5s	58.3%
Total Blocking Time	270ms	0ms	100%
Speed Score	84	100	19%

Conclusion

To wrap things up — if your WordPress site feels like it’s stuck in slow motion, don’t worry, help is at hand.

There are various WordPress speed optimization services ready to swoop in and save the day. They tackle everything from slow hosting and giant images to bloated themes, giving your site the performance boost it needs.

So, if your site’s moving slower than a Monday morning, now might be the perfect time to invest in professional speed optimization. Your visitors, and your sales, will thank you!

If you are a speed optimization service and want to get featured in this post, feel free to get in touch.