Tampa Forge
Built for a design-literate audience
Galleries, boutiques, studios, and independent retailers in St. Pete's arts corridor need sites that look as considered as their storefronts. That's what we build.
Serving St. Petersburg & the Tampa Bay area
Web Developer in St. Petersburg, FL
St. Pete has built a real identity around its arts district, its independent retail scene, and a growing cluster of creative and tech businesses downtown. Your website should look like it belongs in that city, not like it was stamped out of a template farm. Tampa Forge is a small web design and development company building custom websites for St. Petersburg businesses — fixed prices, a working preview from week one, and developers you can actually talk to. On WordPress specifically? See our St. Petersburg WordPress developer page.
Why St. Petersburg Businesses Call Us
Built for a city that cares about design
Between the Central Arts District, the EDGE District, and downtown's gallery and boutique scene, St. Pete customers expect craft. We build sites that hold up to that expectation — fast, clean, and distinct — without the price tag of a big design agency.
Room for the creative economy to scale
St. Pete's startup and creative-agency scene keeps growing. We build web apps and integrations that can grow with a business, not just a brochure site that gets outgrown in a year.
You own everything
Code, domain, and accounts are yours from day one. No proprietary platforms, no lock-in.
We'd rather say no
If a project isn't a good fit for what we do well, we'll tell you upfront and point you elsewhere — not take the job and let it drift.
Our process
How a St. Pete project runs, start to finish
Same four steps for a downtown boutique or a warehouse-district startup, so you always know where things stand.
Bearing N — Chart
Chart the course
We talk through your business and goals, put the scope in writing, and agree on a fixed price before anything gets built.
Bearing E — Build
Lay the keel
Short sprints, a clickable preview from week one, and feedback while there's still time to change course.
Bearing S — Launch
Set sail
A clean cutover with no downtime, and the crew watching closely through the first days live.
Bearing W — After
Stay the course
Optional ongoing care for updates, backups, and improvements as your business grows.
What We Build
Custom websites and web apps for St. Petersburg businesses
Most people searching for a web development company in St. Petersburg need one of five things. Here's the honest shape of each, and what it usually costs you in time.
Custom marketing sites The most common request: a site that explains what you do, proves you're credible, and turns visitors into calls or bookings. We build these as fast, hand-coded pages rather than page-builder sprawl, which is why they load quickly on a phone in a parking lot — where a lot of local searches actually happen. Typical build runs four to eight weeks depending on how many pages and how ready your content is.
E-commerce and online ordering For St. Pete's boutiques, makers, and independent retailers, selling online shouldn't mean handing a third of your margin to a platform. We build storefronts you own outright, whether that's WooCommerce or a custom checkout wired to Stripe. See e-commerce development for the specifics.
Web applications and portals Booking systems, client portals, dashboards, quoting tools — the software a business actually runs on. If you've outgrown spreadsheets and duct-taped integrations, this is the category you're in. Our custom web application page covers how we scope these.
Website rescue Your site is slow, broken, hacked, or stranded on a platform nobody remembers the login for. Sometimes the previous developer vanished. We take these on regularly — see inherited website help if you've been handed something you can't explain, or emergency website repair if it's down right now.
Ongoing care Updates, backups, security patches, and small improvements, handled on a flat monthly rate so nothing rots. Optional, never bundled in to pad a quote. Details on maintenance plans.
Where We Work
St. Petersburg neighborhoods we build for
St. Pete isn't one market — a Beach Drive restaurant and a Warehouse Arts District studio need very different things from a website. We work across all of it.
Bearing N — Downtown
Downtown & the waterfront
Beach Drive, Old Northeast, Historic Uptown, and Snell Isle. Restaurants, galleries, professional practices, and the hospitality businesses that live or die by how they look on a phone screen at 6pm on a Friday.
Bearing E — The Arts
Central Arts, Warehouse Arts & the EDGE
Studios, makers, breweries, and independent retail. This is the corner of St. Pete web design where a template genuinely will not do — the audience notices, and they judge quickly.
Bearing S — Grand Central
Grand Central & Kenwood
Small shops, service trades, salons, and neighborhood practices. Mostly local-search driven, which means the site has to work hand in hand with your Google Business Profile rather than against it.
Bearing W — The Beaches
The beaches & south county
St. Pete Beach, Gulfport, Pinellas Park, and the Skyway Marina District. Charters, marine services, vacation rentals, and contractors — see websites for marinas and charters.
Questions St. Pete Businesses Ask
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost in St. Petersburg?
Most small-business sites we build land between a few thousand and the low five figures, depending on page count, whether you need e-commerce, and how much custom functionality sits behind it. We quote a fixed price before any work starts, so the number you agree to is the number you pay. Our website cost breakdown walks through what actually drives the figure up or down.
Are you actually local, or is this a national company with a St. Pete landing page?
We're a small crew based across the bay in Tampa, and we work throughout Pinellas — St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Gulfport, and the beaches. Most of the work happens over video calls and shared preview links, which is how nearly every web project runs now regardless of who you hire. If you'd rather meet in person to kick things off, we'll come to you.
How long does a St. Petersburg website project take?
Four to eight weeks is typical for a marketing site, longer for e-commerce or a custom application. The single biggest variable is content — photos, copy, and service descriptions. Projects that stall almost always stall there, not in development, so we tell you upfront exactly what we need from you and when.
Can you redesign our site without losing our search rankings?
Yes, and this is worth being careful about. A redesign that ignores your existing URLs will tank rankings you spent years earning. We map every old URL to its new home, set proper redirects, and keep your page titles and content structure intact where they're already working. See website redesign for how we handle the cutover.
Do you build on WordPress, or something custom?
Both, and we'll tell you honestly which one fits. WordPress makes sense when you'll be publishing regularly and want to edit things yourself. Custom-built static or application code makes sense when you want speed, security, and nothing to maintain. We have no incentive to push you either way — see static vs WordPress or our St. Petersburg WordPress developer page.
What if we just need our current site fixed, not replaced?
Then we'll fix it. Plenty of sites don't need a rebuild — they need a speed problem solved, a broken contact form repaired, or a security cleanup. We'd rather do the smaller job well than talk you into a project you don't need. Start with a free website audit and we'll tell you straight what's actually wrong.
Ready to talk about your St. Petersburg project?
Tell us what you're building or what's holding your current site back. We reply within one business day with honest next steps.
Request a parleyNo ransom required. First consultation is free.