DEV.co, today released its Website Infrastructure Scalability Report, revealing that 62% of high-growth companies outgrow their original website architecture within just 24 months. The findings point to a widespread mismatch between how websites are built early on and the demands placed on them as companies scale.
As businesses grow, websites increasingly serve as core infrastructure—handling revenue generation, user authentication, analytics, third-party integrations, and AI-driven workflows. However, the report shows that many organizations continue to treat web development as a one-time marketing project rather than a production-grade system designed for scale.
“Most companies don’t feel the problem right away,” said Eric Lamanna, VP of Sales at DEV.co. “Growth masks architectural flaws at first. Then traffic spikes, conversion rates slip, pages slow down, and suddenly the website becomes the bottleneck. By the time leadership notices, the cost to fix it has multiplied.”
Key Findings From the Website Infrastructure Scalability Report
Based on aggregated assessments of high-growth and mid-market organizations, the report highlights several recurring issues:
- 62% outgrow their initial website architecture within 24 months
- 47% experience measurable performance degradation as traffic scales
- 38% report conversion losses tied directly to load times or frontend instability
- 29% delay product launches or campaigns due to web platform constraints
- 21% encounter security or compliance issues traced back to legacy web builds
The data shows that performance and scalability issues are rarely isolated technical concerns—they cascade into revenue loss, delayed growth initiatives, and operational friction.
“Website performance is no longer a cosmetic issue; it’s a revenue issue,” said Timothy Carter, Chief Revenue Officer at DEV.co. “When a site slows down or breaks under scale, sales teams feel it immediately. Deals stall, attribution gets murky, and marketing ROI drops. What looks like a ‘tech problem’ quickly becomes a commercial one.”
Why Companies Outgrow Their Websites So Quickly
The report identifies several structural causes behind early architectural failure:
- Design-first builds with limited engineering oversight
- Heavy reliance on low-code platforms and page-builder CMS tools
- Plugin-driven stacks that fragment performance and security
- No performance budgets or scalability planning
- Treating web development as a static deliverable instead of evolving infrastructure
These shortcuts often work at low traffic levels but break down as complexity increases.
“Modern websites are expected to do far more than publish content,” said Samuel Edwards, Chief Marketing Officer at DEV.co. “They’re expected to support analytics pipelines, personalization, AI integrations, and real-time user interactions. When the underlying architecture wasn’t designed for that reality, growth becomes painful instead of compounding.”
Treating the Website as Infrastructure, Not Collateral
WEB.DEV.co was launched to address this gap by applying software engineering discipline to web development. The division focuses on performance-first architecture, scalability planning, and security-ready foundations—positioning websites as long-term infrastructure assets rather than short-term marketing builds.
“Our conclusion from the data is straightforward,” Edwards added. “If a company expects to scale, its website must be engineered like any other mission-critical system. Anything less creates hidden risk.”
About DEV.co
DEV.co is a global software development firm providing custom engineering solutions across web, mobile, AI, and enterprise platforms. The company partners with growth-oriented organizations to build durable, production-grade technology systems that scale.