{"slug": "11-years-selling-a-cms-to-web-designers-this-year-i-rebuilt-it-for-ai-agents", "title": "11 years selling a CMS to web designers. This year I rebuilt it for AI agents.", "summary": "Total CMS 3, a flat-file PHP content management system sold by a developer who has marketed CMS software to web designers since 2015, now ships an MCP server with every install so coding agents read the site's real schemas and version-specific documentation instead of guessing. The product no longer requires the RapidWeaver or Stacks Mac apps, and the developer reports shipping versions 3.5 and 3.6, six third-party extensions with about a dozen more awaiting a marketplace, and interest from agencies managing dozens to 100+ client sites. Pricing is one-time per domain at $195 or $395 with no subscription, and the developer cites distribution outside the former ecosystem and unbillable client-site migrations as the main difficulties.", "body_md": "I've been selling CMS software to web designers since 2015, almost all of it inside one ecosystem: RapidWeaver and Stacks, Mac apps for building websites.\n\nThat worked for a long time. Then the ecosystem started shrinking, and a business built on one platform shrinks with it.\n\nSo I made two bets.\n\nFirst, the product had to stand on its own. Total CMS 3 no longer needs RapidWeaver or Stacks. It's a flat-file PHP CMS that drops onto any host and works with hand-written templates, any visual builder, or none.\n\nSecond, build for AI instead of hoping it passes me by. Every install now ships an MCP server, so coding agents read the site's real schemas and the docs for that exact version instead of guessing. AI is the most exciting and the scariest thing to happen to my business. I'd rather be building for it.\n\n## What's gone well\n\n- Shipped 3.5 and 3.6, the biggest releases in the product's history.\n- Independent developers started building extensions — six so far, some of them paid. There are about a dozen more waiting for my marketplace.\n- Agencies managing dozens to 100+ client sites have reached out about volume licensing.\n\n## What's been hard\n\n- **Distribution.** I'm a builder. I've spent years shipping and not nearly enough time selling, and reaching developers outside my old ecosystem is a cold start.\n- **Migration.** Long-time customers like the new version, but moving client sites is real work they often can't bill for.\n\nPricing is one-time per domain, $195 or $395, no subscription — deliberate, for an audience that's allergic to subscriptions.\n\nI'm curious how others have handled moving off a single-platform dependency, and whether anyone has found distribution channels for developer tools that actually worked.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/11-years-selling-a-cms-to-web-designers-this-year-i-rebuilt-it-for-ai-agents", "canonical_source": "https://totalcms.co/articles/rebuilt-for-ai-agents", "published_at": "2026-10-01 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-07 13:46:05.107516+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "agent-protocols", "ai-tools", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Total CMS 3", "RapidWeaver", "Stacks", "MCP"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/11-years-selling-a-cms-to-web-designers-this-year-i-rebuilt-it-for-ai-agents", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/11-years-selling-a-cms-to-web-designers-this-year-i-rebuilt-it-for-ai-agents.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/11-years-selling-a-cms-to-web-designers-this-year-i-rebuilt-it-for-ai-agents.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/11-years-selling-a-cms-to-web-designers-this-year-i-rebuilt-it-for-ai-agents.jsonld"}}