How Limesquare delivers high-performance, low-maintenance websites with CloudCannon
Niels van der El
Product Owner, Web Developer
Limesquare
Only 15 min
maintenance time per project
90%
content updates handled by clients
90+
Average Lighthouse scores
Limesquare, a CloudCannon Partner and strategic marketing agency based in the Netherlands, manages websites for a diverse mix of clients — from small regional businesses to larger organizations with dedicated marketing teams. With 25 employees and a lean development team of just three full-time developers, the agency needed a CMS solution that could do some serious heavy lifting: empower clients to manage their own content while keeping the ongoing maintenance burden on their technical team as light as possible. Crucially, they also needed the flexibility to craft a custom experience for each client — because a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t cut it when your clients have varied needs and capabilities.
Project Manager Niels van der El is the person who keeps everything running once projects move into the management phase. He’s the go-to for clients when they need work done, which means his role blends project management, product ownership, and teaching clients the ropes of the CMS. “I’m the first person or a customer’s contact when they need some work done on the website,“ he explains. This puts him in the perfect position to understand what clients actually need from their web platform — and whether those needs are being met.
Client-friendly editing that reduces agency workload
Limesquare had a clear goal when they started implementing CloudCannon: give clients as much independence as possible. Rather than creating a setup that keeps clients dependent on the agency for every little thing, they deliberately configured the CMS to enable self-sufficiency.
And it’s working beautifully.
We would like to give the customer as much flexibility to manage their own site. That’s also the way we set up CloudCannon, so customers don’t have to come to us with every small change they want: most of the time they can just do that themselves.
Niels van der El
Limesquare
After the initial project wraps up, clients typically handle their own content updates, with Limesquare maintaining oversight through quality checks. “Mostly the client is working in CloudCannon and editing their own pages,“ Niels notes. The agency’s content team also jumps into CloudCannon when needed for client work, creating a genuinely collaborative environment where content can flow between agency and client as projects require.
How often clients update their sites varies quite a bit. Smaller clients without dedicated marketing teams might touch their site less frequently, while larger clients with full marketing departments are in there actively managing things — sometimes daily.
CloudCannon’s Visual Editor has been a game-changer, especially for clients who are new to managing websites. When someone gets stuck, Niels can quickly help them through it, but these moments are rare. CloudCannon’s flexibility lets Limesquare craft beautifully custom sites, and still give clients the confidence to manage content themselves after handover.
Performance that meets client expectations
When Limesquare was hunting for a new CMS platform, website performance was non-negotiable. They needed something that would deliver fast load times and responsive experiences without requiring developers to spend hours optimizing every single project.
The combination of CloudCannon’s static site generation approach and Limesquare’s use of the Astro framework delivers exactly what they need. This pairing lets the agency confidently ship performant websites to clients without breaking a sweat over custom optimization.
We looked at Lighthouse scores and we looked at page-building and build times, and the combination of CloudCannon and Astro was really good.
Niels van der El
Limesquare
The benefits go well beyond initial load times, too. The architecture inherently produces fast, efficient websites that clients can trust to deliver great user experiences. For an agency juggling multiple client sites at once, this consistency in performance is huge — it eliminates a major source of potential complaints and revision requests.
Limesquare also loves how quickly CloudCannon deploys changes. Updates move from the CMS to the live site fast, so clients can see their work reflected almost immediately. This responsiveness makes the whole experience of managing content feel much more satisfying.
Minimal maintenance overhead
Here’s where things get really interesting: the dramatic reduction in ongoing maintenance requirements. This efficiency is what allows Limesquare’s small development team to manage a substantial client portfolio without drowning in maintenance tasks.
Their maintenance sessions focus on three key areas: monitoring and maintaining Lighthouse scores to ensure performance stays high, keeping packages and dependencies current, and addressing any issues that pop up in the error log. “It’s mostly just keeping packages up to date, make sure there aren’t any breaches within that which can trigger that the visual editor isn’t working or something,“ Niels explains.
43%
Reduction in maintenance time
15 mins
Average maintenance time per project
80%
of maintenance can now be proactive
This is a massive efficiency gain compared to more complex CMS platforms. The predictability of maintenance needs means Limesquare can offer fair, transparent pricing to clients while protecting themselves from unexpected maintenance nightmares. Niels specifically notes that major platform upgrades — the kind that can eat up weeks of development time with other systems — just aren’t a concern with CloudCannon.
The low maintenance requirement translates directly into better economics for everyone. Clients pay reasonable ongoing fees, and the agency can confidently manage these obligations without worrying about surprise maintenance demands that blow through the allocated time.
Partnership benefits
Beyond the technical stuff, Limesquare really values the partnership structure that CloudCannon offers. One thing they particularly appreciate? Team members don’t count against client user limits. “I really liked that the partner programme has that included, so that the customer doesn’t pay for our users or we don’t have to pay for the users,“ Niels notes.
This is especially valuable given Limesquare’s collaborative approach. “We have a lot of people that need access to the CMS because we want everyone to be involved. And in a regular project, we also have six or seven people from Limesquare that are in a project,“ he explains. Being able to include multiple team members without racking up additional costs means they can work the way they want to work.
The technical support channel through Slack has been a big win for the development team, too. “The developers use it a lot, but if they have questions, they really like to support on that,“ Niels says. Having direct access to technical expertise means developers can get answers without jumping through hoops. “That’s how we like to work. And I think CloudCannon just stays involved with their partners.“
Results: agency efficiency at scale
With CloudCannon in place, Limesquare has found a sustainable rhythm. Niels manages daily contact with 10 to 15 different clients while juggling four or five active projects at any given time — a workload that would quickly become impossible with a more demanding platform.
The math here is pretty simple: clients who can edit their own content need less hand-holding. Websites that perform well generate fewer complaints. Sites that require minimal maintenance each month don’t drain development resources. These efficiencies stack up, allowing a three-person development team to support a healthy client roster without burning out.
Limesquare’s experience with CloudCannon offers a practical blueprint for other agencies facing similar challenges. The real challenge isn’t just building good websites — it’s building websites that remain manageable at scale. When clients have the tools to help themselves and the platform doesn’t fight you on maintenance, the work becomes sustainable in ways that benefit everyone involved.
Want to find out more?
Book a friendly demo call with us, and find out how CloudCannon can help your agency deploy and manage client sites more efficiently.
Tom Richardson
Solutions Architect
