Headless CMS development
Pick the CMS for the people who will edit it.
Acasa Labs builds headless CMS setups for Next.js sites: Payload, Sanity, or a custom admin, chosen by who edits the content and what they publish. Siona Jewels runs a B2B jewellery catalogue and its leads on Payload CMS. The Sharp Interiors runs its project gallery on a custom admin we built on Firebase.
The problem
The CMS is picked by developers and used by everyone else.
Headless CMS choices are usually made from a feature grid: API style, pricing tier, number of plugins. Then the marketing team gets an editor with forty fields per page, the sales team keeps leads somewhere else, and the gallery the founder wanted to update every week still needs a developer every time. The right CMS starts from the people who will use it and the content they publish, and works back to the tool.
What we build with Headless CMS
- 01
Content models from your real content
Collections and fields named the way your team talks about the work, with only the fields they will actually fill in.
- 02
Payload inside your app
A CMS in your Next.js codebase and Postgres database, for content that needs custom logic, lead handling, or tight control.
- 03
Hosted CMS setups
Sanity or a similar hosted CMS when your team wants a managed editor and no backend of its own to run.
- 04
Custom admins for one job
A small purpose-built admin, like a project gallery with drag-and-drop ordering, when a full CMS is more than the job needs.
From production
Two sites, two different CMS answers.
A catalogue is structured data
Siona JewelsEvery Siona Jewels design carries metals, stones, weights, MOQ, and lead time as fields, and every enquiry moves through five stages. Payload CMS holds both, so content and leads live in one admin.
Search setup from the CMS
Siona JewelsThe sitemap and llms.txt are generated from Payload, and product photos are listed for Google Images and Lens, so a new design or buyer guide reaches search engines and AI crawlers without a deploy.
A gallery admin, not a CMS
The Sharp InteriorsThe Sharp Interiors needed to publish new projects without calling a developer. We built a custom admin with drag-and-drop ordering of projects and of the images inside each, feature images, and visibility toggles.
Validation at the door
The Sharp InteriorsZod schemas are the single source of truth for that admin. Every upload is checked for image type and size, storage is cleaned up when a project is removed, and writes only happen server-side.
Honest trade-offs
When you do not need a headless CMS
If a site has five pages that change once a year, edit them in code and skip the CMS. If your team already lives in WordPress and the site is mostly a blog, a well-built WordPress site may serve them better than a migration. A headless CMS pays off when content changes often, has real structure, or feeds more than one place.
What we reach for
- Payload CMS
- Sanity
- Next.js App Router
- Postgres, Firebase Firestore
- Cloudflare R2, Firebase Storage
- Zod
- Schema.org JSON-LD
Proof
Shipped, not pitched.
01Client work
Siona Jewels
A jewellery manufacturer's catalogue that buyers find on Google and in ChatGPT, and that turns a design number into a lead.
Siona Jewels is a fine jewellery manufacturer in Mumbai selling to retailers and private-label brands in India, the US, Canada, and the UAE. We built their B2B catalogue site, the CMS behind it, the email automation that routes every enquiry to sales, and the search and AI-answer setup that gets them found.
Web · CMS admin
02Client work
The Sharp Interiors
The site, the project gallery, and the IT behind an interior design studio.
We are the IT partner for The Sharp Interiors, a residential and commercial interior design firm. We built their website and a custom CMS for their project gallery, and we look after the rest of their technology.
Web
Questions
Headless CMS questions we get asked.
Which headless CMS do you recommend?
Payload when content and custom logic, like leads or workflows, belong in your own codebase. Sanity when your team wants a hosted editor. A custom admin when the job is narrow, like a gallery. We pick after seeing who edits what.
Can you migrate us from WordPress to a headless CMS?
Yes. We map your posts, pages, and media to the new content model, import them with a script, and redirect every old URL so rankings carry over.
Will a headless CMS help our SEO?
It helps when the site is server-rendered and the CMS feeds sitemaps, structured data, and clean URLs. On Siona Jewels, the sitemap and llms.txt are generated from the CMS.
Can non-technical staff use it?
Yes, if the content model is designed for them. We name fields the way your team talks, hide what they do not need, and walk them through it before launch.
What does a headless CMS cost to run?
Payload costs only the hosting and database it runs on. Hosted platforms like Sanity charge by seats and usage. We lay out both before you choose.
Headless CMS development
Tell us who edits the site.
A free 30-minute call on your content and your team. You leave with the CMS we would use and how we would model it.