Free tool for WordPress
Free WordPress speed test
Is your WordPress site slow on phones? Enter your URL to run a mobile Google Lighthouse test. In about a minute you get your score, LCP, CLS and TBT, plus the top 3 fixes for that page in plain English. No signup, no plugin.
Free. Up to 5 checks per hour. Takes about 20 to 40 seconds.
Why WordPress sites get slow
Most slow WordPress sites share the same five problems. Your result points to the ones that matter for your page.
1. Images uploaded at camera size
WordPress creates smaller copies of every upload, but many themes and page builders still load the full-size file in heroes, sliders and CSS backgrounds. The hero is usually your LCP element, so a 2 MB photo there delays the whole page. Resize images to their display size, serve WebP or AVIF, and make sure the hero is not lazy-loaded.
2. Plugins that load on every page
Contact forms, sliders, popups, chat widgets and social feeds often load their CSS and JavaScript on every page, even when used on one. Each adds main-thread work, which shows up as a high TBT. Remove plugins you no longer use, load the rest only where needed, and delay chat and tracking scripts until the visitor interacts.
3. Render-blocking CSS, fonts and scripts
The browser cannot paint until it has the stylesheets and scripts in the page head. A large theme stylesheet, several Google Fonts and jQuery add up. Inline the CSS for the first screen, defer scripts not needed right away, and self-host fonts with font-display: swap. Test after each change, because deferring a script a slider depends on can break it.
4. Slow hosting and a high TTFB
Without caching, WordPress runs PHP and database queries for every page view. On busy shared hosting the first byte can take a second or more, and nothing else starts until it arrives. Turn on page caching, use a CDN and a current PHP version. If it is still slow with caching on, the host is the bottleneck.
5. Page builders
Elementor, Divi and WPBakery make editing easy, but they output deeply nested markup, extra CSS and JavaScript, icon fonts and entrance animations. That slows layout on phones, and first-screen animations can hold back LCP. Turn off unused widgets, drop animations above the fold, or rebuild your key templates with lighter markup.
What the scores mean
- Performance score (0 to 100)
- A weighted blend of the lab metrics below. 90 or more is good, 50 to 89 needs work, under 50 is poor.
- LCP, Largest Contentful Paint (good: under 2.5 s)
- When the biggest thing on the first screen appears, usually the hero image or headline. On WordPress the usual culprits are a large hero image, render-blocking files or a slow server.
- CLS, Cumulative Layout Shift (good: under 0.1)
- How much the page jumps while it loads. Common causes are images without width and height, cookie banners and ads that push content down, and fonts that swap late.
- TBT and INP (good: TBT under 200 ms, INP under 200 ms)
- INP is the Core Web Vital for how fast the page reacts to taps, measured from real visitors. A lab test cannot tap, so Lighthouse reports Total Blocking Time: how long scripts keep the page frozen. High TBT usually means poor INP, and on WordPress it mostly comes from plugin and page builder scripts.
This test simulates a mid-range phone on slow 4G. Search Console shows real-visitor data from the last 28 days, so it updates slowly after a fix. Use the lab test to find causes, then watch the field data catch up.
Before you install another speed plugin
Stacking optimization plugins rarely fixes the cause and often adds problems. Run the test, change one thing, test again. Start with the first fix in your result: fixing the hero image and removing one or two heavy plugins often does more than any setting.
Proof, with labels
- Demo rebuild, not a client: a page-builder style home-services homepage went from a mobile Lighthouse score of 69 to 100. See the before and after.
- Our own homepage: 98 mobile Lighthouse, median of 7 runs on the live site.
Want it fixed for you?
WordPress Speed Fix: $497 for your key pages or $897 for the whole site, fixed price, about 7 days, with a before and after report.
Speed Fix guarantee: full refund if the fixed pages miss LCP under 2.5s and CLS under 0.1 on Google's mobile lab test.
Questions
Is this WordPress speed test free?
Yes. No signup and nothing to install. A fix plan by email is optional and also free.
Why is my score different from PageSpeed Insights?
Both use Google Lighthouse with a mobile preset, but from different servers, and scores move a few points between runs. Use one tool consistently and compare the metrics, not just the score.
Will a caching plugin fix my slow WordPress site?
Caching makes the server answer faster, which improves TTFB. It does not shrink images, remove plugin scripts or lighten a page builder layout. Two optimization plugins at once can also conflict.
Does my page builder make my site slow?
Not on its own, but builders make it easy to add heavy sections, sliders and animations. Our demo rebuild of a page-builder style homepage went from 69 to 100 on mobile, mostly by cutting what loaded on the first screen (demo rebuild, not a client).
What is a good mobile score for WordPress?
90 or above is good. For Google, the Core Web Vitals matter most: LCP under 2.5 s, CLS under 0.1 and INP under 200 ms for real visitors.
Do you need my WordPress login to run the test?
No. It loads the public page like a visitor would. Test your homepage and key landing pages separately, since each has its own images and plugins.
Running Shopify instead? Try the Shopify speed test. Any other site: free website speed check.