How Much Does it Cost to Hire a WordPress Developer?

When you want to build a CMS-powered website site that's easy to work with, looks exactly the way you want, and with all the functionality you need, you've probably considered WordPress. WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the market due to its user-friendly interface and incredible customization options. What you put into the platform you'll definitely get back in terms of a scalable, functional site that's easy to update and maintain.

Customization is key to WordPress sites, and is where the bulk of the work comes in. Depending on how much your site needs to grow and how much customization you want, whether it's with advanced plugins or tweaks to a theme, you'll need to find a WordPress pro with the skills to bring your project to life. So, how do you budget for your WordPress project?

Maximize WordPress's customizability by setting expectations (and asking questions) up front.

WordPress has amazing potential if you have an experienced developer's help to maximize that potential. The sky's the limit, so it's important to know what you want from your site so you're hiring the right pro for the job.

Need an ecommerce site with payment and shipping integrations? Are you building a restaurant website that needs custom menu or reservation integrations? Do you need a portfolio-style site with photo and video galleries? Or, do you need a simple, one-page responsive mobile site? Any of these things can be accomplished in WordPress if you know how—but knowing what you need is the best place to start.

Publishing content on a WordPress site requires little coding knowledge, but the backend comprises a good bit of PHP, HTML, CSS and even JavaScript. WordPress developers work with frameworks like Genesis and editable themes, widgets, and plugins. They can handle installation, hosting and launch; author custom plugins; and write innovative WordPress code to scale and maintain your site over time.

Collaborate with a WordPress developer to help answer questions about how to accomplish certain goals. Doing a little bit of homework up front will help you to know what's going to go into your site, create a thorough brief, and ultimately decide who will be a good fit for the job.

Start with a solid brief describing your site's requirements.

To make the most of all the advanced customization you can squeeze out of WordPress, a good place to start is with a solid creative brief capturing exactly what you need from your site. This could be a list of must-haves (and nice-to-haves) that any experienced WordPress developer will know how to create with widgets, plugins, third-party integrations, or custom code.

The more custom your site is, the more involved the build will be. If you need complex development like advanced custom fields, ecommerce functionality, or extensive custom CSS to update the look and feel of a theme, expect this to boost the time and effort that will need to go into development.

Your document may include:

Background about you, your company, or your products and services.

Business goals and objectives for your site or online store.

The scope of the project, which outlines the development and design work to be done, plus any additional deliverables the project will create like custom plugins or integrations.

Technical specs the developer should know. Will you need a domain name, or hosting?

An overview of your competitors, including other sites you like that have functionality or features you'd like to have.

Your target audience(s) for the site.

Brand guidelines the theme should reflect, including fonts, color palette, imagery, and any logos.

A list of any copy (i.e. text) and images to be included in the site.

The project timeline, including any milestones.

The project budget—which will be shaped by the information included in the rest of this article.

Learn more about how to write a successful creative brief >> Pricing your project

Rates charged by WordPress developers on Upwork vary from $20 to $100 an hour, with an average project cost of around $194. Developers don't always bill hourly; it can be common for a WordPress developer to set a fixed price for your site, based on your project requirements and what level of (or, lack of) customization you need.

Here are a few more significant considerations for your WordPress hire.

Developer expertise and experience

Experienced developers can usually work faster while delivering more value to their clients with their work, so their pricing will often reflect this.

Geographic location and local market conditions can also affect a freelance developer's rates. Another factor is a WordPress developer's reputation. If they are still building their portfolio, they may price more competitively than more seasoned professionals. Who you need will depend on your site's complexity—finding the right WordPress developer should involve matching your goals for your site with their related experience.

Scope of work

Quotes for your project will all reflect one critical point: The scope of work, or how much you actually need a WordPress developer to do. Whether you want a full-blown ecommerce store with thousands of products and database integration, or a simple marketing site with a custom contact form, the production process may include:

Research into your industry, marketplace, and audience

Creating a site wireframe with page titles and content blocks

Choosing and customizing a theme

Identifying (and purchasing) the widgets and plugins needed to support functionality

Generating in-browser design for review and revisions

Setting up Google Analytics tools, an XML sitemap, and any SEO support (e.g., the Yoast plugin)

Testing, review, and approval, including testing for device and browser compatibility

Installation, integration, and launch of the site

A fixed-price project will also typically specify the number of iterations (i.e. rounds of revisions) included in the price.

Timeline & scope creep

If your project has a tight timeline, you may pay a premium (i.e. a rush fee) so be sure to start work as early possible. If your developer has to do a lot of extra work out of scope, they may charge a higher rate for work not originally discussed or agreed upon. Three ways to help ensure your timeline and scope doesn't grow beyond expectations:

Be specific about what you want in the site proposal, then let the developer make decisions about the tools and technology to bring it to life. Being too vague about what you have in mind can result in functionality that doesn't meet your MVP or the decision to use custom coding or plugins that might not suit your needs and require revision.

Prepare any related materials ahead of time. Write and edit site copy, menus, and page titles as soon as you have a wireframe for the pages within your site. If you're including photos or other images, check to ensure they have a high enough resolution.

Establish a way to quickly and efficiently share project assets to keep things moving. Being responsive and communicative is essential to keeping a development project rolling. Set up a Dropbox or Google Drive folder where you can store and share assets and information for your developer to keep the email back and forth to a minimum.

Here are some general time estimates for WordPress projects, including variables that may have an impact on how long it will take—and ultimately, how much you pay for the work.

PROJECT TIME ESTIMATE VARIABLES INCLUDE… Landing page One hour to 10+ hours

How detailed is the creative brief?

Is there a template to follow?

Are copy and images provided from the start, finalized, and sized appropriately?

Simple WordPress site Five hours to 20+ hours, possibly over several weeks

How many pages does the site include?

How much CSS theme customization is required?

What is the content, text and images, or does it need to pull data with more complicated parameters?

How many plugins do you need?

Custom site with theme and plugin integration/ ecommerce site Five hours to 100+ hours

How many pages does the site include?

What are your database requirements/

How much CSS theme customization is required?

How complex are the integrations?

How many plugins do you need to integrate?

Source: How Much Does it Cost to Hire a WordPress Developer?