An epic list of places to find WordPress developers and tips on how to find the best match for your needs.
Most WordPress developers' rates vary based on skills and location. It’s not always true that you get what you pay for.
The 7 most common mistakes in hiring a WordPress developer and how to avoid them.
John Hooley
President, Steward
John is a graduate of 10,000 Small Businesses, a certified Customer Acquisition Specialist, and a Zend Certified Engineer. He speaks and writes on connecting digital strategy to association goals. Outside of work he's an avid traveler, climber, diver, and a burgeoning sailor. He also volunteers with Rotary and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
When I first started as a freelance developer more than 13 years ago, I charged clients $17/hour. This was an amazing deal for my clients as I was skilled and reliable and just a bit green behind the ears on what it took to make a living (I ate a lot of beans and rice the first couple of years.)
At a conference, a couple of years ago, I talked with the business manager of a 3 person WordPress development company. They billed at $300/hour.
You’ll find most WordPress developers rates to be between $5/hour (India/Pakistan) to $250/hour (New York City).
It’s not always true that you get what you pay for.
But per mistake #1, “Focusing on Hourly Costs,” if you go hunting for deals, plan on wasting a lot of time and money gambling.
You’ll see rates at the extreme high and low for developers correlates mostly with the geographic region where you find the developer (see the section below on offshoring for more information.)
But typically you’ll find developers within a couple of ranges:
| $5 - $25/hour (USD) | Developers from countries with a lower standard of living. You see very little quality work in this range. Risky. |
|---|---|
| $25 - $50/hour (USD) | Junior WordPress developers. Less capable for anything that a plugin or theme can’t be configured to do. Intermediate WP developers from Eastern Europe often fall in this range. |
| $50 - $100/hour (USD) | More experienced developers from all over the world. It doesn’t mean that they’re highly skilled, but freelancers in this range likely have a deeper pool of experience with WordPress. You’ll also find agencies with outsourced teams sometimes in this range. |
| $100 - $150/hour (USD) | WordPress developers with strong focuses (e.g. web design) and most WordPress agencies and companies. |
| $150/hour - $250/hour | WordPress developers and agencies with good marketing. Any actual work they produce should be excellent, but their communication and project management can vary. |
* Note that these ranges are for freelancers/businesses and not employees. Freelancers and agencies charge more than you would pay an employee in order to cover slow periods in business and needs like healthcare and vacation.
If you know someone in the agency or web development industry, asking for a referral is a great method to find a decent developer. Referrals put someone’s reputation on the line because it means that people know each other. Because of that, you’re more likely to get a referral from someone who is competent and trustworthy.
For example, we’ve referred a lot of business to a small pool of freelancers. A couple of years ago, we heard back from a client we had referred to a freelancer in that pool that there was an issue with a project the freelancer had completed. After that, we didn’t refer anyone to that particular person.
What if you don’t know anyone who could provide a referral?
Searching on Google can help you to find committed freelancers in your area.
These folks have invested enough in their skillset and work that they’ve developed their own website and are actively marketing it.
It doesn’t mean they're good, but it is a good indicator that they will treat your project more professionally.
Google can also provide you a list of agencies where marketing is more the norm.
When you do a Google Search, make sure and visit the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pages. Most developers and development companies don’t know SEO well enough to make it to the top of the results.
Also, don’t be afraid to look outside your area. Many businesses mistakenly perceive that being in the same town as a developer is somehow less risky or that by being able to sit down for coffee with their provider they’re lowering their risk. This is far less important than working with someone who can deliver.
Freelance directories spend a lot of money on advertising and you’re likely familiar with several of them.
The best thing about these directories is that they compile a large group of people looking for work from a global pool and give you some idea of their capability.
The drawbacks are:
Because of this, experienced project managers and developers have the best luck finding good freelance help in directories.
Freelance Directories:
Just like there are freelancer directories, there are directories for WordPress agencies.
They are excellent places to get a large list of agencies to potentially work with.
Similar to freelance directories, unless someone’s experience was terrible, they’re not inclined to leave bad reviews. And agencies in these directories actively solicit reviews from clients they know have had good experiences.
There are few downsides here other than cost.
But there is still risk involved! Agencies can be unprofessional and unskilled too.
Agency/Company Directories:
Many freelance WordPress developers work off of an hourly rate. However, their ability to deliver can vary wildly.
You might find someone who is charging $25/hour and theorize that what you want shouldn’t take more than 50 hours… so 50 x 25 = $1,250. Then suddenly they’re at 100 hours and have something that still doesn’t work because they’re learning on the job.
Your #1 concern should be whether they can deliver what you need.
Often, we’re called in to fix up other developer’s messes.
That means that the company that hired us paid someone else to make a mess and then had to go through the trouble of finding us and then paying for the project again!
Your budget is important, but if you don’t get what you need then every penny you paid is wasted.
Again, WordPress developers vary widely in skill and competence.
On top of this, being able to do your project is only a part of what it will take to get your work done.
Your developer needs to be trustworthy, reliable, and able to communicate.
A couple of really common scenarios that we hear about from people who turn to us are:
Because of this, it’s critical that you do your due diligence and take steps to protect yourself from over exposure (more in that on “How to Start”).
Any freelance developer who lists their WordPress developer key skills as an alphabet soup of programming languages, esoteric technologies, and mixture of marketing and design is someone who isn’t good at anything.
The problem with these developers is that they’re inefficient. For individuals, you want to see depth of experience in projects similar to yours.
A WordPress development company, on the other hand, will likely have a broader skill pool by virtue of the size of their team and their time in the market. You should still see experience for your kind of project, but don’t be put off if they are multifaceted.
Not many WordPress developers are actually strong developers.
Most of them are front end developers who rely on plugins for functionality customization. In other words, they’re able to change how things look but have a harder time changing how they function.
That’s okay if your project is just the implementation of standard functionality. If you search for plugins and themes and think, “I just need these three things installed and set up to work together,” most WP developers should be able to handle it.
If you need anything that isn’t standard, you want to look for a developer who can write custom plugins.
If you need someone to design a website or page for you that is custom for your business, then you want to find someone who bills themselves as a WordPress designer.
Finally, if you need someone to be available to provide ongoing support for you with fixes or changes at the drop of a hat, you should hire us- a WordPress support and management company. (Shameless plug! :) )
You are going to need help again in the future.
Websites are not one and done.
The average shelf life of a website is 4-5 years before needing at least a redesign.
In between, you’ll need updates, feature enhancements, and likely other changes.
Treat the developers you work with like human beings that you would like to hire again. Not like oranges you have to squeeze every drop of goodness out of in this one project.
Like everywhere else in life, follow the golden rule.
Pay on time. Pay what you agreed. Be nice. Be professional.
When you need help next time, and you will, they’ll remember how you did business and act accordingly.
Many popular places for finding WordPress developers have user submitted reviews and ratings.
Take these with a grain of salt.
Someone can get 5 stars for quickly fixing a typo and get no review for a very mediocre project because their client is too nice to say what they really think.
Additionally, these reviews are short term and often based mostly on superficial interactions and not how things worked in the long term. E.g. a really friendly developer who does work that causes problems 3 months later.
When it comes to the star rating, their clients are often too nice to say what they really think because they know it will impact the developer’s ability to make a living.
Finally, developers know how to play the game and ask for 5 star reviews when a client is reasonably happy and don’t say a peep when they’ve missed the mark.
Because of this you end up with people only giving 5 star reviews or 1-3 star reviews when their experience is terrible.
Really, you should be looking at 5 stars as “Completed the job well enough, I think.” And you should be closely inspecting any low star reviews for possible issues with the developer (and to see how they respond to unhappy clients.)
“Go big or go home” is a recipe for wasting money and time.
When you work with someone new, the best way to make sure you hired the right partner is to treat the engagement like swimming in a mountain lake.
You might have had the experience of taking a dip in one of these lakes. Even in the searing hot sun of late July the water stays glacier cold. When you’re ready to swim, you walk into your ankles. And then you edge into your knees as you clutch your arms to your chest. By the time you creep your way into waist deep water you’re hyperventilating. This is when you realize that you’re just delaying the inevitable and dive all the way in.
It works the same when working with someone new.
Always start small with new partners. Test them out with small engagements before gradually investing more (see more on this in “How to Start.”)
You’re looking for a solid developer to work with, but keep in mind that it’s a two way street. Good developers are looking for good clients.
One of the ways that they’ll evaluate you is how you describe your project.
When you’re describing your project make sure and:
The last point is especially important! When you explain why you’re investing in the project you open the door for smart developers to provide insight. They will ask you about things you’ve never considered and help guide you to solutions you didn’t realize existed.
You have two lists of resources for both freelancers and agency directories above. You might be wondering: who should I work with?
You should be looking for a freelance WordPress developer if:
I’ve heard a lot over the years about hiring developers from certain countries.
Everyone was initially talking about offshoring to India, then the Philippines, and now Eastern Europe.
“Highly educated” and “will work for way less than US developers,” are typically included in these recommendations.
I’ve worked with developers from Asia, India, Central & Latin America, and Eastern Europe. While it’s true that developers will work for less, it’s as or more difficult to find good help.
Language and cultural differences can lead to frustration in projects where expectations are different.
And looking for bargains in those markets incentivizes developers to make compromises.
As an example, in a sister company, we just scoped a rebuild of an application where the original was developed in India. The original application worked fine, but many of their users complained that it was confusing and difficult to use.
It wasn’t poorly designed because Indian developers created it.
It was poorly designed because someone paid an Indian development company to build the application as cheaply as possible. The result was that they created a user experience that was oriented around what was easiest for them to build.
Now, our client is paying us again to build it right.
Remember the #1 mistake people make: focusing on hourly costs rather than on getting what you need.
Bargain hunting in countries with lower standards of living is a risky proposition for anyone who is not a veteran developer or project manager.
We live in a global market and good developers can find good jobs- regardless of where they live.
Conversely, anyone, in any country, can post a low hourly rate, make excuses about your situation, and run up the clock.
Additionally, keep in mind that any time you work with a partner outside of your own country, you’re sacrificing your ability to hold them legally responsible for any problems you experience.
Legal accountability is a good incentive to have in any professional relationship.
If you don’t know how to fix cars, how can you tell if your mechanic is any good?
If you haven’t been to medical school, how can you tell if your doctor is any good?
This is the expertise problem. Non-experts aren’t good at identifying experts.
Because of this, we tend to evaluate people on the characteristics we do understand, even when they’re not a true indicator of ability.
For example, you feel confident you have a good doctor when they look like a doctor, speak with authority, and appear incredibly busy. But an actor could easily do any of these things and we’d be fooled.
For a developer, you might mistakenly assume competence with how quickly they respond to inquiries, how they dismiss your requirements as simple, or the number of cutting technologies they list in their capabilities. These aren’t great indicators of competence.
The bad news is that there isn’t any way around this problem.
The good news is that there are heuristics and techniques to lower your risk.
As you begin to evaluate providers, keep in mind that you need two things:
You should be evaluating for both of these vectors. Untrustworthy “brilliant” people are as worthless as high integrity, but low-skilled coders.
The best indicator of future performance is past performance.
How this plays out with developers is pretty simple:
Any specialization that matches your needs is going to lower your risk, especially if it’s backed by a track record.
You should be looking for case studies and testimonials that are close to your situation. Testimonials like, “x person did an excellent job,” don’t help because they’re non-specific. The job could have been fixing a typo or building a custom WordPress integration with an API.
Especially for freelancers, you need not only their skill, but also a level of professionalism, and ability to manage your project. Time in business is a decent signal of commitment and ability to deliver value.
Good developers care about what they do.
And people who care have certain characteristics and patterns.
For WordPress developers here are a couple of things to look for:
1) Do they have any contributions in GitHub? Have they submitted patches or worked on projects?
GitHub is a popular social code repository where developers can share their work and contribute to others. Ask potential hires for their GitHub username and look them up.
2) Have they participated in WordPress?
Has the developer answered people’s questions in the forum, spoke at a Wordcamp, or contributed a free or commercial plugin to the WordPress community?
Ask them for their WordPress username or for links to some of their public work.
3) Training and Certification
Committed individuals invest in training and in proving they know their stuff!
Has the candidate completed any training around WordPress, PHP, MySQL/MariaDB?
Do they hold any degrees or certifications in design (for a web designer)?
Have they taken live or online training? For what and when?
Additionally, for technical skills, you can have promising candidates tested using one of the services below:
Again, a good referral from someone is one of the best ways to get a lot of information about someone’s capabilities and how they work.
Often our “gut” picks up on signals that our brain can’t make sense of. If you feel hesitant about hiring someone and can’t put your finger on why- don’t do it! Keep looking. It’s a common story among my agency owner friends that we’ve ignored this signal and regretted it. Learn from us and don’t make our mistake.
All these tactics to find and vet developers will take big steps in reducing your risk. But you’ll never be able to see how well suited a candidate is until you actually work with them.
The next and final step in reducing your risk is starting your project the right way.
For any developer that is working within your country or legal reach, you should have a contract in place.
It should address:
I’m not a lawyer and can’t provide you legal advice on this. Your freelancer, agency, or development shop should have their own contract and you should read it carefully around the above items and consider having an attorney review it.
If you need an example contract that is fair in its terms, the organization, The Bureau of Digital, provides a boilerplate contract for agencies.
In terms of getting a contract signed, services like DocSketch make it easy to send and sign documents.
The best way to make sure you’re working with the right person is to start small.
Slice off a sliver of your overall project and pay the developer to complete it.
You’ll learn a lot about how they communicate and what they produce by just sampling them as a service.
For a website design, this might be hiring a WordPress designer to create a wireframe of your homepage.
For programming, you might pay a coder to an estimate that explicitly lines out where changes have to be made.
For a development shop or agency, a common service is “Discovery” where you pay them to do research and planning on your behalf and around your larger goals.
The point with this is to build your understanding of their capabilities before diving all the way into a project.
We often pay several developers to do the same test project before we choose who we’re going to work with. Freelancers and agencies will produce a wide spectrum of work.
Small projects to start will ensure you end up with someone who doesn’t just look “good on paper,” but can actually deliver.
That’s my bag of tricks! It’s been hard learned over years of working with developers.
The market has more and more coders and designers every year, but it’s still a challenge to find the good ones. I hope that this article is useful in helping you get your project to successful completion.
If this has helped you, please take 30 seconds and share it on your preferred social media.
It’s one way that you can pay it forward and help someone else looking for WordPress developer help too.
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Got a question? Have a different perspective? Shoot me an email at
John Hooley is the Site Steward CEO.
He built his first website in 1996 as a teenager- a fan site for the video game Warcraft 2. Since then, he’s built many more websites, web applications, and digital products. He speaks across the US and Canada on using digital strategy to support organizational goals. He’s also a Zend Certified Engineer for PHP.
