Do you need to hire WordPress development help for your agency or freelance business?
Having lots of work is great. And with so many businesses trying to build online presences thanks to the pandemic, a lot of WordPress agencies and freelancers are finding themselves in this position.
But the downside of having a lot of work is that your time isn’t infinite, so you might find yourself in a situation where you need to hire WordPress development help for your projects.
So – what are your options for finding development help for your WordPress business? Well, that’s the topic of this post.
Below, we’re going to dig into four ways to hire WordPress development help in 2022 and beyond, including the pros and cons of each method:
- Use a Project Management System
- White Labeling: The perfect recipe for outsourcing
- In-house hire
- Freelancers
- Per-project contractors
Let’s dig in.
Five Options to Hire WordPress Development Help
Let’s go through your options in detail…
1. Use Atarim to Simplify Project Management
White-labeling is great, but as your business starts to grow, you’ll also want to consider using a project management tool like Atarim. Atarim makes client collaboration considerably easier, letting you manage projects and control communication all through a single dashboard.
Atarim lets you gather direct feedback from your clients and allows them to leave comments on specific parts of the site that they want you to change very simply and easily. These are then turned into tasks that you can assign to your team members.
And, the best part about using Atarim is that you can white-label it completely based on your needs. If you want to reduce back-and-forth between clients and need a solution that helps them manage multiple design projects, this is a great choice.
Get direct feedback from your clients to close projects quicker and keep your clients satisfied. Atarim was designed for web designers and developers, helping them improve communication and making it easy for them to collaborate with clients through a centralized platform.
For instance, if a client wants to change something on their site, instead of them having to mail you back and forth several times before both parties completely understand the full details, they could just use Atarim to send a request.
Atarim takes a screenshot of their site and lets them add a comment exactly where they want to see the change. This screenshot is then turned into a task that you can assign to a team member, or tackle yourself!
2. White Labeling: The perfect recipe for outsourcing
The first option for hiring WordPress development help is to use a dedicated outsourcing company.
With this approach, you’ll work with a company that has experienced WordPress developers on its staff. Those developers can help out on a per-task or per-project basis, depending on the outsourcing solution.
For example, with UnlimitedWP, a popular WordPress white label service, you can assign unlimited individual tasks. These can be small tasks, such as a code tweak. But they can also be much larger tasks, such as a full website build – and everything in between.
There are some big benefits to white labeling:
- Costs
- Expertise in WordPress
- Flexibility
- White labeling relieves the pressure.
- Maintenance, Optimization, SEO, and Much More!. (Optional )
First off, an outsourcing service will typically be cheaper than other methods of hiring WordPress development help, especially when compared to alternatives like a full-time in-house hire.
You get access to a team of professionals intimately familiar with the latest trends and best practices. There’s no need to train them because they’re already experts in WordPress and have worked with 100s of clients. They also have the tools needed for maintenance once your site is up and running, which is also important.
Another reason to consider working with a white label web partner is that they offer these services under your brand name. In other words, they don’t use their own name or logo on any of the work they do for you. It will be as if you created the design yourself!
However, more beneficial is the flexibility that you get for controlling your costs. For example, UnlimitedWP lets you pay on a month-to-month basis and you can also upgrade or downgrade your plan on a month’s notice:
- Really busy month? Upgrade your plan to the highest-tier Business plan for 4-8 hours of help per day.
- Slower month next month? Shift back down to the Pro plan for 2-4 hours of help per day.
- Taking a break for a month. Just pause; no need to pay anything.
- Feeling lazy after a vacation? Jump back up to the Starter plan.
- I think you probably got the point of what I mean!
However, because you’re working through an outsourcing agency, it can sometimes be hard to build continuity with the actual developers doing the work (though you’ll typically have a dedicated account manager).
If you use UnlimitedWP, they’ll try to limit this downside by assigning the same developer to work with you on all your projects. That way, you can still maintain continuity in terms of the work product.
3. In-House Hire
If you have a regular need for WordPress development help, it might make sense to make an in-house hire for a full-time WordPress developer.
With this approach, you’ll have a full-time team member who’s there for help whenever you need it. You can also build continuity and develop a long-term working relationship, which can simplify things for you since a full-time employee will know your working processes inside and out.
For example, there’s no need to explain basic requirements for every project – your full-time employee will already know that once you’ve onboarded them.
You can hire full-time employees in your local area or use online job boards like Jobs.WordPress.net or WPhired. We also have our own WP Mayor jobs board, though it only aggregates listings from those aforementioned services using WP RSS Aggregator.
While there are a lot of benefits to hiring an in-house developer in terms of simplifying your workflows, there are some very real downsides in terms of costs and lack of flexibility.
If you make an in-house hire, that salary is there when work is good and bad.
With a dedicated outsourcing service, you can shift your costs up and down on a monthly basis based on the amount of work that you have.
But with an in-house hire, you can’t just cut that person’s salary or pause their work because you’ve had a slow month.
What’s more, in-house hires can be more expensive because you’ll need to account for details like benefits, taxes, and so on. There are also added costs and complexity, such as a payroll service, accounting requirements, and more.
Unless you’re 100% confident that you’re going to need that in-house hire full time for the foreseeable future, it probably doesn’t make sense to go this route.
4. Freelancers
If an in-house hire is a step too far, another way to get help is to use a freelance WordPress developer when needed.
You can find freelancers through direct relationships or one of the many marketplaces like Upwork or Freelancer.com.
A freelancer has a lot of the flexibility benefits of an outsource hire in that you can pay for as much or as little time as you need each month (or for each project).
Typically, there are no long-term commitments beyond the work that you’ve directly agreed to, which gives you a lot of flexibility.
In terms of costs, there’s no hard rule here as it depends on the freelancer. Some freelancers might cost more than an in-house hire or outsourcing service, while others might cost less.
The main downside of using a freelancer is that you’ll be responsible for vetting and hiring them, which can be difficult and time-consuming.
With a dedicated outsourcing service, the service has already done the work to vet the developers that will be working on your project. But with a freelancer, that work falls on your shoulders.
There are some freelance marketplaces that claim to do the vetting such as Toptal, which can help you filter out a lot at the low end. But the trade-off of these types of marketplaces is typically that these freelancers charge rates on the higher-end of things.
Another potential downside of a freelancer is that freelancers will work independently of you. Typically, they set their own schedule and timelines, which might mean you don’t have a tight working relationship. If that’s a downer, you might want to consider the next option.
5. Per-Project Contractors
The last (popular) option for hiring WordPress development help is to use a per-project contractor.
A contractor shares a lot of similarities to a freelancer in that they’re independent workers who you can hire on a per-project basis. The main difference is that a contractor functions more like a “hired gun” employee than an independent worker.
For example, contractors will often work the same schedule that you work, which means they’re closer to being “part of the team”, so to speak.
Contractors share the same benefits of freelancers in that you’re typically only committing to a single project, which makes it easy to control your costs.
However, the downside of hiring a contractor is that they’re typically the most expensive type of WordPress development help.
They’re usually a bit more expensive than a freelancer or in-house hire (on a per-project basis) and significantly more expensive than a white labeling service.
Much like freelancers, it can also be difficult to find and vet independent contractors.
Get WordPress Development Help for Your Agency Today
If you have a WordPress agency or freelance business, you’ll probably have a time when you need some WordPress development help.
When that time happens, you have four main options:
- White labeling service – gives you the perfect combination of control and freedom to upgrade or downgrade the services according to your needs. Ultimately, if you’re just starting out, UnlimitedWP is a solid option to build a long-term relationship with developers and scale your agency..
- In-house hire – if you have long-term needs for work, you can hire a full-time developer. This helps build continuity and a close working relationship, but it adds costs and limits your flexibility because you’re responsible for salary every month.
- Freelancer – a freelancer can give you help when you need it at varying price points. However, it can be difficult to find and vet quality freelancers. You’ll also need to be ok with them working independently of you.
- Per-project contractor – contractors can give you the flexibility of a freelancer with more of an “in-house” feel. However, you’ll typically pay a premium for that and it can be time-consuming to find quality contractors.
Do you still have any questions about how to hire WordPress development help for your agency? Let us know in the comments!
