How to Reduce WordPress Development Costs Without Losing Quality

  • By Ramsingh Manek
  • 02-03-2023
  • Web Development
wordpress development cost

Web development has undergone a monumental change since the advent of leading technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Augmented/Mixed Realities. Despite many frameworks and website builders, businesses still prefer WordPress to deliver the ideal solution for businesses.

As WordPress has been there for several years, it has defined several add-ons and possibilities that enhance the development experience. Despite being open-source, you may overshoot your budget for WordPress development if you don’t plan the website appropriately.

Let’s look at the factors that impact the cost of WordPress website development.

7 Factors Impacting the Cost of WordPress Development

The cost of developing a WordPress website isn’t dependent on a single factor. As a result, there is no fixed number that can describe how much it will cost to build your website.

  • Pre-built or Custom

Whether or not you are choosing an off-the-shelf design to build your WordPress website is a key factor in deciding the cost. If you are choosing one of the ready and free themes, you may only spend a little money. Similarly, if you add free plugins, you can save money customising the website.

On the other hand, if you are choosing custom themes and paid plugins, it will increase the cost of development. This choice plays a pivotal role in deciding the cost. You may have to pay a higher price if you choose the custom route.

  • Hiring Designers for the Job

If you choose the UX/UI design route to build your WordPress website, it can become expensive. The designers who will strategize your user experience and plan the layout are expensive. While it will give you the blueprint for a successful website design, it will make you overshoot your defined budget.

If you plan a custom design that fits your business, you might want to hire designers and sketch the layouts. This is a recommended step. They will also help define the visual layout for your website, which can impact the experience and engagement.

The right designers can help you build interactive and immersive interfaces your website audience needs.

  • Website Complexity

This significantly contributes to the overall cost of designing and developing a WordPress website. You will need to pay more if you plan a complex website with advanced features.

For instance, adding conversational bots to your website will need expertise. You might have to choose an expensive tool or a developer with the said expertise. This can increase the development cost because hiring an experienced developer is more expensive.

To incorporate AI algorithms into your website, you need someone with non-relational database knowledge. They should be adept with machine learning and deep linking. This will help enhance the outcome of the website.

The number of developers and their hourly rates will increase as complexity increases. It will also increase the timeline for the website development.

  • Content Development and Management

This is yet another part of WordPress website development that can significantly increase overall costs. Your hourly rates will go up if you have to pay for content developers and strategists. You might need to hire more writers, designers and editors if it is a content-intensive website. This can increase overall WordPress costs.

  • Hosting and Domain

Let’s talk about the domain cost. If you are purchasing a premium domain, it can increase the cost of WordPress development. The cost of a regular domain can be low. if you choose a coupon code, you might get discounts as well. However, when you are calculating the cost of WordPress development, you cannot ignore domain purchasing and maintenance costs.

You need to choose the hosting plan for your WordPress website. If you purchase private hosting plans, it will be expensive. Shared hosting or public hosting can reduce overall costs.

  • Plugins for Customisation

The plugins you choose to enhance the functionality of your website can also add to WordPress development costs. You can easily reduce the development cost if you choose from a range of free-to-use plugins. However, if you plan to add custom and premium plugins, you must pay for them. It will be added to the development cost.

When you plan a WordPress website, think through the plugins before you start coding.

  • The Total Pages

Check how many pages you need to add to the WordPress website. This can impact the development cost. Let’s understand how. If you add more pages, you need to design these pages. This will increase the designer’s work. As a result, the timeline will increase. Multiply it with the hourly rates, and the costs will go up.

There are several ways to lower the costs and improve the outcome. Let’s check out methods to reduce WordPress development costs without compromising quality.

8 Ways to Lower WordPress Development Costs

You can reduce overall development costs if you follow these steps. Make sure to incorporate these tips during the planning phase for better outcomes.

1. Know the Purpose of your Website

Start by getting to know why you need a WordPress website. What will it do for your business? For example, is it your source of attracting new customers? Do you aim to improve the branding of the website?

As we are slowly moving into the depths of the purpose, there are several questions that you need to address.

  • Determining the target audience is crucial at this point. When you know who your audience is, you will get clarity about the website and its design. You need to educate your customers if they are new to this niche. If they have already decided on the product/service you want, showcase how your brand differs.
  • Your hosting choice depends on the number of people visiting your website simultaneously. It is indirectly associated with the purpose of the site. If there are going to be lots of people sending queries simultaneously, determining the load and designing the website can help.

2. Determine the Hosting Expenses for the Site

Website hosting is crucial to managing the increased load, keeping up with the performance requirements and managing the desired speed. Hosting can also prove to be one of the most significant expenses. It is the reason why your WordPress development can overshoot the budget.

  • Choose shared hosting when you start with the website development. Proceed with high-end hosting solutions once you have desired visits.
  • Choose an affordable website hosting solution that ensures complete risk management.
  • Determine a hosting solution that extends risk mitigation strategies and prevents vulnerabilities.
  • Include the add-ons and necessary storage space that can improve your website management without adding to development costs.

3. Add the Necessary Plugins

In the WordPress world, there is a plugin for almost everything (read all features). You might be tempted to increase visitors to your website. However, that will mean adding too many plugins and increasing the weight of the website. This can impact the performance and lower the speed.

Most of the plugins cost you a lot. Adding a plugin might take up some amount of the budget. You should weigh your options and decide on the most critical plugins for the website.

It is equally important to choose affordable plugins while developing the WordPress website. See if you can find a free or low-cost version of a plugin. It will help you reduce the cost and enhance the results.

4. Select an Affordable Website Theme

It is quite possible that you don’t like the free WordPress theme for your website. Either you don’t have customisation options, or it doesn’t convey what you aim to say. You may not find the theme that does everything for your website.

Instead of choosing an expensive paid theme, you should opt for an affordable version. Choose the aspects that are most important to you. For example, if customisation is a priority, choose a theme that offers it. Don’t spend too much if you can fulfil your requirements with the basic version.

5. Partner with an Affordable Developer or Company

Choosing the right WordPress development partner is essential. You should find someone that can translate your vision into a website. They must offer quality solutions. For example, they should create a well-coded and fully-commented website backend that can reduce complications.

Similarly, they should understand what you need to build the exact web solution. They should have relevant portfolios to help determine if you should partner with them. It would be great if you find niche experts who have provided quality solutions for projects like yours.

6. Source from Credible Places

When you are finding people who can help you with WordPress development, the place does matter. Sourcing from appropriate websites is essential. Upwork is a great place to get started. Similarly, you can choose to find partners on LinkedIn and other websites. There are job sites and applications where you might find the right development partner.

7. Timely Feedback to Lower Timelines

You may wonder how this will help reduce WordPress development costs. Let’s take a scenario where you send your feedback late. The development company is charging you for the entire month. If you delay the feedback, your fixed income increases for another month, which can add to the overall development cost.

By sending out feedback on time, you save the money spent on unproductive hours.

8. Lower the Maintenance Costs

Maintenance costs can increase your overall development cost. If you don’t follow the maintenance best practices, you might spend more money on maintenance than development.

It is important to note that WordPress issues regular updates for the framework. It could be in sync with the PHP update as well.

Even the basic plugins undergo updates. You should update your site to meet the new WordPress version requirements. If you opt for automatic updates, you can save the effort that goes into updating the site manually.

There are two effective ways to reduce your WordPress website maintenance cost.

1. Incorporate Timely Updates

If the site isn’t updated regularly, it can cost you a lot during maintenance. You will need to go through the upgrade from scratch. When you use a CMS like WordPress for website development, you might notice that they are updated frequently. These updates should be copied to your website to leverage the new functionality.

When working with WordPress, remember that the CMS offers three to four annual updates. To reduce overall maintenance costs, make sure to follow these tips.

  • Before you release the website with the updated version, test these on the staging server. You might have to roll back your updated site if the new function doesn’t work with your website. It can impact your reputation in the long run. Testing is crucial before release.
  • Don’t incorporate the new WordPress version if you aren’t sure about the stability. If the WordPress community has released a notice claiming this new version to be stable, go ahead with the update.

2. Maintain the REquisite Security

To reduce the maintenance cost, you should ensure immense website security. The vulnerabilities can cost you in terms of data and customers. This can impact the cost of the website.

To minimize the risk factors, incorporate the right plugins into your website.

  • The right way to increase website security is through adding plugins that matter. Use Sucuri, or WordFence, to reduce malware inside the website.
  • Choose plugins that regularly scan the website and remove the errors.
  • When you are adding IPs to the website, whitelist only significant ones. Make sure the IPs you are including have SSH certificates.
  • Before you view your website as secure, create a security checklist. A pre-audit would tell you all the things that are wrong with your website’s security. Make sure to add plugins to reduce these issues and enhance the outcome.

Make sure to check out maintenance best practices before you implement the right measures to reduce costs.

Conclusion

WordPress website development can help you accelerate the website launch and increase the acquisitions for your business. It is, therefore, crucial to choose a suitable partner company. You should also select the right theme and plugins for your website.
Hire expert WordPress developers to design and develop impactful websites and applications. Use the best sourcing tools to find your partner company.

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Author

Ramsingh Manek

Ramsingh Manek has been working with Best Remote Team, an India-based offshore web and mobile app development company. He is a technology enthusiast and writes content to provide readers with insights about various technologies and related trends.

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