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For a WordPress freelancer, the only barrier to entry into the world of business up till now has been mindset. Before the rise of remote work in 2020, many viewed freelancing as little more than a side hustle. Meanwhile, parents worldwide would constantly urge their freelancer offspring to “get a real job.”
Of course, this is far from the truth. For almost all types of knowledge work, there is no need to be anywhere specific to get work done. And if it brings in money, it’s a real job by definition. Take that, ma!
In this guide, we aim to help new WordPress freelancers navigate the freelance landscape and kickstart their own freelance business, whether they sell design services, theme/plugin development, SEO, security audits, hosting support, or anything related to WordPress.
Read on to find out how to become the freelancer you always knew you wanted to be.
An opportunity of a lifetime, and a lifetime’s worth of opportunity
Why is freelancing, or even remote working, such a good deal for those with skills in WordPress? For one, all you need is a computer with internet, a head on your shoulders, and time on your hands.
That goes for a lot of other types of jobs, too, though. So take a look at these stats and you will understand why WordPress represents a lifetime of opportunity for those with the skills to wrangle it:
- An estimated 800 million websites use a Content Management System, of which about 43% rely on WordPress. This is an enormous potential client base, no matter how high the competition.
- According to Search Engine Journal, the number of websites using WordPress increased by 227% between 2011 and 2022.
- There are over 30,000 WordPress themes and 50,000 free plugins in the WordPress plugin catalog. It is Murphy’s Law that every single one has a hidden bug or plugin conflict issue that someone is going to have to figure out and fix at some point. If you are into plugin development, that person could be you… for a reasonable fee, of course.
- According to WordPress.org, only 49.9% of WordPress websites are updated to the latest version (WordPress v6.5) at the time of writing. Guess who will be called to help update the other 51.1% of (some horribly) outdated WordPress installations? Very likely a skilled freelance WordPress developer who can ensure that the updates go smoothly without breaking the site. This kind of service is vital to many bigger website owners who can’t risk downtime, and the same goes for security, optimization, maintenance, and more.
Why become a WordPress freelancer?
Not yet convinced by the above stats? Here are some more of the top reasons to get started as a WordPress freelancer:
- No investment needed: WordPress is free to download, use, and modify for any number of websites you can create. Thus, your time and effort will be the only meaningful expense for most of your freelance services. The rest is essentially profit.
- Unlimited earning potential: Want to charge an arm and a leg because you know your work is that good? No one’s going to stop you (although clients might not hire you altogether). Just ensure you can deliver that level of service and quality or you will be back to the 9 to 5 in no time.
- Do things your way: Your business means your rules, putting you in control of your equipment, workflow, tools, and processes that you use to get things done. You also decide your working hours so you can work away at your most productive times (night owls, anyone?).
- It just makes sense: Many companies prefer hiring a WordPress freelancer for different WordPress jobs and tasks rather than a full-time employee. In many cases, it wouldn’t be viable to have an employee. Big digital agencies and development studios also sometimes need WordPress freelancers to help with client overflow work, so that is yet another addition to your potential client base.
And… the drawbacks of being a WordPress freelancer
To be fair, there are also some drawbacks to making a life for yourself as a WordPress freelancer, such as:
- You’re on your own: If you are an extrovert who feels the isolation of freelancing more than most, it might be wise to seek traditional employment. On the other hand, the WordPress community has a strong history of socializing, sharing, and networking. This gives you plenty of opportunity to collaborate with others in the real world, and not just behind a screen.
- Less job security: A client can vanish at any time and there is nothing you can do about it. As long as they have paid their dues, of course. You will need to develop good client retention and time management strategies to prevent this from seriously affecting your income stability.
- No employee benefits: Being self-employed, freelancers don’t receive employee benefits from any company, as they are both the employee and the employer. On the other hand, you are surely a kind and generous boss. Buy yourself a chocolate or something nice once in a while (or any time you want) and call it the benefit of being a freelancer.
- Your work-life balance can get weird: Don’t be surprised if you find yourself deep in thought about your latest plugin customization project instead of focusing on a romantic dinner with your date. Try not to do that, okay?
Building your foundation as a WordPress freelancer
The problem for most new freelancers is that they don’t know exactly what kind of work is available, or where to begin looking for it.
They might know their way around WordPress quite well from a technical perspective, with good knowledge of all the moving parts behind it. But still, they struggle to convey what it is they can offer a client.
Considering that there are hundreds of niches within niches a WordPress freelancer can pursue, this is no surprise. Want to be the expert at setting up Contact Form 7 integration with MailChimp? Well, if there is a market for it, why not, right?
Example niches for a WordPress freelancer
To help you gain a bird’s-eye view of some of the more popular niches you can delve into, here are a few typical WordPress skills and service offerings with examples.
- Theme development and design
- Example niche: Specializing in the creation of new WordPress themes or the customization of existing ones.
- Page layout design
- Example niche: Specializing in using Elementor to design attractive landing page layouts.
- Custom plugin development
- Example niche: Specializing in the creation of custom plugins developed to client specifications.
- Security and networking
- Example niche: Specializing in the configuration of security and network settings to ensure protection from hackers, malware, and spam.
- System Administration
- Example niche: Specializing in the installation, troubleshooting, and maintenance of server operating systems and system software optimized for high-volume, WordPress-based e-commerce sites.
- SEO
- Example niche: Specializing in technical SEO audits for blogs, magazines, newspapers, and other publications.
- Accessibility
- Example niche: Specializing in ensuring adherence to WCAG accessibility standards for WordPress.
- Publishing
- Example niche: Specializing in creating blog posts, website content, copywriting, and other professional writing and article design services for WordPress websites.
Depending on your experience level, you may offer freelance services in many or all of the above areas. However, each niche has its unique system of tradecraft. Try not to overwhelm yourself by offering everything under the sun, even if it means casting a smaller net for clients until you are more ready to branch out.
The fantastic thing about open-source software is that everyone can get involved in some small way. That’s another reason it’s so easy to get started with WordPress as a freelancing platform; even if you can only do one thing well, start there.
Setting up shop as a professional WordPress freelancer
Say after me: “I am a freelance WordPress specialist.” Congratulations, you are now a professional freelancer!
No, seriously, that’s all there is to it—everything else is a formality (although yes, the formalities are still important). You might not have any clients yet, but that doesn’t matter. Anyone can be a freelancer at any time, even if they already have a full-time job.
Formalities
In legal and administrative terms, a freelancer is, by default, a sole proprietor. This is the simplest type of business structure in which an individual is self-employed and takes on all liabilities and potential debts. Sole proprietors don’t register a business name but instead use their personal name for trading, marketing, invoicing, and tax purposes.
The next simplest business structure is a partnership, which is similar to a sole proprietorship in that both you and your partner are personally responsible for debts and liabilities.
If you want to trade and market yourself under a registered company name rather than your personal name, you can register your freelance business as a company such as an LLC (Limited Liability Company). With this, all income, expenses, debt, liability, etc. are attributed to the company rather than you, which helps protect you against risk.
Tax deductions
Regardless of your business structure, you will need to keep track of all income earned and the expenses incurred in earning that income for tax purposes. When submitting your tax return you can deduct various expenses, including:
- Internet costs and software products.
- Marketing, accounting, and bookkeeping.
- Equipment (e.g. PC/laptop) and maintenance.
- Rent and utility bills for your designated home office or workspace.
- Business travel.
Please note that company registration and tax laws differ around the world, so it is always best to consult with a local accountant and/or tax advisor about how to structure your freelance business.
Here are some other questions you will need to ask yourself:
- What needs to be in your client contracts to ensure you are covered from all angles?
- How are you going to accept payments? For example, bank transfers, credit/debit cards, PayPal, Stripe, or Payoneer.
- Will you use your personal bank account or open a separate account for your business?
- Are you going to do all your bookkeeping and taxes yourself, or will you need to hire a professional?
Personal branding
If, like many freelancers, you are going ahead as the sole proprietor of your freelance business, you will be trading under your own name. This means that all your marketing efforts will be focused on you as both a person and a professional.
Here are some tips to help you develop your personal branding:
- Write a strong bio: Who are you? What skills and services do you offer? What is your experience, and do you have any projects you are particularly proud of? Is there anything that makes you different from other freelancers offering similar services? You get the picture.
- Register on freelance sites: Fill out the required profile overviews with a well-crafted bio for each and a description of your services, and don’t forget to add your portfolio pieces. Being visible on these sites can help you get your name out there, even if you aren’t yet getting any work from them.
- Create a portfolio website: Having your freelance profile on a marketplace site is great, but you have little control over its look and feel. Luckily, you know WordPress, so create yourself a nice portfolio website that will wow potential clients the moment they land on it.
- Advertise yourself: Whether you run ads to your freelance profile on a site like Upwork, or to your portfolio website, this is a quick way to get in front of people who will pay for your services. You might also want to create ads in local or online classifieds.
- Build a reputation in the WordPress community: Whether it’s contributing code to WordPress itself (or themes and plugins), or simply volunteering support and helpful comments to people in need on forums, get yourself out there!
Finding clients and winning contracts
Don’t think that just because you have a professional profile on various freelance sites and a beautiful personal portfolio site, clients will just start flooding in. That’s all necessary groundwork, sure. But to win actual contracts you will have to be proactive.
Here we will cover strategies for finding and approaching clients, crafting proposals, and pricing your services.
Engaging with clients
Beyond setting up your freelance profile on freelance sites and having a website where clients can find you, there is already a vibrant community environment for you to begin networking within. This community, whether on the official WordPress support forums or elsewhere on the Web, will be your go-to not only for finding potential clients but also for learning about common problems that people need solutions to.
But your search for clients doesn’t have to stop there.
Get creative and act like a detective: start local and scope out the WordPress websites of businesses in your area. Local is best for starters, as it is easier to win contracts if you can get to the decision maker (usually the owner) in person and present your services much like a sales rep does.
Getting your foot in the door
An excellent starter sales tactic is to do a free site audit for your potential client. For example, are they offering an online store with WooCommerce, but their product images are all blurry, their checkout page is broken, or their email form isn’t sending emails?
Type up a report with all your findings and hand it over to the company with a description of how you will fix each issue, and how much they can expect to pay.
Of course, not everyone who wants to freelance is prepared or able to do this (after all, you want to work from home, not roam the streets looking for business), but this isn’t necessarily an ongoing activity. It is simply a kickstart to get you:
- Earning money (the number one priority).
- Winning clients who can refer you to other clients and give you testimonials.
- Gaining professional experience and making a name for yourself.
Consulting as a WordPress freelancer
Later on, once you know your WordPress niche extremely well, you can also do consulting, which doesn’t involve any hands-on work but simply entails guiding a client to find the right solution.
Consulting is a great opportunity because there are so many moving parts in WordPress that clients can easily get overwhelmed. They may simply need someone to tell them if it makes sense to go with a certain plugin for the use case they have in mind.
Then, of course, you can upsell them regarding your proposed solutions by offering to do the work as well. For instance, if they ask you to recommend someone, tell them: “I might know a guy/gal”, and wink. Referring to yourself, of course.
If you’ve created any WordPress products (themes/plugins/productivity tools) that you can sell, you can align your freelancing services with these products by offering personalized support and custom development, priced at your standard freelance rates.
Often a client wants something that is mostly covered by a plugin, but it needs just one or two tweaks to the code. Be the person who can help with that, and you may easily unlock further business with them down the road.
Billing hourly vs. per project:
The two main ways to charge for your services are hourly and per project (or deliverable). It’s up to you to decide when it makes sense to go with either billing type.
Hourly billing: You charge an hourly rate (e.g. $45/hour) by tracking your time and invoicing the client based on how long it took you to complete the job. Different types of jobs might have different hourly rates depending on complexity. Use an hourly rate calculator such as the one by Clockify for help with this.
Per project billing: You charge a fixed price based on the value of what you can deliver. This makes sense for well-defined tasks with a clear scope and can be more lucrative than hourly billing in cases where the work can be done at a fast rate. For example, you may charge a fixed price of between $500 and $3,000 to install, configure, and design a basic WordPress website.
A note on competitor pricing: Some regular companies and agencies charge a premium for simple services that a freelancer would gladly do for a fraction of the cost. This isn’t because the companies are greedy, per se, but is more about having to offset the expenses of paying full-time staff, renting office space, etc.
When you are pricing your services to be competitive in the market, pay attention to what other freelancers are charging, and not only what companies charge.
Proposal tips to win contracts
Check out these tips to help you write proposals that won’t be overlooked.
Show relevant work only: Imagine yourself as a client needing a WordPress security audit — would you hire someone who can only show you portfolio samples of work that have nothing to do with security? Of course not. Yet, many freelancers make this mistake, thinking that their experience in creating a nice-looking website should be enough to convince the client of some overall broader skill set. Rather be specific and always show work that the client will instantly recognize as relevant to their needs.
Leverage your non-WordPress skills and experiences: For example, if you’ve previously worked retail at a high-end luxury store, you can use this to your advantage when approaching clients in the jewelry or luxury fashion industry who need help with their company’s WordPress site. Clients are more inclined to hire freelancers who can not only design a great website but also understand the client’s industry at a deeper level.
Strike a balance between broadness and specificity: You want to let your client know exactly how you can provide a solution… but don’t box yourself in. Make it known that your proposal is only tentative, and may be subject to changes as you become more informed about the scope and requirements. Try to remain flexible from the very beginning, as client needs can and do evolve.
Leave room for negotiation: State your pricing upfront in your proposal, but don’t dig in your heels if the client tells you they don’t have the budget for you. Instead, enquire further to negotiate within their actual budget. You might not win the whole contract, but instead, only a certain part of it that the client can afford, and that’s good, too.
Project management mastery
An intrinsic part of being a WordPress freelancer is juggling multiple client projects at once. Naturally, this demands a certain level of planning.
Fortunately, as a one-person business, you won’t need to take a lengthy course on project management, for instance, as these are more relevant to large teams within organizations than single freelancers.
Your project management strategies need not be too complex and might involve:
- Determining project scope: What all needs to be done? Get it all in writing, itemizing each separate aspect (e.g. design mockups, installation, custom development, etc.).
- Estimating time to completion: How long will each milestone take? What’s the priority or urgency of this project compared to the others in your pipeline?
- Tracking your time: So you spent 3-6 hours writing code for a new plugin? Well, which is it? 3 hours or 6? If you don’t know, you can’t bill your clients fairly or accurately.
- Remembering that you are human: Sleeping, eating, household chores, a social life; all these things must be taken into account. You’re not just a freelancer, you’re human, too!
As much as you might like to wing it, planning out the basic outline of your projects is crucial to staying on track and keeping clients happy. Always set aside enough time to organize your project workflows for each new client. And if you can’t deliver to your client’s desired deadline, let them know immediately, not later.
Productivity tools for WordPress freelancers
Here are some powerful tools that can help you manage clients and execute your projects like a well-made machine, especially if you’re not the only freelancer working on a large WordPress website project:
If you need help with creating invoices and keeping them organized, see these solutions that are ideal for freelancers and small businesses:
And don’t forget to check out some of the project management plugins made specifically for WordPress that you can easily integrate with your portfolio website.
Growing towards sustainability
There’s a bit of a catch-22 for freelancers who haven’t quit their day job just yet: they want to grow their freelance business to a full-time venture, but they aren’t sure they can make it sustainable enough to live on.
They might have already seen some freelance success, but they were small jobs and only to be considered a bonus on top of their existing salary. The big catch is that they won’t ever know if they can pull it off until they dive in, and that can be risky.
If this sounds like you, you’ll want to work on your client retention strategies so that you can build up a steady, stable stream of work, gradually working toward a minimum of sustainability. In other words, maybe don’t quit your day job just yet, but instead, aim to test how well the freelance market can sustain you over time.
Your ideal goal is just the right mixture of projects from one or several clients to keep you earning at a comfortable, consistent rate.
Client retention strategies
Consider these client retention tips that apply to all types of WordPress freelancers:
- Deliver impeccable customer service by meaningfully communicating with your clients. Freelance work isn’t just about business transactions, but also about fostering relationships and making clients feel special.
- Offer reasonable rates. A desperate client might pay good money for a project now, but if you want them to keep spending, your pricing needs to match their long-term budget.
- Create solutions tailored to your clients so that they won’t ever want to go elsewhere. Ensure you do your homework on both the client’s needs and their overall industry.
- Don’t be shy to ask for feedback. If a client’s satisfaction with your services dwindles, they might not even tell you before deciding to move on. Elicit these concerns and address them.
- Apply cross-selling and upselling tactics to keep the client on board with you even when they no longer need the service they came to you for. For example, if you’re contracted for a one-off website creation job, consider offering the client ongoing support to handle plugin updates and other maintenance tasks.
Scaling up as a WordPress freelancer
If you find that you can’t do it alone and need some help with various matters like marketing or accounting to free up your time, that’s perfectly reasonable.
As it happens (surprise!), there are freelance professionals out there who can help with any tasks you don’t want to be burdened with yourself. If it makes sense and eases your workload while helping you grow, use them.
Meanwhile, you can also delegate some of your non-critical work (or non-specialized tasks that only you do best) to another WordPress freelancer in your field. For example, hiring someone to manage basic admin tasks from within the WordPress dashboard can help free you up for more lucrative tasks that make better use of your skills, such as coding or design.
Pretty soon you might just have a bustling full-service freelance agency on your hands.
Expanding your services
Let’s say you’ve done everything right and you are assured that the income from your existing freelance business can sustain you. Why rest on your laurels when adding to your skills is so easy in the world of WordPress?
Here are some ideas on how to expand your horizons:
- Get certified.
- Take online courses on popular learning websites such as Coursera, Udemy, WP101, WPSessions, and WP Apprentice.
- Attend WordPress events and conferences like WordCamp for networking and partnership opportunities.
- Work on your soft skills and learn about how to lead and manage a team that can boost your growth, productivity, and profits.
- Stay on top of new developments in WordPress so you can constantly add the latest and greatest solutions to your arsenal.
WordPress freelancer success stories
This guide wouldn’t be complete without a few examples of noteworthy freelancers who have used their WordPress skills to build thriving businesses.
The first inspirational example is Erik Karkovak, a highly successful WordPress developer and designer who first began working with WordPress in 2005. He details his falling in love with WordPress as a freelancer and how it helped him pursue his dreams in this short essay at HeroPress.
Next up is Chris Misterek at SelfMadeWebDesigner.com, a former pastor who doubled his previous full-time employment income in only 18 months by working as a freelance WordPress web designer. Chris tells his story of how he became successful by always putting clients first, in the article: From $500 to $4500 for WordPress Websites in No Time At All: My Story.
Then we have the uplifting story of Mohammad Kasim, a freelance UX/UI/Product Designer who started freelancing on Fiverr in 2016 and later moved to Upwork, where he has so far earned upwards of $100K. Read about his journey and advice for new freelancers here: Success Story: $100K On Upwork and 500 Orders Completed On Fiverr.
These are great stories, but they’re certainly not the only ones. Millions of ordinary people have made a life for themselves, with full financial freedom, all thanks to their skills in WordPress. And some have become rather wealthy, indeed. Why not you, too?
Wrapping up
Well done, you’ve reached the end of this guide to building a successful freelance business with WordPress! You are now equipped with all the basic knowledge you need to:
- Start on a strong foundation by identifying your WordPress skills and suitable niches.
- Set up your freelance business the right way, understanding what is involved from a legal and admin perspective.
- Find and engage with clients, win contracts, and retain business for the long term.
- Increase your productivity with powerful project management tools.
- Grow your business further by expanding your team, skills, and professional services.
What’s next? Well, that’s up to you, of course, but we recommend taking a deep breath, opening up your notepad, and gifting yourself a fresh new freelance bio that you can use to get started on any number of freelance marketplaces… right now.
