“In the information age, build a website before you build a workplace.”
Now, even you, who already has a workplace and now want a website to add to that - be assured that you are taking the right step.
75% of the impression of your company depends on your website.
A WordPress website can give your business a significant push in the right direction.
WordPress has all that website owners look for. Customizations, SEO, monetization options, and third-party integrations - everything in one place.
To tap into the potential of a WordPress website, you can either build a website on your own, hire in-house developers, or hire external experts.
Now, doing it yourself isn’t the most professional option. And hiring in-house custom WordPress developers is a costly affair.
The two genuine options that you have are - hiring freelancers or hiring a custom WordPress development company.
Let’s analyze these and find which one would work for you:
Advantages of hiring freelancers
With over 57 million freelancers in the US itself, it is obvious that freelancers are a great pick. Let’s see how:
1. Affordable
Freelancers cost nothing compared to hiring in-house experts. You save on overhead costs with freelancers.
And you can easily find freelance developers from UpWork, Freelancer.com, or Fiverr.
You just have to pay the freelancers for their time and the work that they do. It is the best bargain that you can get.
2. No Future Liability
Unlike an in-house developer, you have no liability to pay them in the future. Once you have your custom WordPress website ready, you can bid them goodbye. This saves you from the hassles of managing an employee and keeping him/her busy.
3. No Hassles Involved
When you hire a freelancer, you have no responsibilities. Whether it is the resources or the time, you don’t have to manage anything.
How the freelancer goes about the job is none of your concerns.
Disadvantages of hiring freelancers:
Freelancers are great, but the disadvantages of hiring them are too real to ignore.
1. Lack of Trust
The level of freedom that you get when hiring a freelancer is equal to the freedom that the freelancer has. They may choose to quit in the middle of the project.
Also, once done with the job, they are not responsible for any issues that you face with your custom WordPress website.
2. No Guarantee of Ongoing Support or Long Term Relations
Your website is not a one-time investment. You need to keep your website up and running.
You would encounter glitches that need to be solved.
You might also want to update the content.
Or scale your website as your business grows.
Freelancers won’t be around by the time such needs arise. And then, you’ll be left looking for others who can do that patchwork.
3. Limited Skills and Know-how
Website building is not just coding or designing. It requires more skills than one person is likely to possess.
If you want an SEO-friendly website that looks good and is coded the right way, one freelancer is unlikely to offer all that.
This is where a custom WordPress development company comes to your rescue. It brings to the table all the benefits of freelancers, minus the cons.
Let’s analyze what they have to offer.
Advantages of hiring agencies:
1. Long term support
Agencies don’t vanish as soon as your custom website is ready.
They will be available, practically 24/7. Most agencies have members from across the globe. No matter what time of the day, someone from the agency would be available to answer your queries or solve a crisis at hand.
2. Planned approach
A custom WordPress development company will have a pre-planned approach. You would also be informed of the plan beforehand so that you can tweak things to suit your timeline and get optimal results.
3. No burden to continue in the future
Just like freelancers, you can do away with a custom WordPress development company as and when you want. It is just that they’d be available for long term relations as well.
4. More professional
Freelancers might not pick your calls or deliver on time. But a custom WordPress development company would be much more professional in communication as well as the results that they deliver.
5. More Skills And Wider Talent Base
No matter how many specialized skills you need to build your custom WordPress website (trust us, there would be many!), the agency would have them all.
You can work with experienced, specialized professionals who would be able to offer you the most functional, impressive, and result-oriented custom-built WordPress website.
6. All-round support
When you hire a custom WordPress development company, you get all-round support in two ways.
One, anything and everything related to the website, now and even in the future, would be looked after by them.
And if you think you need something more than custom WordPress development, like content creation, social media management, or PPC services, you are likely to get that as well from the agency.
7. Higher trust factor
It is practically impossible to hold freelancers accountable for anything that goes wrong.
With a custom WordPress development company, however, you can hold them responsible.
This ensures that the agency works much more diligently. This, in turn, guarantees a higher level of trust.
Disadvantages of Hiring agencies
Nothing is sans the downsides. Here are some issues that you might have with a custom WordPress development company:
1. Higher costs
Agencies are likely to have more overheads than solo freelancers. And the agencies would cover up these costs from you. It may seem like you are being charged more, but that is just a short term perspective.
In the long run, you save on patchwork costs and any losses that you might incur due to help not being available at the right time. This pretty much compensates for a couple of extra dollars that you pay today.
49% of business said that they saved on costs in the long run by hiring specialized agencies for IT services (including website building)
2. It can be tough to find an agency that can be trusted.
There are several agencies out there. But the choices can be overwhelming, and you might not be able to find the right custom WordPress development company for the kind of job that you have.
You might have to spend more time in finding an agency that you can trust with something as crucial as your website.
But, once you successfully do that, it would be worth it.
How to make the final call for your particular situation?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the question of agencies v/s freelancers.
But the following questions can help you make the right choice for your situation.
1. Do you need the website up-to-date, or is it a one-time service requirement?
If you don’t need your website to be updated regularly or are sure that you won’t need ongoing support, go for freelancers. For long term support, go for a custom WordPress development company.
2. Do you need cost-effective solutions or a low-cost solution?
Freelancers might cost less now but aren’t cost-effective in the long run. Agencies are cost-effective in the long run. Here you need to choose between short and long term financial gain.
Uplers is a well-known custom WordPress development company, trusted by several organizations for custom WordPress development.
The agency has been serving as an extended arm for several businesses.
Their expert employees have not just the diverse skill set, but also a vast resource pool and sufficient experience to meet all your custom WordPress development needs.