The best WordPress development company you can find is not the most skilled or the cheapest. Instead, it’s the one that has the right profile for your needs. There are hundreds of companies offering WordPress development services, so trying to compare them is a challenging task. This article will help you break it down. By narrowing your search to the right type of company, you can compare options that are suitable for your specific needs.
Why this article is needed
As the CEO of a WordPress development company, this is a topic that is close to my heart. Of course, I want people to find and choose us as their development partner. But I also get a lot of requests from people who need help with WordPress development that would actually be better off bringing their business elsewhere.
Therefore, I felt it was time to write an article about it. It serves as a guide for all of you who wander through the jungle of sponsored “Best WordPress development companies in [current year]”-articles without getting any wiser. Time to learn who’s who in the zoo.
The 4 types of WordPress development companies
In principle, all WordPress development companies I’ve come across belongs to one of the following categories:
- Local Digital Agency
- Digital Outsourcing Agency
- High-End Web Development Company
- WordPress Outsourcing Company
Local Digital Agencies
Local Digital Agencies are the typical marketing-, advertising- and web agencies that offer a range of marketing services to their clients. Website design and development are often included, but we hear more and more that websites for them are just a part of a bigger package.
These companies are often located in the same city or region as their clients, but bigger agencies may also serve clients on a national level. Since market knowledge is very important to serve their clients in the right way, most of these companies don’t work for clients in other countries.
Digital Outsourcing Agencies
Digital Outsourcing Agencies are very similar to Local Digital Agencies, but instead of working for local clients they offer their services mainly to companies in other countries where the rates are much higher.
While they cannot offer the same level of knowledge about their clients’ local markets, they compensate by using a workforce in a country with lower wages to offer much lower rates.
High-End Web Development Companies
There are also companies that specialize in offering top talent to solve complex technical challenges related to WordPress sites. You’ll often see that these companies work with other technologies as well besides WordPress. While many of them offer both web design and development, development is their strong suit. The websites that they build can take several months or up to a year to complete.
High-End Web Development Companies may also help digital agencies that lack the skills internally to complete the most complex projects that their clients request.
“High-End Web Development Companies may also help digital agencies that lack the skills internally to complete the most complex projects”
WordPress Outsourcing Companies
WordPress Outsourcing Companies, like we are, are also development-focused. However, instead of employing a few highly experienced developers these companies offer agencies an alternative to having regular in-house developers.
You can expect them to have senior developers who can work fairly advanced projects, but their bread-and-butter is standard website development, i.e. PSD to WordPress. So the most complex projects are better to give to a High-End Web Development Company.
Their focus on regular website development means that they have the opportunity to use processes and software that are tailored to the task. The quality they provide for these projects can, therefore, be consistent also at a higher volume.
In my experience, agencies that seek to outsource the bulk of their development work are generally looking for a partner to “get the job done”. And to do it well of course, within reasonable time frames to an acceptable cost. But their clients will not want to pay for amazing code, because it has little effect on their websites’ performances.
What an acceptable cost is for outsourced WordPress development can vary between different agencies. Some are looking to lower their costs to a minimum in order to compete on price in their local markets. Others want to have a reliable partner to help them with capacity, at a price that’s lower than going through the trouble to recruit and pay an in-house developer. Our focus is on the latter.
Choosing the best WordPress development company for you
By now you may have an idea already of what type of WordPress development company you should choose for your needs. It comes down to a few crucial factors that we’ll go through in this section.
Are you asking as an agency, or as an end-customer?
The first difference between WordPress development companies is what type of clients they serve.
If you’re asking as an end-customer and you need help with your own website, you’ll want to reach out to digital agencies, local or remote. Since they primarily work with “end customers”, these agencies have project managers with experience of guiding buyers through the process of exploration, design, development, and delivery. Often they will also help with content creation, photography, advertising, and website hosting.
Most High-End Web Development Companies work for both end-customers and other agencies, as long as they have a complex technical challenge that needs to be solved. Otherwise, it’s probably just an expensive option compared to digital agencies and outsourcing companies, and they may not be interested in taking on the work if it’s too simple.
If you’re asking as an agency, you’re probably looking for more capacity or an alternative to in-house development in order to streamline your business. Since you’re a professional buyer of the services you’re looking for, you can probably vet Digital Outsourcing Agencies well enough to get help with both design and development.
However, most professional agencies prefer to keep web design internally, and only outsource their development work. In this case, it’s better to partner with a WordPress Outsourcing Company that specializes in development. These companies can offer a better “total value” with a balance between good price, quality, and timelines using a bigger team and better-optimized processes.
“most professional agencies prefer to keep web design internally”
Do you need more services than development?
I’ve touched upon it already, but digital agencies will offer you a wider range of services than the development-focused High-End Web Development Companies and WordPress Outsourcing Companies.
It’s a common misconception that anyone who works with web development will also know how to design and write content. While there are many people like that in the business, most developers are not skilled designers and vice versa. If you aim for a professional result and not just a theme-based website, it’s best to use specialists for these services.
Those who only looking for help with development can safely narrow down the choice to two: High-End Web Development Companies and WordPress Outsourcing Companies. For end-customers, you may need to hire the High-End Web Development Company for the simple reason that you only need help with one website.
WordPress Outsourcing Companies, us included, have lower rates but also expect recurring business from their partners and therefore work with agencies only.
If you represent an agency and you need to extend your capacity for WordPress development in general, and the type of sites you sell is not rocket science, your best choice will be a WordPress Outsourcing Company.
Comparison between the 4 types of WordPress Development Companies
Conclusion
Finding the best WordPress development company is really about two things. First, to find the right match for your needs, and second to find a company that’s great within their niche.
A search for “WordPress development company” or a list of “The best WordPress development companies [current year]” will give you a mix of all types, so make sure you do your research and give them a call to eliminate those that won’t be a good fit.
If you need a website built for yourself, your choice will depend on your budget, ambition level, and the complexity of your site.
If you represent an agency, you will want to keep your own core competencies internally. All other tasks you can explore to outsource.
Agencies that just want to sell websites without doing any design or development will need a full-service outsourcing agency. Agencies with in-house designers should partner with WordPress Outsourcing Companies instead, or High-End Web Development Companies for complex projects.
Our sales team would be happy to give you a call if your agency is looking for a partner for development.
I hope this article was helpful, and I wish you the best of luck on your next project.
