Most "dedicated developer" offers are a pool with an account manager in front of it, and no price until you fill in a form. This is one person, with every rate already on the page: fixed projects, three hourly bands, or a monthly retainer.
The word gets used by staffing agencies to mean "allocated from a pool". It should mean the same person, every time.
You work with me. Not an account manager who relays messages to a pool, and not a different developer each sprint who has to relearn your stack.
By month three I know your hosting, your plugin conflicts, and which two things break when the theme updates. That knowledge is why the fourth month costs less than the first.
Slack or email straight to the person writing the code. No ticket queue, no triage layer, no status meeting to find out what happened.
Every rate on this page is on the pricing page too. You can work out what a month costs before you ever speak to me.
The honest limit of hiring one developer. One person is the right answer for most WordPress work and the wrong answer for some. If you need several workstreams running in parallel, 24/7 staffed cover, or capacity that survives somebody taking a holiday, you need a team and I will say so on the first call rather than take the work and stretch.
Pick by how predictable the work is, not by what sounds cheapest. Every figure here is also on the pricing page.
Best for: A defined build, redesign or migration
Best for: Ongoing work with no monthly commitment
Best for: Sites that change most months
Best for: Agencies reselling WordPress work
Three bands, because charging one blended rate means either overcharging for plugin updates or undercharging for custom plugin work.
| Rate | Band | Typical work |
|---|---|---|
| $20/hr | Maintenance and small updates | Plugin updates with compatibility checks, content and copy changes, minor styling, form field updates, new pages from existing templates. |
| $59/hr | Standard development work | Custom Elementor or Bricks templates, WooCommerce product setup and customisation, ACF field groups, custom Gutenberg blocks, theme work beyond child-theme styling. |
| $79/hr | Senior and specialist work | Custom plugin development, complex WooCommerce subscription and B2B extensions, performance and Core Web Vitals deep-dives, custom REST endpoints, white-label senior work for agencies. |
Time is tracked transparently in Upwork or Toggl, invoiced weekly with no minimums, and any cap is agreed in advance with approval required before it is exceeded. If the work turns out to sit in a lower band than quoted, it is billed at the lower band.
Four steps, and nothing is billable until step two is agreed in writing.
What you have, what is broken or missing, and what success looks like. If I am the wrong fit, or you need a team rather than one developer, I say so on this call.
For a project, a fixed quote within 48 hours. For ongoing work, the rate band and an estimate of monthly hours, agreed before anything starts.
Hosting, staging, repository, plugin inventory. Anything urgent gets flagged before billable work begins rather than quietly consuming your first invoice.
Slack or email, your project tracker if you have one, staging before production on anything structural. You see progress without having to ask for it.
Depth in a narrow stack beats a list of twenty logos. This is the honest scope.
WordPress development, WooCommerce stores, custom themes and custom plugins, plus redesigns and Figma to WordPress.
Elementor, Bricks and Divi. Templates, query loops, dynamic data, and the performance work that keeps a builder site fast rather than merely finished.
Bug fixing and troubleshooting, plugin and caching conflicts, migrations, security hardening, and emergency support at $30 an hour, quoted per incident.
Speed optimisation, Core Web Vitals, technical SEO and AI search optimisation. Built into the development rather than bolted on after launch.
What I do not take on: Shopify, Webflow and Squarespace builds, native mobile apps, or anything that would mean learning a new stack on your budget. I will tell you that on the first call and, where I can, point you at somebody who does it properly.
Agency work has a different shape, so it has a different arrangement.
You need capacity you can promise your own client, an NDA before anything is discussed, and deliverables that carry your name rather than mine. That is the white-label arrangement: $1,499 a month for 10 dedicated development hours, direct PM-to-developer contact, and custom plugin and theme work included.
The hourly equivalent is higher than my direct rate, and it should be. You are buying reserved senior capacity, confidentiality, and somebody who will not appear in front of your client.
If you want the monthly mechanics in detail, what the reserved hours cover, what gets quoted separately, and what happens to hours you do not use, that is all on the WordPress retainer page.
It depends on how you want to work. Fixed projects start at $399 and are quoted in full before anything begins. Hourly work runs $20 an hour for maintenance and small updates, $59 for standard development, and $79 for senior and specialist work such as custom plugins or performance deep-dives. Monthly retainers run $49 to $349 depending on reserved hours, and dedicated agency capacity under NDA is $1,499 a month for 10 hours.
One. You work with me directly. That is the practical difference between hiring a freelance developer and buying "dedicated resources" from a staffing agency, where the named developer can change between sprints and a project manager sits between you and the person writing code. If your project genuinely needs several people working in parallel, I will tell you that on the first call rather than take the work.
Usually within a few days for ongoing or hourly work, and you get a fixed-price quote within 48 hours of the first call for a defined project. Emergencies are different: if your site is down or your store cannot take orders, see emergency WordPress support, which is quoted per incident at $30 an hour once I have seen the actual error.
I am in India and I work with clients across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. In practice overlap is arranged around your working hours rather than mine, and the asynchronous parts, which is most development work, happen while you sleep. Calls are scheduled in your time zone.
Yes, and a good share of my work is exactly that. For agencies there is a white-label arrangement at $1,499 a month for 10 dedicated hours, with an NDA signed before project details are exchanged and deliverables branded under your name. For in-house teams I slot into your repository and process rather than imposing mine.
WordPress and WooCommerce, with depth in Elementor, Bricks and Divi, performance and Core Web Vitals work, troubleshooting plugin and caching conflicts, and technical SEO built into the development rather than bolted on afterwards. I do not take on work outside that, and I will say so rather than learn on your budget.
Start small. A single scoped task at the hourly rate tells you more about how somebody works than any portfolio. Beyond that: a Top Rated badge on Upwork with a 100% job success score across 250+ projects, case studies on this site with the actual diagnosis written out, and a free 30-minute call where you can ask technical questions and judge the answers.
You do, from the first commit. The site, the code, any custom plugin or theme work, the hosting account and the domain are all yours. I do not build on a proprietary framework that stops working if you leave, and I do not hold credentials. If you move on you get the credentials list, documentation and a handover note, at no cost.
You hear about it before the work happens, never on the invoice. Hourly work carries an agreed cap with approval required before any overrun. On a retainer, if you are regularly over your tier I tell you that moving up a tier is cheaper than paying hourly on top.
Only if your site changes most months. A retainer reserves capacity and gives you a published response time, which is what you are really buying. If you need somebody a few times a year, hourly is cheaper and there is nothing to cancel. The WordPress retainer page sets out the hours, prices and response times for each tier so you can compare directly.
Send the site URL and what you need done. You get a straight answer on whether I am the right fit, and a fixed-price quote within 48 hours if the work is scoped.
