WordPress Development Company: How to Choose One in 2021

You’re about to hire a WordPress development company, and you want to avoid the disasters you’ve heard about from other business owners. You know … the agency that disappears after taking your deposit. The team that builds something unusable. Or the developers who can’t explain what they’re actually doing with your money.

In this post, I’m going to share some tips and tactics you can apply to choose the best WordPress development agency for your specific needs. Then, once I go through those tips, I’ll share some of our recommendations for the best development companies, based on real data.

These steps won’t guarantee perfection, but they’ll dramatically improve your odds of finding a team that delivers what they promise.

Let’s dig in!

📋 Tips to choose a WordPress development company

These tips are not in any particular order, though I tried to start with some broader tips. Here’s what you’ll be reading about:

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1. Look for relevant expertise

If you have a general project, such as a business brochure website, you might not require any expertise beyond general experience with WordPress development.

However, if your project is more narrowly focused, you’ll likely want to find a company that has experience in your project’s specific area.

For example, if you’re building a membership site, you might want to look for a WordPress dev company with specific expertise in creating membership sites.

While any quality development company should be able to figure out how to create a membership website, companies with specific expertise might offer deeper insights that can help ensure you get the smaller details right from day one.

Obviously, the more “niche” your project, the fewer options you’ll have. But if you do some digging, you might be surprised by how specialized you can go when choosing a development company.

For example, Uncanny Owl focuses specifically on helping people develop courses powered by one specific LMS plugin, LearnDash. Because of that expertise, they can help you with customized dashboards, unique gamification tactics, and so on. If you are building an online course, that’s the niche-specific knowledge you want to look for.

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2. Check out the company’s portfolio

A company’s portfolio is a great way to get a feel for the type of projects they can deliver.

Most WordPress development companies make it easy to browse their past work. Sometimes this might be a link to the live website, while in other cases, it might be a page on the development company’s website that includes screenshots and project details.

Some development companies prefer the latter approach because it lets them present the project as they delivered it. On a live site, clients might make their own changes that cause negative effects, which puts the development company in a bad light even if they didn’t deliver the project that way.

Additionally, some development companies provide information on their thoughts and development processes while working on a project, which can be beneficial as it gives you some behind-the-scenes insights. You might see these called “case studies” instead of a portfolio.

Whether it’s links to live websites or screenshots and case studies, the important thing is that you have some type of portfolio where you can see what their work looks like.

3. …but don’t look just at the portfolio

While the portfolio is certainly an important element in how to choose a WordPress development agency (that’s why it was the previous point!), it shouldn’t be the only thing you look at.

First, it’s important to understand how that example site that you see in the portfolio came to be and who was responsible for various parts of it.

For example, maybe you find the general layout okay, but you absolutely love the copywriting and imagery on the site. Well, if the copywriting and photography were done by a third-party provider, that’s not really a point in the development company’s favor (unless you know that those same companies will be handling your site).

So, when you’re thinking about all those cool sites in the company’s portfolio, it’s important to ask questions such as how the site was developed and which parts of the site the development company was responsible for.

It’s totally fine for a development company to outsource tasks such as design or copywriting to third parties – you’ll just want to understand these details going in as they might affect your decision.

You also shouldn’t focus just on the design of the portfolio websites. Having a beautiful website is great, but not if it gets in the way of functionality. Go beyond design and also consider the nitty-gritty questions such as:

Is the site optimized for SEO?
Is the site optimized for conversions?
What is the user experience like on desktop and mobile?

4. Understand the company’s approach

Once you’ve begun zeroing in on some potential development companies, you’ll want to start digging into their approach.

Basically, how does the company approach working on a client project?

Is the company there to help brainstorm initial ideas? Or do they expect you to come with an almost-finished concept that they can just implement for you?

If you have no idea where to get started, you’ll probably prefer the first approach. But if you already have an exact idea of what you want and just need someone to make your vision a reality, you’ll probably prefer the second approach.

You might be able to find this information on the company’s website. If not, you might need to chat with sales a little to get a better feel for how the company approaches its projects.

For example, 10up clearly states on their website that they can help with everything from basic strategy to design and engineering:

5. Think about the size of the team

You can find a lot of variety when it comes to the size of WordPress development companies.

On one end, you have WordPress freelancers who do everything solo, or perhaps farm a few tasks out to subcontractors where needed.

On the other end, you have WordPress agencies such as 10up or Human Made. These are massive agencies that have their own suite of custom enhancements and work with big organizations such as Disney, Microsoft, BBC, and so on.

The size of the agency will affect who you’re working with and potentially how much attention you receive.

At smaller agencies, you might work directly with the founder and core team members. At larger agencies, you’ll almost certainly work through an account manager.

There’s no right or wrong answer here, but you’ll want to understand exactly who you’ll be working with and how you feel about the relationship.

6. Consider the availability of the agency

The last thing you want is to spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on a WordPress project and not be able to get in contact with anyone.

So, before you make a decision, you’ll want to understand how you’ll be able to contact the agency and who you’ll talk to.

Can you only use email? Or can you quickly get people on the phone or video call when needed?

What’s more, who is your point of contact? Do you have a dedicated account manager?

Some of these answers will depend on your budget. For a low-budget project, you shouldn’t expect to be able to call up an account manager whenever you want. But for larger projects, you’ll want to be confident that the company’s availability matches your expectations.

7. Think about timelines

If your development work is time-sensitive, it’s important to consider the completion timeline of the agency you choose.

Some busy agencies might book months in advance, which means you’d need to wait to get started. Other agencies might be able to start working right away.

For time-sensitive projects, you’ll obviously want to make sure everything can be finished on time.

And, as with any project, make sure you also build in some wiggle room, as timelines can always expand if there are unforeseen circumstances.

Remember that timeline shifts aren’t always the development company’s fault, either. If you’re responsible for supplying content but take too long, your timeline could be shifted back as a result of your actions. And that brings me to the next point…

8. Understand what you’re responsible for

Before finalizing the project, you’ll want to understand exactly what you’re responsible for and what the development company is responsible for.

Basically, what information will you need to provide to move the project forward?

If you’re responsible for supplying the content, that might mean you need to hire a copywriter. The same holds true for images – you might need a photographer to take quality product shots (for eCommerce stores) or headshots (for service provider sites).

If you are responsible for providing certain details, make sure you can handle that and get it done on time to keep the project moving forward.

9. Ask about ongoing support and maintenance

Your relationship with a dev company shouldn’t end when they deliver your website.

WordPress sites need regular maintenance for things like security fixes, performance checks, and so on. Plugins can break unexpectedly. Features need tweaking over time once you’ve battle-tested them. Various problems can pop up that you can’t or simply might not want to solve on your own.

Before you commit to a company, find out what happens after launch. Do they offer maintenance packages? Can you hire them for future updates? How quickly do they respond to urgent issues?

Some companies include a period of post-launch support in their initial quote. Others charge separately for ongoing maintenance. And, of course, some will hand over the keys and wish you luck.

Your choice depends on your skills and budget. If you can handle WordPress on your own, you’ll only need help when serious issues come up. If you’re not technical, hire a company with a fair monthly maintenance plan.

Know the costs and response times before you agree to anything. A company that builds your site but vanishes later will leave you stranded when problems hit on some random Tuesday.

Good companies have clear support systems. They might use ticket tools, Slack channels, or regular check-in calls. Pick what fits your needs and make sure the team can follow through.

10. Focus on value, not just cost

When choosing a dev company, it’s easy to focus on cost as the most important factor. However, that can be a flawed way of choosing a company.

Don’t get me wrong – cost is certainly an important metric. In a perfect world, you could ignore cost and just choose the best company. But in the real world, you probably have a budget, so cost will play a role in your decision.

But I would challenge you not to focus on cost alone. Instead, think about the value that each company offers.

If Company A costs 1.5X more than Company B but will build a website that you think will perform 2X better, Company A might offer better value even though its cost is higher.

Of course, you probably won’t be able to make these calculations so cleanly – it’s hard to know whether one company’s website will be 2X “better” than another company’s website.

But the basic idea here is that even if a company costs a bit more, that extra cost might be worth the money if the value is better when it comes to the final product, the support, the timeline, the availability, and so on.

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🏆 Our picks for the top agencies

Now that you know how to pick the right company, let’s talk about some of your top options.

Obviously, you can find hundreds of WordPress development companies worldwide. Hopefully, I can narrow the list down for you a bit. We have a separate resource that goes through 15 of the top WordPress dev companies on the market (according to our data and to real user reviews).

If you don’t have time to go through that entire resource, here’s the top six from that post:

You can use this list as a starting point and then expand your search if needed, such as finding a development company with expertise in a specific area.

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