Every website is different, with its own unique needs and WordPress development is not a one-size-fits-all type of deal.
If your website has custom development needs like a complete redesign of your complex website that has multiple pages, special content management needs, or even custom plugins to serve unique functions, you need a service that can work with you to find the right solutions for your website.
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To help you find the best custom development service to help manage your WordPress content, I’ve gathered this list of the best service providers out there.
We offer this website completely free to our visitors. To help pay the bills, we’ll often (but not always) set up affiliate relationships with the top providers after selecting our favorites. However, we do our best not to let this impact our choices. There are plenty of high-paying companies we’ve turned down because we didn’t like their product.
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Custom WordPress Development Services
1. WP Tangerine
WP Tangerine offers everything from research to QA to emergency care, with a focus on everything WordPress and WooCommerce related.
They offer an Elite Website Design service where customers can choose between three packages at different prices. These packages include things like a free custom WordPress theme, home page image licensing, 3rd-party service integration, and a 1-on-1 phone call with a strategist to create a winning game plan for your site.
They boast a team of dedicated experts, including a QA specialist, a client manager, a designer, and a developer that can tackle any tasks you need to be done on time.
Read our WP Tangerine Review.
2. WP Runner
If you’re a small business or small agency owner, WP Runner is the most cost-effective option for WordPress development services out there.
While they offer monthly support and security for WordPress, they also offer custom WordPress development services. For instance, they can help you redesign your website by implementing incremental design improvements
Their unlimited plan is just $99 per month and includes weekly backups for all of your site, 24/7 uptime monitoring, and monthly security and performance audits. You have the option to send unlimited 30-minute tasks to their team of experts, 1 task at a time.
Their basic plan starts at just $59 per month but does not include an unlimited amount of small tasks.
Read our WP Runner Review.
3. WPRiders
Perfect for small-to-mid-sized businesses and startups, WPRiders is a trusted name in custom WordPress development.
All of their dedicated project managers used to be developers, so the person in charge of your custom WordPress development project will know what they’re talking about. They will also touch base regularly to keep you in the loop, offering real-time communication on essential tasks, status reports every 3 days, and weekly meetings for all of your projects.
They currently boast over 700 5-star reviews and have worked with powerhouse clients like Versace, Rutgers, and Panasonic.
4. DevriX
Known as “The WordPress Retainers Agency,” DevriX specializes in building and maintaining high-traffic WordPress sites with up to 900M monthly page views.
While they use an in-house team of WordPress expert developers to craft attractive and effective sites, they don’t stop there. DevriX offers business strategy and consulting services to its clients in addition to its design, development, and maintenance services.
It’s important to note that DevriX does cater to enterprise businesses specifically, meaning they may be out of your price range if your business is on the smaller side.
5. Human Made
Another solution for enterprise businesses is Human Made.
They offer bespoke development, consultancy and strategy, migrations and audits, and editorial platforms, among other custom WordPress services.
They’ve also collaborated with some heavy hitters, including Snopes, Skyscanner, and even Google.
6. Grant Spark
If we’re being honest here, custom WordPress development can be pretty expensive, especially for small companies with a tight budget. Understanding this, innovative for-profit company Grant Spark gives grants to companies to help them get custom WordPress development.
They focus their efforts on helping businesses with storytelling through web design, and they have a team of experts dedicated to using WordPress to make your company’s website reach its audience and increase your profit.
They offer reduced or zero upfront cost, instead using equity or profit-sharing. They also have a pay-per-lead marketing system, offering discounted rates to non-profit organizations.
7. Upwork
If you need it, freelance site Upwork’s got it, and this is true for custom WordPress development, too.
When your company creates a company profile on Upwork (PS the basic plan is free), you’ll have the option to post jobs. You can customize requirements for things like experience level, pay, specific tasks you need to be done, how long you expect the project to take, and just about anything else you can think of.
This site is a great option for custom services since you can post one-off jobs if you need one thing on your site tweaked or get in contact with a WordPress developer to form a more long-term working relationship.
Since so many freelancers use the site, it’s typical to get multiple responses to job postings within hours, making it a great option if you need something done ASAP.
Read our Upwork review.
What is custom WordPress development?
Since WordPress is so widely used by websites of all sizes and scales, many website owners eventually find it necessary to outsource WordPress development services and content management to a specialist.
Custom WordPress development is a sort of sub-category under the umbrella of WordPress development services. Custom WordPress development requires programming outside the scope of typical WordPress design or development, however, including solutions and special plugins that are unique to more complex and complication sites.
As the name suggests, custom WordPress development encompasses a specific combination of services tailored to your website’s unique needs. This can include anything and everything from branding and theme development, API and plugin development, and even SEO services and content creation. Mobile app development also often falls under the “custom WordPress development” umbrella.
What is custom WordPress theme development?
Custom WordPress theme development is an important subsection of custom WordPress development.
This specifically refers to the process of making the aesthetic aspects of your website look, well, pretty. Things like the colors, style, layout, and functioning tabs on a WordPress site are limited when you use an off-the-shelf WordPress theme.
A custom WordPress developer has the skills that could help you create the unique look and feel that you want your users to experience when they visit your site. This includes designing a custom theme from scratch, converting a PSD to WP, and making changes to existing themes with WordPress child themes.
What is custom WordPress plugin development?
If theme development is how “pretty” the site is, plugin development is how the site actually works.
Custom WordPress plugins are the moving parts that make your website do specific tasks. For example, WooCommerce is a commonly-used plugin that allows sites to conduct sales.
Developers who specialize in creating and implementing custom WordPress plugins can use knowledge of coding with CSS, JavaScript, and PHP to create original plugins (and modify existing ones) to perform specific functions that your site may need.
How much does it cost to hire a WordPress developer?
There’s a fairly large range of prices that WordPress developers can charge, and the price is usually going to depend on how much work you need to be done and how long the work will take.
WordPress developer services will run you anywhere from $5-$120 per hour if you choose to use a solo freelancer. This will get you covered on all of the basics you may need, and is a great affordable option for smaller websites that only need a limited amount of WordPress services done.
If you’re looking to get custom WordPress development services done through a large provider, like one of the websites listed here, it may cost more. This is largely because development servicers like this offer a more all-inclusive package, guiding you through it all and providing support for everything you may need. These packages usually schedule a consultation and price your site out depending on the scope of the project.
Where can I find good WordPress Developers?
Referring to the list here is a great place to start if you’re looking for a comprehensive service that will help you with anything related to custom web development that you need.
If you’re looking more for a WordPress developer that will help you get a few pages set up and one that you can use on an as-needed basis, I suggest trying to find a freelancer (or freelancers) for smaller projects, I suggest checking out a site that allows businesses to connect to individuals who specialize in WordPress development.
One of the most popular sites to find freelancers is Upwork. If you want to look elsewhere to compare rates, try checking out my list of Upwork alternatives to see what site you think would be a better fit for your company.
Summary
If you’re the owner of a growing website and feel like you’re getting lost when it comes to WordPress, check out one of these custom WordPress development services. They can help you discover the specific services and software that your website needs and train you on how to keep your site running smoothly while providing insight on the latest innovative solutions.
Stefan Schulz
