Raising prices after launch can sometimes be advantageous
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5 Tips on How to Price a Product or Service for WordPress
5 Tips on How to Price a Product or Service for WordPress
AuthorBrian Jackson Published January 30, 2020 Updated February 18, 2025
5 Tips on How to Price a Product or Service for WordPress
With every new business, startup, or product launch comes the ultimate question, how much should you charge for your WordPress product or service? Where do you start to set a baseline? This isn’t something to take lightly and you should definitely do your market research for your target audience as well as check out what your competition is doing. Since we offer a WordPress service here at Kinsta, as well as having members of our team selling premium WordPress plugins, we wanted to share some recommendations on what we’ve learned about how to improve the pricing of a WordPress product or service .
How to set the price of a product or service for WordPress?
One of the biggest advantages of the WordPress market can also be one of its biggest obstacles when it comes to launching a product or service. And that’s the size of WordPress on the web. According to W3Techs, as of January 2019, WordPress now powers over 32% of all websites on the internet. And it’s been growing at a steady pace, up from 26% in March 2016. However, because of WordPress’s size, this also means that it’s a very competitive space. Chances are, no matter what WordPress product or service you’re launching, there are probably 3 or 4 others already doing the same thing.
wordpress competition
So breaking into the WordPress market can definitely be a challenge, and if you get your pricing wrong, this could ultimately be the reason your business fails. If you price it too high, you might not sell anything, but if you price it too low, it could cost you more in support and maintenance than the revenue you make. One of the biggest recommendations we always make is to not price your product or service too low . Below we’re going to get into some reasons why this is important and some advantages of going this route.
Put a value on your time
Always budget extra time for support
Don't underestimate your service or product
Raising prices after launch can sometimes be advantageous
Using data-driven pricing techniques
1. Put a value on your time
Whether you’re a WordPress developer charging by the hour or trying to price a new WordPress plugin, the first thing you need to consider is the value of your time. As they say, “Time is money…” And this is very true. For a freelancer, one factor in this could be how quickly you are compared to your competition. If you can produce twice the amount of code as your colleagues, then your time is definitely worth more to a potential client. If you’re selling a product, you need to ask yourself how much time you invested in creating the product. Did it take 2 years to develop, or 2 weeks?
the value of your time
Morten Rand-Hendriksen, a top-rated author on Lynda.com, wrote an excellent article in 2014 titled “ The Value of Time – How to Charge What You’re Worth? ” In it, he asked his social media followers the following question.
If I paid you to sit still and do nothing for an hour, how much would you charge?
The answers he received ranged from $40 to $800, with the average being $100 per hour. The reason he asked this was to see what people thought their time was worth without any other factors involved. He did this simply to prove a point, that people value their time highly, but have a tendency to undermine themselves . This could be for those of you who are self-employed or when you are evaluating what you think the investment of time in your product or service is worth. Always put a value on your time.
2. Always budget extra time for support
It all seems to always come back to time, as there’s never enough in a day. When delivering a WordPress product or service you should always budget extra time for support . Support almost always requires more time and effort than you can imagine or even plan for. If you estimated 20 hours of support for that shiny new plugin you just released, it’s safe to say you should probably double that amount. Being a WordPress host ourselves, we know this better than anyone here at Kinsta. The majority of our time is spent helping customers and resolving issues.
support time
I don’t usually dive in first person, but I’ll do so today as I have some personal experience with this myself. My brother and I developed and launched a coupon plugin for WordPress earlier this year. We had plans from the beginning to have an extensive knowledge base where people could find their own answers. The big mistake we made was not having all of the knowledge base articles written when we launched the plugin. This resulted in a lot of emails from customers asking questions we didn’t anticipate and could have easily avoided. We ended up writing over 25 documents and the emails stopped altogether.
We also have an extensive WordPress knowledge base here at Kinsta and the main purpose of it is to reduce the time needed for support. But remember, writing knowledge base articles takes time too. Whether you’re answering customer support tickets, taking calls, or interacting via live chat, always budget extra time for support – you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches down the road!
A word of advice: If you are selling a WordPress plugin, never market it as a one-time purchase. Remember, you still have to spend time supporting it. A very common method used is to sell the license as an annual renewal, which includes 12 months of support and updates. Below is an example of the pricing for the popular Gravity Forms WordPress plugin . By pricing it this way, you can make sure you don’t lose money on maintenance.
wordpress plugin price
However, if you're thinking about pricing something with a lifetime license, take a look at these tips from Freemius on how to do it the right way.
3. Don't underestimate your service or product
The third tip is to never undervalue your WordPress service or product. If you spent time creating something amazing, then this in itself has value. It should never be sold cheap. By increasing the price, you can sometimes attract a different group of quality customers. There are people who see the value in paying more for something that has superior quality and customer support. Envato recently opened up Theme Forest to allow authors to break out of the typical $35-$65 price range they have relied on for years. Ben Chan, CEO, stated the reason :
We’ve also come to understand that Envato-controlled fixed prices act as a disincentive for many authors and limit the community’s ability to respond to market trends. By moving to an author-driven model, we expect to see a greater range of high-quality items, more creative pricing strategies, greater responsiveness to trends, and happier customers.
Shortly after that announcement, new themes suddenly emerged with much higher prices, such as the Pile theme which now sells for $225.
expensive wordpress theme
The developer of this theme stated in a comment on WPine.me :
The type of customers we will attract with this new price will also allow us to go further and maintain a closer relationship with people who are eager to join our journey. We are not looking for random customers, we are willing to consolidate and strengthen a community relevant to our creative products.
So you should ask yourself, what kind of customer do you want to attract? Remember that high volume and low prices are often accompanied by longer support times. So it can be good to find a middle ground and really think about who you should be selling to.
If you are a WordPress developer or freelancer, Bonsai has created a great chart based on their contract data to help you better estimate your hourly rates . Based on data from over 30,000 freelancers they have noticed some interesting findings such as:
Freelancers on the West and East Coasts of the US earn about 10% more than those in the Midwest and South.
Developers earn about 30% more than designers across all experience levels and geographies.
freelance rates
4. Raising prices after launch can sometimes be advantageous
Maybe you’ve already launched your WordPress product and/or service. Well, sometimes raising prices even after the fact can be advantageous. Neil Patel wrote a great article titled “ Don’t Be Afraid to Raise Your Prices. Here’s Why .” In it, he raises a bunch of good points of which some are summarized below:
Raising prices can be more effective than selling more products
Eliminate not-so-good clients…
It allows you to distinguish yourself from the competition
Their prices reflect the quality of their product/service
increase prices
Of course, there are some negative aspects as well, but it is important to weigh both the pros and cons.
I'm going to go back to first person again, as I have another personal example that is very applicable here, albeit in a different niche. During college, I used to do computer repair calls. When I first started, I charged $50 an hour. I started to branch out into other lines of work like internet marketing and suddenly found myself running out of time. I algeria phone number data didn't have time to keep all of my regular clients anymore. So I ended up raising my prices to get rid of some of the house call clients.
I raised my prices from $50/hour, to $75, and eventually got to $125/hour at which point some clients eventually started to drop off, leaving me with only the higher quality ones. By the end, I had raised my prices by a whopping 150% and was now making more money with less work. And my remaining clients were happy to pay that as the quality of work I was doing was unmatched, even with over 10 computer repair shops in the area. So raising prices can sometimes be a great strategy, both for products and service.
Shannon Malone, Director of Product Strategy at Warby Parker says it best :
Value is a price-quality ratio , and we always try to provide value to remain competitive.
5. Use data-driven pricing techniques
When it comes to the nitty-gritty part of setting a price for your WordPress product or service, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, what is your competition doing? As we mentioned above, raising prices can be a good thing, but if there is another product or service with the same quality as yours out there, then you should probably think about matching or beating their prices. Or if you can’t beat their price, find a way to add value to your product or service .
Solutions
Prices
Docs
Aid
Look for
Login
Sign up
Home
Resource Center
Blog
Tools for Businesses
5 Tips on How to Price a Product or Service for WordPress
5 Tips on How to Price a Product or Service for WordPress
AuthorBrian Jackson Published January 30, 2020 Updated February 18, 2025
5 Tips on How to Price a Product or Service for WordPress
With every new business, startup, or product launch comes the ultimate question, how much should you charge for your WordPress product or service? Where do you start to set a baseline? This isn’t something to take lightly and you should definitely do your market research for your target audience as well as check out what your competition is doing. Since we offer a WordPress service here at Kinsta, as well as having members of our team selling premium WordPress plugins, we wanted to share some recommendations on what we’ve learned about how to improve the pricing of a WordPress product or service .
How to set the price of a product or service for WordPress?
One of the biggest advantages of the WordPress market can also be one of its biggest obstacles when it comes to launching a product or service. And that’s the size of WordPress on the web. According to W3Techs, as of January 2019, WordPress now powers over 32% of all websites on the internet. And it’s been growing at a steady pace, up from 26% in March 2016. However, because of WordPress’s size, this also means that it’s a very competitive space. Chances are, no matter what WordPress product or service you’re launching, there are probably 3 or 4 others already doing the same thing.
wordpress competition
So breaking into the WordPress market can definitely be a challenge, and if you get your pricing wrong, this could ultimately be the reason your business fails. If you price it too high, you might not sell anything, but if you price it too low, it could cost you more in support and maintenance than the revenue you make. One of the biggest recommendations we always make is to not price your product or service too low . Below we’re going to get into some reasons why this is important and some advantages of going this route.
Put a value on your time
Always budget extra time for support
Don't underestimate your service or product
Raising prices after launch can sometimes be advantageous
Using data-driven pricing techniques
1. Put a value on your time
Whether you’re a WordPress developer charging by the hour or trying to price a new WordPress plugin, the first thing you need to consider is the value of your time. As they say, “Time is money…” And this is very true. For a freelancer, one factor in this could be how quickly you are compared to your competition. If you can produce twice the amount of code as your colleagues, then your time is definitely worth more to a potential client. If you’re selling a product, you need to ask yourself how much time you invested in creating the product. Did it take 2 years to develop, or 2 weeks?
the value of your time
Morten Rand-Hendriksen, a top-rated author on Lynda.com, wrote an excellent article in 2014 titled “ The Value of Time – How to Charge What You’re Worth? ” In it, he asked his social media followers the following question.
If I paid you to sit still and do nothing for an hour, how much would you charge?
The answers he received ranged from $40 to $800, with the average being $100 per hour. The reason he asked this was to see what people thought their time was worth without any other factors involved. He did this simply to prove a point, that people value their time highly, but have a tendency to undermine themselves . This could be for those of you who are self-employed or when you are evaluating what you think the investment of time in your product or service is worth. Always put a value on your time.
2. Always budget extra time for support
It all seems to always come back to time, as there’s never enough in a day. When delivering a WordPress product or service you should always budget extra time for support . Support almost always requires more time and effort than you can imagine or even plan for. If you estimated 20 hours of support for that shiny new plugin you just released, it’s safe to say you should probably double that amount. Being a WordPress host ourselves, we know this better than anyone here at Kinsta. The majority of our time is spent helping customers and resolving issues.
support time
I don’t usually dive in first person, but I’ll do so today as I have some personal experience with this myself. My brother and I developed and launched a coupon plugin for WordPress earlier this year. We had plans from the beginning to have an extensive knowledge base where people could find their own answers. The big mistake we made was not having all of the knowledge base articles written when we launched the plugin. This resulted in a lot of emails from customers asking questions we didn’t anticipate and could have easily avoided. We ended up writing over 25 documents and the emails stopped altogether.
We also have an extensive WordPress knowledge base here at Kinsta and the main purpose of it is to reduce the time needed for support. But remember, writing knowledge base articles takes time too. Whether you’re answering customer support tickets, taking calls, or interacting via live chat, always budget extra time for support – you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches down the road!
A word of advice: If you are selling a WordPress plugin, never market it as a one-time purchase. Remember, you still have to spend time supporting it. A very common method used is to sell the license as an annual renewal, which includes 12 months of support and updates. Below is an example of the pricing for the popular Gravity Forms WordPress plugin . By pricing it this way, you can make sure you don’t lose money on maintenance.
wordpress plugin price
However, if you're thinking about pricing something with a lifetime license, take a look at these tips from Freemius on how to do it the right way.
3. Don't underestimate your service or product
The third tip is to never undervalue your WordPress service or product. If you spent time creating something amazing, then this in itself has value. It should never be sold cheap. By increasing the price, you can sometimes attract a different group of quality customers. There are people who see the value in paying more for something that has superior quality and customer support. Envato recently opened up Theme Forest to allow authors to break out of the typical $35-$65 price range they have relied on for years. Ben Chan, CEO, stated the reason :
We’ve also come to understand that Envato-controlled fixed prices act as a disincentive for many authors and limit the community’s ability to respond to market trends. By moving to an author-driven model, we expect to see a greater range of high-quality items, more creative pricing strategies, greater responsiveness to trends, and happier customers.
Shortly after that announcement, new themes suddenly emerged with much higher prices, such as the Pile theme which now sells for $225.
expensive wordpress theme
The developer of this theme stated in a comment on WPine.me :
The type of customers we will attract with this new price will also allow us to go further and maintain a closer relationship with people who are eager to join our journey. We are not looking for random customers, we are willing to consolidate and strengthen a community relevant to our creative products.
So you should ask yourself, what kind of customer do you want to attract? Remember that high volume and low prices are often accompanied by longer support times. So it can be good to find a middle ground and really think about who you should be selling to.
If you are a WordPress developer or freelancer, Bonsai has created a great chart based on their contract data to help you better estimate your hourly rates . Based on data from over 30,000 freelancers they have noticed some interesting findings such as:
Freelancers on the West and East Coasts of the US earn about 10% more than those in the Midwest and South.
Developers earn about 30% more than designers across all experience levels and geographies.
freelance rates
4. Raising prices after launch can sometimes be advantageous
Maybe you’ve already launched your WordPress product and/or service. Well, sometimes raising prices even after the fact can be advantageous. Neil Patel wrote a great article titled “ Don’t Be Afraid to Raise Your Prices. Here’s Why .” In it, he raises a bunch of good points of which some are summarized below:
Raising prices can be more effective than selling more products
Eliminate not-so-good clients…
It allows you to distinguish yourself from the competition
Their prices reflect the quality of their product/service
increase prices
Of course, there are some negative aspects as well, but it is important to weigh both the pros and cons.
I'm going to go back to first person again, as I have another personal example that is very applicable here, albeit in a different niche. During college, I used to do computer repair calls. When I first started, I charged $50 an hour. I started to branch out into other lines of work like internet marketing and suddenly found myself running out of time. I algeria phone number data didn't have time to keep all of my regular clients anymore. So I ended up raising my prices to get rid of some of the house call clients.
I raised my prices from $50/hour, to $75, and eventually got to $125/hour at which point some clients eventually started to drop off, leaving me with only the higher quality ones. By the end, I had raised my prices by a whopping 150% and was now making more money with less work. And my remaining clients were happy to pay that as the quality of work I was doing was unmatched, even with over 10 computer repair shops in the area. So raising prices can sometimes be a great strategy, both for products and service.
Shannon Malone, Director of Product Strategy at Warby Parker says it best :
Value is a price-quality ratio , and we always try to provide value to remain competitive.
5. Use data-driven pricing techniques
When it comes to the nitty-gritty part of setting a price for your WordPress product or service, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, what is your competition doing? As we mentioned above, raising prices can be a good thing, but if there is another product or service with the same quality as yours out there, then you should probably think about matching or beating their prices. Or if you can’t beat their price, find a way to add value to your product or service .