Services

Good question! The primary difference is that the work of a Web UI/UX designer Usually is limited to creating a mockup of the website design (including typography, colors, logo if you don't already have one, etc.) and layout. Often, people will confuse design and development because of site builders which supposedly are so easy to use that you can just drag and drop a design and not have to worry about building anything. In the case of hosted WordPress, or static HTML, or any other technology that isn't marketed as drag and drop, the developer is responsible for actually building and implementing the functionality of the design using either the CMS (Content Mangagement System) chosen by you, or using code.

I don't use site builders because I find most of their pricing models to be extortionate, and also because, if I were in your shoes, paying someone to design a website for me, I would make damn sure that I had full control over said website and not have to pay someone to recreate it entirely from scratch if I ever wanted to switch builders for any reason. This is why I use hosted WordPress.

When I say Hosted WordPress, I am referring to the open source Content Management System available at wordpress.org, NOT wordpress.com. WordPress.com is entirely a scam in terms of pricing, perhaps even more so than Squarespace, so I implore you to please avoid it if at possible. Anyway, getting back to the explanation. First of all, in order to host any CMS, one requires a web hosting provider. Once you have that, depending on the specific provider you choose, installing WordPress may be as easy as one click, or it may require more steps. Installing WordPress and connecting your chosen domain name to your hosting provider is the first thing a developer does.

There are many examples that have wildly varying prices, but the ones I have used the most are hostinger.com (shared hosting price is 3-9$ per month for up to 100 websites) and tinkerhost.net (free). There is also another option that I haven't gotten to try yet called spaceship.com (shared hosting price is 20-40$ per Year for 5 websites). This is generally the range of pricing that I'd suggest you look for from a shared hosting provider.

If you already have a website designed (if you don't, we can discuss a bundled price for design and development), I will then start the process of implementing said design using a variety of themes and plugins that are available through WordPress and offer a metric ton of added functionality that one could never dream of even from the most expensive plans on some site builders. This is because WordPress, just like its main alternative CMSes like Joomla and Drupal, is open source, so anyone (yes, even you) can create a theme or plugin for WordPress and make it available for free or for a price.

Fabulous question! In my opinion, it is no exaggeration, because wordpress.com, even on their two lower tier plans, is an artificially and unnecessarily stripped down version of the full functionality of WordPress. In order to access the most useful features of WordPress CMS, you have to pay a Queen's ransom. For instance, eCommerce integration, which on wordpress.com costs about 500$ per year can be integrated for no additional cost using the WooCommerce plugin. This is why I will always recommend that people choose WordPress or another open source CMS over proprietary site builders, even if they aren't on the BDS list, and that includes wordpress.com. That's not even to mention that installing Any plugins or themes at all costs about 300$ a year on wordpress.com, or the fact that they're planning to sell all the website data hosted directly on wordpress.com to OpenAI for LLM training.

Well, WordPress in my opinion is super easy to use. Some things are in fact easier to do on WordPress than on supposedly "easy" site builders like Squarespace. You can read about an example of this from my experience working with a client who'd already paid for an annual squarespace subscription on my portfolio page. Generally, I use Kadence Theme and Blocks (free version of both) to set up websites, as I feel that Kadence is a very beginner friendly theme, and makes it very easy for people new to development to edit and update their own website. However, if you have a lot of experience with a drag and drop builder, it may be a bit more challenging to get used to setting up layouts. In that case, there are other WordPress themes and plugins we can use to make it more similar to the Squarespace experience. Just let me know during our consultation call that you'd prefer to have a more drag and drop experience.

Funny you should ask, immediately after a question about ease of use. Static HTML websites are harder to develop (unless we use something like Publii which is less customizable), and just as hard to edit and update. I suggest this option primarily for websites that have very few moving parts, such as a portfolio website, static landing page, local business advertisement, etc. because for websites that don't require much in the way of updates and changes, static HTML websites are free to host up to a pretty ridiculous amount of traffic (free hosts for WordPress do exist but are much less reliable than free hosts for static HTML websites), and also are blazingly fast, which is fantastic for Search Engine Optimization.

In comparison, WordPress comes with a lot of features and functionality that may not actually be necessary if you don't need things like eCommerce, blog comments, user logins, etc., and don't intend to make a lot of changes to your website for a while. So ultimately, the decision on which one to use depends on what you want your website to be able to do, and how often and how much you want to change it. So, in other words, not only do I offer sliding scale labor costs, I also ensure that the technologies I recommend you use are "sliding scale" in a sense, based on what your actual needs are, rather than taking a one site builder fits all approach.

I've been thinking about whether or not to make a separate pricing page to discuss this. If you, dear reader, think that I should, please let me know. One of my core beliefs is that everyone deserves to have a voice and a platform regardless of their access to financial resources. In order to help create a more accessible, affordable internet, I offer sliding scale, which means that labor cost depends on your (or your organization/company/business/group's) budget. For fellow QPOC who have limited resources, I offer essentially a pay what you can model. On the other hand, clients who have the ability to pay more, I ask you to please do so in order to help sustain me in being able to offer lower prices, and hopefully someday soon, even free services to people who otherwise would not be able to afford to have a platform that truly belongs to them and can't be snatched away based on the whims of megacorporations.

The most important thing to keep in mind about pricing, however, is that whatever price you pay me will be a one time payment (unless you have the budget and need and desire to hire me for ongoing maintenance and updates or a redesign or something else in the future). The only ongoing cost will be the yearly domain renewal, and the hosting costs, which as I said about WordPress and Static HTML range from free to under 10$ per month, and allow for at least 5, and up to 100 websites on the 8$/month plans. In comparison, if you were to hire a Squarespace designer, you would still be paying 16$ per month Per Website, and you wouldn't be able to customize your website and add as much functionality as you can for no extra ongoing cost on WordPress or even Static HTML.

No worries at all, that's completely understandable. I've put a lot of information on this page, and it's a lot to take in all at once. That's why I offer a free consultation for everyone. Please, feel free to contact me for one of those so that we can discuss and hopefully I can explain better over video call (but be warned, I do have a tendency to ramble 😿). If you have any feedback about anything that's unclear or not explained well or not explained at all, I would also love to hear that!