Vetting a WordPress developer well takes about an hour of focused conversation and three or four pointed questions. Vetting one badly takes a year of slow page loads, missed deadlines, and an eventual rebuild that costs more than the original quote. The hard part is not knowing what to ask — the questions are knowable. The hard part is being willing to ask them when the developer in front of you seems friendly and the price is appealing.
I have inherited more than a few WordPress sites built by the cheapest available developer. The pattern is almost always the same: a stock theme stretched past its limits, twenty-plus plugins doing the work the theme could not, no staging environment, and no documentation. The owner usually paid $1,500 up front and then $4,000 to me to make it work. The math on hiring well the first time is not subtle.
The five questions that actually filter
Most “questions to ask a WordPress developer” lists are forty items long and useless. Here are the five that do real filtering. If a developer cannot answer them clearly and confidently, the rest of the conversation does not matter.
- Will you build this on a stock theme, a child theme, or a custom theme — and why? The right answer depends on the project, but the developer should have a clear point of view and be able to explain the tradeoffs. A vague answer or “whatever you prefer” is a red flag. They are the expert; that is what you are paying for.
- How many plugins do you expect this site to need, and which ones? A serious developer will name specific plugins by name and explain why each one is needed. A developer who says “we will figure that out as we go” is telling you they have not thought about it. Twenty-plus plugins on a small business site is almost always a sign of a developer compensating for missing skills.
- Do you use a staging environment, and what does your deploy process look like? The only acceptable answer is yes. Staging means changes are tested somewhere safe before they touch the live site. A developer without a staging workflow will eventually break something on production and shrug.
- Show me a recent build and tell me its mobile PageSpeed score. A score below 70 on mobile on a recent project is a real signal. The developer should know the number off the top of their head; if they have to look it up or change the subject, they have not been measuring.
- What does post-launch support look like — specifically? “I’m available for questions” is not a support plan. A real answer involves a maintenance retainer, an SLA, an update cadence, or a documented hand-off. Without one of those, you are buying a building with no instructions and no repairman.
If a developer answers four of these five clearly, you are talking to a professional. If they answer two or fewer, keep looking, no matter how friendly the conversation has been.
Red flags worth taking seriously
Some warning signs are more reliable than others. These are the ones I have seen predict trouble most consistently:
- Every site in their portfolio looks like it was built on the same theme. If the visual fingerprint is identical across ten projects, the developer is probably a theme installer, not a builder. Range matters.
- They quote a flat rate within five minutes of the first call. Real estimates require real scoping. A developer who quotes before understanding the project is either guessing or planning to cut corners.
- They cannot show you a project they have maintained for more than a year. Anyone can launch a site. The hard part is keeping one healthy.
- They push back on the idea of a contract. A good developer welcomes a clear scope, payment terms, and an end date in writing. Resistance to that is a tell.
- They outsource without telling you. Ask directly: “Will you personally do the work, or are you subcontracting?” Both can be fine, but you need to know who is actually building your site.
What good portfolio evidence looks like
A screenshot of a homepage tells you almost nothing. What you want is evidence of technical decisions — choices a developer made that a screenshot cannot show. Ask for live URLs you can click around in. Look for content types that go beyond pages and posts. If a developer built something complex — a product catalog, an event system, a member directory — ask how it is structured under the hood. The honest answer will involve specific WordPress concepts: custom post types, custom taxonomies, ACF fields, REST API endpoints. The Greenbridge rebrand is the kind of project where that hidden technical work is the whole point — an extensive industrial product catalog runs on custom post types and custom taxonomies built specifically for the way the company sells, and none of that shows up in a homepage screenshot. That is the kind of evidence to ask for.
Should I hire a freelancer or an agency?
For most small and mid-sized businesses, the right answer is neither — it is a small studio or a senior independent developer. A solo freelancer at the lower end of the market often cuts corners under deadline pressure and disappears after launch. A traditional agency will quote you for a project manager, an account lead, and a junior developer doing the actual work, and you pay for all three. A small studio or a senior independent gives you the work of an experienced builder without the agency overhead, and a real human you can call when something breaks. The trick is making sure that human is actually senior — the five questions above will tell you quickly.
Things to put in writing
A handshake is not a contract, and most disputes I have seen between owners and developers come down to something that was assumed but never written down. Make sure your contract or scope document covers, at minimum:
- Who owns the code, the design files, and the hosting account when the project is done
- How many revision rounds are included before scope creep kicks in
- What “done” looks like, in concrete terms (a punch list, not a feeling)
- What happens if the developer is unavailable mid-project
- Hosting recommendations and who is responsible for site backups going forward
None of these are unusual asks. A developer who balks at any of them is telling you something important.
If you are about to hire someone
Patrick Iverson has been building custom WordPress websites for businesses across New Mexico — Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Las Cruces — and the rest of the country since 2003. We have inherited enough sites built by the wrong developer to know exactly what the wrong developer looks like, and we are happy to help you avoid that bill the first time. If you are weighing a quote and you are not sure whether the developer in front of you can deliver, send us the proposal. We will tell you honestly what we see — what is missing, what is overpriced, and what is exactly right.