CentrioHost Blog

Salary might be a taboo subject to some people, but if you’re a WordPress developer, or are considering a career in WordPress development, knowing what people are earning is essential to maximizing your own earning power.

So let’s talk about that secret – let’s talk about the average WordPress developer salary. That way, you’ll know exactly what you’re worth (and how you can earn more).

To do the topic full justice, we’re going to break this post into two parts.

First, we’ll take a look at the data from job sites and freelancing platforms to learn:

• The average WordPress developer salary for full-time jobs
• What WordPress developer freelance rates look like
• How WordPress developers stack up to other developers (Drupal or Joomla)

Then, after we’ve covered what the averages are, we’ll discuss some tips for increasing your own salary so that you can move yourself towards the right side of the salary bell curve.

But first, a little caveat…

Calculating a Single “WordPress Developer Salary” Is Hard

There are a few things that can skew these numbers. First, because WordPress is so popular (currently powering over 32% of the web), there are a ton of people who might fall under the label of “WordPress developer”.

For example, there’s the distinction between WordPress “developers” and “implementers”.

Developers are the ones working directly with code and building solutions, while implementers are more about taking those solutions and turning them into websites for clients.

But to a lot of people, they both count as “WordPress developers”, especially when it comes to freelancing.

Then, to complicate things further, you have the global nature of WordPress. There are developers and freelancers all around the world, which means that geography is going to play a big role in the averages, especially when it comes to freelance rates.

Basically, there’s a lot of stuff that can skew the averages, so keep that in mind when you’re looking at the data.

What the Job Sites Say About the Average WordPress Developer Salary

For this first part, we’ve aggregated WordPress developer salary data from popular job sites.

For all these sites, we’re using the entire United States for the average. Obviously, other countries, or even specific US states, will vary from this average:

• Glassdoor – $68,224 (source)
• Indeed – $59,987 or $28.84 per hour (source)
• ZipRecruiter – $71,019 (source)
• Payscale – $50,447 for WordPress web developers (source)
• SimplyHired – $62,164 (source)
• Neuvoo – $68,250 (source)

Put those numbers together, and you get an average salary of $63,348 for full-time WordPress developers in the United States as a whole.

What The Data Says About WordPress Developer Freelance Rates

A lot of WordPress developers are freelancers, not full-time employees.

Here, we’ll collect data from some popular freelance marketplaces.

Unlike the full-time salaries, there’s not necessarily one single average here. Instead, we’ll find the range of most freelance WordPress developers on each platform.

Also, these numbers are global, as most freelance sites have tons of freelancers from all around the world.

WordPress Developer Freelance Rates at General Marketplaces

By “general”, we mean large freelance marketplaces like:

• Upwork
• Freelancer
• People Per Hour
• Etc.

Anyone can sign up and there’s not really any vetting process for who is able to call themselves a WordPress developer.

We have two data points here…

First, according to an article from Upwork, the average freelance WordPress developer on their platform charges anywhere from $20-$100.

Second, we took a look at People Per Hour, which offers a helpful breakdown of freelancers by the rates that they charge:

Of the 3,768 freelancers who show up for a “WordPress developer” keyword search, here’s the rate breakdown:

• 67% charge under $15 per hour.
• 24% charge $15 to $35 per hour.
• 7% charge $35 to $60 per hour.
• 2% charge over $60 per hour.

Specialized Freelance Marketplaces

The above numbers don’t look too hot in the general freelance marketplaces. In fact, we would have to agree with Bridget, they are pretty appalling! ? However, they get a little bit better if you look at specialized freelance marketplaces.

Unlike the open nature of Upwork or People Per Hour, these marketplaces require testing before freelancers are allowed to start looking for work.

As a result, they’re harder to get into. But if you make it through the tests, the rates look a lot better.

First, there’s Codeable. The absolute minimum rate that you’ll get on Codeable is $60 per hour. And Codeable says that their rates usually run $60 to $90 per hour.

Second, there’s CodementorX, where the average and median WordPress developer hourly rate is $61 to $80 per hour globally:

Or, if you limit the search to just North America, the mean becomes $81 to $100 per hour (you can see an uptick in people charging $141+ which brings the average up):

WordPress Developer Salary vs Drupal and Joomla Developers

Here’s a sad truth about these salary numbers:

Of developers for the major open-source content management platforms (or web dev in general), WordPress developers are often at the bottom.

So how bad is the differ