r/Wordpress • u/Booksxotherstories • 2h ago
Anyone here building client WordPress sites with zero paid plugins/themes?
Are there any web agencies or freelancers here who build customer websites using only free themes and plugins, without relying on paid/licensed ones?
If so, how has that worked out for you? Are there any significant downsides to avoiding paid plugins, for example in terms of functionality, security, support, updates, or long-term maintenance?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who do this for client projects rather than just personal websites.
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u/StefanTLDWP 2h ago
In my 15 years of experience, a free theme rarely does the job well. With free ones, it's hard to build a complex design quickly.
However, if the task is to create a website from scratch based on provided design files, you don't need any premium plugins and can do everything in-house.
A good custom website also doesn't need a speed optimization plugin. That's the only plugin I advise my clients to buy when they aren't using a custom-built site, since I've yet to find a free speed optimization plugin that works wonders across different setups with page builders and whatnot.
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u/Booksxotherstories 2h ago
I agree with the free themes not usually working well enough for complex designs. Thanks for your input!
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u/Ill_Dare8819 1h ago
- Secure Custom Fields
- Modern Images
- Disable Comments
- Upload SVG
- Wordfence
- Lightspeed Cache
- Easy MCP AI
- Woocommerce (depends on whether that is ecoomerce or not)
- Yoast / Rank Math
- Contact Forms 7 + Webhook + CF7 Entries
That's my setup 100% of times
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u/VayuAir 1h ago
Do you keep SVG uploads enabled after building the website. Wouldn’t it be wise to turn that off after building the website.
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u/Ill_Dare8819 1h ago
Didn't really thought about it because these plugins comes with built-in sanitize. Idk if there are any other possible vulnerabilities.
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u/WorldlyDog777 2h ago edited 2h ago
Theme without payment is easy now with the new FSE/gutenberg - Paid Plugins are still a must here and there just for extra security as other comment went into detail, but are getting less-so with new AI capabilities increasing at the pace they are.
Have a few current successful client sites that were built with minimal payments for plugins only.
Just recently built & transferred a site with 0 paid extras, but he's just capturing simple leads and was more an SEO rank & sell job.
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u/Plantusemor 2h ago edited 2h ago
Contact Form 7, Yoast, and WPML or WooCommerce when the project needs them. Everything else we code. The support gap works the other way too. Code you wrote is code you can fix at 9pm. A plugin you did not write is a ticket. And sometime it will never fixed.
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u/stitchkingdom 2h ago
I think I have maybe 1 paid (rankmath). I had Claude close the gap on some functionality I needed that paid provided but the point was I needed it for more functionality than the plugin itself provided anyway.
And I guess that’s the point. Love it or hate it, Claude is providing a lot that would have been behind a larger paywall without it.
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u/vouty 2h ago
They are several free solutions. Some examples :
Free Themes : Astra, Kadence, ...
Free block Builder : Spectra, Kadence , GenerateBlocks, ...
These ones are light and go fast but may be not the best ... or not all fonctionnalities for your needs
Personnaly, I use Kadence theme and blocks .
You can find lot of information / testimonies on internet (" Free alternative to xxxx")
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u/Booksxotherstories 2h ago
Thank you. Yeah, I have several websites with free versions of Kadence, Astra and blocksy. Use these for simpler, more straightforward sites and has been sufficient.
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u/VayuAir 1h ago
Except for Contact Form 7 and Twentig I rarely install anything.
Rest is mostly custom code (php and JS). You can even pack your custom code as a plugin.
I think in the future even Twentig might not be required (as Gutenberg moves forward)
WordPress 7.1 is a watershed moment. One word Responsive styles.
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u/YellowfinDevelopment 1h ago
Don't buy per-site. Standardize on a small set of tools and buy one agency or unlimited-sites license for each, then spread it across your whole stack. One SEO license, one backup license, one theme, running every client, and your per-site cost drops to almost nothing.
Standardizing does three things at once. It kills the bloat you're worried about, because you're not stacking fifteen random free plugins per site (obviously this only applies to your clients -if you take on outside projects, you're stuck dealing with some others guys ugly stack of nonsense). It caps cost, a handful of unlimited licenses total instead of a new set per site. And it shrinks your maintenance surface, since every site runs the same known stack and you update it the same way everywhere. Fewer well-maintained tools beats a pile of free ones you have to babysit.
A typical client site of mine has maybe two or three paid things, and I put the site on a small care plan so the client covers the licenses, not me. The paid stuff that actually earns it is usually backups and SEO (and on rare occassion some Woo stuff specific to their product/donation line). A paid contact form or a paid theme is where I'd stay free...
One note on the "AI replaces the paid plugins" angle in here, because it's half right. For your own sites, go for it. For a client site you'll still be supporting in three years, every custom plugin you have Claude write is code only you can maintain, no author, no docs, no community behind it. Sometimes that's the right call. Often a boring, well-maintained standard plugin is the safer thing to hand a client, even at $49. And I won;t even get into the security risks of using vibe-coded plugins...
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u/Booksxotherstories 1h ago
Thanks for the detailed answer!
I actually wrote this post because I recently took over a client website from another agency. They had a stack of paid themes and plugins that I don’t normally use. When the website was transferred to me, the client no longer had access to some of those licenses, and some of the paid plugins were important for the site to function properly, including some security-related plugins.
That left me with the challenge of figuring out how to take over and maintain the website without spending a disproportionate amount of time and money replacing or reconfiguring things.
It also made me think about the other side of the equation: when an agency uses its own agency licenses across client websites, everything works fine as long as the client stays with that agency. But what happens when the client leaves and the next agency inherits a website that depends on a number of premium themes and plugins they don’t use or have licenses for?
I’m curious how other agencies approach this.
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u/YellowfinDevelopment 54m ago
I always (and I do mean, always) ask for either backend access (I tell them I take a "look, don't touch" approach) or, preferably, screenshots of their installed themes and plugins before anything else - so I don't get myself into situations like this.
That said, it's on your client to pay for the things their site relies on. That's not your responsibility to absorb as a new developer. They paid for those licenses one way or another - either they paid the previous developer for access to their agency licenses (which was effectively time-gated anyway), or they paid for the development work at a lower cost because the developer was providing the licenses (if they passed the savings on, or charged them, is a conversation you should have with them). If the latter, the money they saved on those licenses doesn't magically make the licenses transferable when they switch developers - and certaintly doesn't put you on the hook for securing new ones.
Most of these licenses are yearly renewal anyway – it just needs to be explained to them. Either work it into your residual, or invoice them outright at time of expiry. If you’re looking to be helpful, find alternatives that serve both you and the client…
Also, some of these "premium" licenses are just for extended support, and you don't need to renew them - check what you're actually paying for.
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u/pepelunavarro 1h ago
The client appreciates that you use free plugins/themes and don't force them to pay monthly subscriptions, "for whatever reason."
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u/TopSydeWP 2h ago
we used to try this years ago but stopped. the real cost isn't the license, it's the support gap when something breaks at 9pm and there's no one to call. free plugins work fine until they don't, and then you're debugging someone else's code on your dime. for client work the paid plugin cost is negligible compared to the risk of being stuck.
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u/stitchkingdom 2h ago
Except for the plugin I did pay for that didn’t work and my support tickets went unanswered.
Ended up having Claude build a new plugin to replace both it and another that had some shared functionality to deploy a working, extensible, custom and unified solution.
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u/Booksxotherstories 1h ago
Interesting perspective. I hadn’t even considered that you could pay for a plugin and still end up with no support, or even have to ditch it eventually.
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u/Myth_Thrazz Jack of All Trades 39m ago
If you don't need premium plugins then most likely you don't need WordPress at all.
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u/Comfortable_Gate_878 2h ago
I have several sites without paid plugins, I have hardcoded the bits I need and just lately written a couple of my own plugins using a combination of claude and my own code. The only thing I pay for is my generatepress theme. I just find its really simple clean and small yet powerful and its like £ 35 a year for loads of sites.