Reviewed by Christopher Ross on
The plugins are free. This page is for the people who use them and want to give something back.
There are five ways to do that, ranked by what is actually useful. Money is the third item on purpose.
The honest version
I have been building websites since 1996, and on WordPress since 2007. Most of my income comes from senior development work for media, education, and government clients. That is how rent gets paid. The free plugins and the writing do not pay rent. They cost time: a few hours a month for the small ones, a full weekend a quarter when WordPress core ships a breaking change and the support tickets stack up.
The most useful thing you can do is not always money. The least useful thing you can do is nothing. The list below is in the order I actually find useful, not the order that flatters the bank account.
Five ways to help, ranked
1. Talk about the work
Word of mouth is the only marketing channel I trust, and it is the one I have the least control over. If something here saved you an afternoon, the biggest favour you can do me costs nothing:
- Share the post or the plugin with someone it would help.
- Follow me on whichever platform you actually use. Links are in the footer.
- Rate or review the plugin on WordPress.org. One specific paragraph beats fifty drive-by 5-stars.
- Star the repo on GitHub. The signal travels further than people think.
- If we have worked together and it went well, a Google review on the business profile is gold. Local SEO runs on those.
Two minutes of your time saves me a month of cold outreach.
2. Help with the open-source projects
The repos are public for a reason. The bar to contribute is lower than people think, and you do not need to write code:
- Honest feedback. “I tried this and got stuck at step 3” is genuinely useful.
- Ask a question in the discussions. Someone else has the same one.
- Answer a question in the discussions. You probably know more than you think.
- Fix a typo or tighten a sentence in the README.
- Suggest a feature, with bonus points if you have thought through the trade-off.
- Report a bug, with steps to reproduce.
Half the most useful contributions I have received were not code. They were comments that pointed out something I had missed.
3. GitHub Sponsors (the money channel I notice most)
Recurring monthly sponsorship shows up as a steady line on the calendar instead of a one-time spike, which makes it easier to plan against. Every tier is framed as gratitude for the work being free, not as a service contract. Deliverables are capped on purpose.
Champion — $100/mo
What you receive: Priority bug-triage on the free plugins, with a 48-hour async response on GitHub or by email. One 30-minute async written review per year of a single site or use case (you send the questions, I send a written reply within five business days).
What is not included: No live calls. No code review. No implementation work. No private Slack.
Sponsorship is gratitude, not a service contract. For project work, see Services.
Professional — $250/mo
What you receive: Everything in the Champion tier, plus one 30-minute sync video call per quarter (four per year). Async questions answered within two business days.
What is not included: No deliverables produced on the call. No follow-up implementation. No emergency-response SLA.
Sponsorship is gratitude, not a service contract. For project work, see Services.
Team — $500/mo
What you receive: Everything in the Professional tier, plus one 60-minute sync call per quarter for team Q&A or as an architecture sounding-board. Up to three named team members.
What is not included: No code written. No documents produced. No project work. Calls do not roll over.
Sponsorship is gratitude, not a service contract. For project work, see Services.
Growth — $1,000/mo
What you receive: Everything in the Team tier, plus one 90-minute strategy call per quarter. Private email channel with a one-business-day response window.
What is not included: No project delivery. No retained capacity. Engagements requiring deliverables route to paid scope at the headline or advisory rate.
Sponsorship is gratitude, not a service contract. For project work, see Services.
Where the money goes
The obvious chunk keeps the plugins compatible with new WordPress and PHP releases, pays for hosting and tooling, and buys back the time to ship the next release. A portion is set aside each quarter to cover materials and travel for the open-source mentorship work I do with youth in small towns and underserved neighbourhoods. I grew up in a small town. The door was not shown to me, and I am not interested in keeping it shut behind me.
4. PayPal (one-time, no account games)
If recurring is not your thing, a one-time PayPal contribution works. I read every note that comes through. If you mention which plugin or post the donation is tied to, I will keep that in mind the next time I am prioritising fixes.
5. Amazon gift cards (small gesture, still appreciated)
If you would rather buy me a specific thing — a book, a piece of dev gear, a coffee subscription — Amazon gift cards work. Send to hello@thisismyurl.com. I will usually reply with a thanks and a note about what it ended up paying for.
If you cannot give, that is also fine
The plugins are free because they are free, not because I expect anybody to pay later. If donating is not in the budget — and for most of the indie WordPress users I hear from, it is not — items 1 and 2 above are the answer. They are not the consolation prize. They are at the top of the list because they actually do more than money does.
Not here to donate? Here is the off-ramp
If you landed here from a Google search and you are actually trying to figure out whether I can help with a WordPress problem, the donate page is the wrong door. Book a 20-minute discovery call and we will triage it.