Custom plugins, themes, REST APIs, and application-class WordPress builds — built to the standard they will still be maintainable by a developer in three years.
Portfolio: Postmedia network editorial platform (2011–2012 migration) · Sherwin-Williams brand web properties · M.L. Campbell Training Centre (custom LMS) · Sayerlack training portal · WordPress since 2007
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What brings people here
A plugin was installed to solve a problem and it solved it badly. Five years of “we’ll refactor that later” has accumulated into a codebase nobody wants to touch. The developer who built the custom theme is gone and left no documentation. The site works, mostly, until something changes — and then it doesn’t.
The work here is bringing WordPress engineering discipline to codebases and features that need it: clear data models, hooks used as designed, queries that don’t kill the server at 500 concurrent visitors, code that a competent developer can read in two years.
What I build
- Custom plugins ($2,750–$22,000): From focused utilities to application-class plugins with REST endpoints, external integrations, and custom data models. Three-tier ladder by complexity — see Investment below.
- Theme development: Block-editor-native and classic. Performance-first, editorial-workflow-aware, documented for handoff.
- REST API extensions: Headless integrations, third-party data syncs, mobile app backends, external reporting dashboards.
- Application builds ($24,000–$75,000): Multi-site networks, complex access control, data-model-heavy builds where WordPress is the right platform and the architecture has to hold at scale. Priced against the Team Site / Scaled Team / Newspaper ladder.
- Codebase reviews and rescues: Audit of an inherited codebase, priority list of what needs fixing before anything new is built, and a clear statement of what the site can safely do now.
Who this is for
- ✅ Businesses whose WordPress install has grown past what plugin configuration can solve — the next problem requires code.
- ✅ Development teams that need a senior contractor for a complex feature or a codebase that has gotten away from them.
- ✅ Organizations migrating or rebuilding a platform that has to keep its search traffic through the transition.
- ❌ Projects budgeted under $2,750. Smaller work is better served by a developer at a lower rate who is not senior-pricing an hour-long fix.
- ❌ Buyers who need an embedded developer on Slack all day. I work project-based or on a structured retainer — not hourly availability for operational support.
What it costs
The senior-developer rate is $275 CAD/hr. The custom-plugin and bespoke-development engagements ladder by complexity:
- Custom plugin — simple ($2,750–$5,500): A single CPT, REST endpoint, admin UI, or integration point. The kind of plugin that does one thing well.
- Custom plugin — mid-complexity ($5,500–$14,000): Multi-system integration, third-party API connector, CPT + taxonomy + admin UI, capability-and-nonce surface across multiple subsystems.
- Custom plugin — complex ($14,000–$22,000): Multi-CPT systems, public API surface, WP-CLI command set, full plugin architecture. The flagship custom-plugin tier.
- Team-Run application builds (from $7,500): Multi-contributor editorial WordPress with custom development on top — the Team Site tier.
- Scaled Team flagship (from $24,000+): Production infrastructure builds. Multi-property, complex access control, data-model-heavy work where WordPress is the right platform and the architecture has to hold at scale.
Every engagement starts with the free 20-minute discovery call, followed (if it makes sense) by a paid scoping session (1–3 hours) that produces a written technical spec. Scoping hours credit against the build if you proceed; the spec is yours to keep if you do not. See the canonical custom-plugin engagement page for the full process.
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