Agencies - Do You Purchase All Themes & Plugins For Client Websites?

Ethan_Schwarz

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Hello everybody!

I hope this is the right forum and is allowed to be asked here, if not please let me know.

So... I'm getting into digital marketing and one of the fields I am getting some clients in is web design.
I want to build all of my clients' websites with Wordpress.
I want to ask anybody who has been building Wordpress websites to clients - how do you go about installing themes and plugins?
Do you really purchase every single theme and plugin that you put into the clients' website? Do you have lifetime deals on the themes and plugins? Do you charge your clients the bill directly on all of the purchases and charge them on that separately from the work you do?

Or do you use Festinger of GPL Cellar similar services that provide themes and plugins for monthly rates.


Would really like to know how you go about doing these things, as this plays a big role in the financial strategy of the business.



Thanks in advance for all of your answers!
 
We build all of our websites on Divi for the following reasons:
- Everything you need is integrated within the builder, no need for additional plugins for contact form, sliders etc.
- We leave it to auto update after it's built/live and nothing breaks. Ever. (Whereas with other themes, there's ALWAYS something that breaks)
- There's no need to buy a theme for each project / learn a new theme or builder each time.
- Due to the above we then turn them around more quickly and thus can charge less (or charge the same and turn more around = more money).

The only other plugins we then need are things like caching, SEO and duplicating plugins, meaning we can optimise for speed and performance without the need of a ton of plugins to do that.

If you're getting into the digital marketing space though you'll make more money going down monthly payment options so things like SEO, FB ads, Google ads etc.
You could always find someone reliable to white label the websites for you and you focus on the monthly's, so you've got the best of both options.

If you need any guidance feel free to shoot me a PM.
 
We build all of our websites on Divi for the following reasons:
- Everything you need is integrated within the builder, no need for additional plugins for contact form, sliders etc.
- We leave it to auto update after it's built/live and nothing breaks. Ever. (Whereas with other themes, there's ALWAYS something that breaks)
- There's no need to buy a theme for each project / learn a new theme or builder each time.
- Due to the above we then turn them around more quickly and thus can charge less (or charge the same and turn more around = more money).

The only other plugins we then need are things like caching, SEO and duplicating plugins, meaning we can optimise for speed and performance without the need of a ton of plugins to do that.

If you're getting into the digital marketing space though you'll make more money going down monthly payment options so things like SEO, FB ads, Google ads etc.
You could always find someone reliable to white label the websites for you and you focus on the monthly's, so you've got the best of both options.

If you need any guidance feel free to shoot me a PM.
Partially agree, not every theme break. Secondly, if you stick to one builder one must has less exposure i. e learniing point of view.
 
You should ALWAYS use paid themes for your clients if you don't want to get into trouble down the line.
Saving pennies on client jobs is NEVER a good strategy if you want to build a good reputation.
===> NEVER use nulled themes or plugins.
 
if the client is paying good, i'll buy all the themes and plugins required. just to keep away from future trouble....
 
If I can’t find it for free or on the vault then I’ll buy it. I reuse purchased ones as often as possible.
 
We build all of our websites on Divi for the following reasons:
- Everything you need is integrated within the builder, no need for additional plugins for contact form, sliders etc.
- We leave it to auto update after it's built/live and nothing breaks. Ever. (Whereas with other themes, there's ALWAYS something that breaks)
- There's no need to buy a theme for each project / learn a new theme or builder each time.
- Due to the above we then turn them around more quickly and thus can charge less (or charge the same and turn more around = more money).

The only other plugins we then need are things like caching, SEO and duplicating plugins, meaning we can optimise for speed and performance without the need of a ton of plugins to do that.

If you're getting into the digital marketing space though you'll make more money going down monthly payment options so things like SEO, FB ads, Google ads etc.
You could always find someone reliable to white label the websites for you and you focus on the monthly's, so you've got the best of both options.

If you need any guidance feel free to shoot me a PM.

Hey, thank you for your reply!

Yeah I was actually looking into Divi and was just about to purchase it until I stumbled upon more and more people online saying it is slow, bloated and not optimized for the future. How true is that? I honestly have no experience with Divi. From what I've read, Elementor pro, and especially Oxygen, are the better choices to go for since they are faster.
However, with that in mind, my way of thinking is similar to yours (business minded), I want to provide clients a product they are happy with, a design they like, and one they could possibly manage themselves in the future.

How customizable is Divi by the way? I've heard about header and footer problems....

Would appreciate your input, and will definitely PM you for some guidance! Thanks again :)
 
Hi @Ethan_Schwarz
There are some ways to spare money on themes and plugins (like cracking them). But I can 100% agree with @GenesisOne . So never spare on these, if you are working for a client (a manipulated theme or plugin can cause problems, for instance you won't get updates, support or your acc will be simply banned).
We are purchasing all the things needed for the site and calculate these costs into the proposal (and you can mark them).
If you are a regular buyer of one theme (like Divi, TheGem, and such solutions) you can probably ask for discount.
 
Ethan I’m the owner of GPL Cellar and even I use paid plugins and themes on my client sites, it’s how I help populate my catalog. I do use nulled plugins or themes on prototypes to demo for the client or to try the plugin and see if it solves the client requirements and if I decide to use it I add it on to the build cost. I always buy the Agency/Lifetime plans because of the value and it’s easier to sell to a client versus telling them they will need to pay $49 per year for updates. It’s also why I tend to use plugins that offer lifetime deals. Even if I own lifetime plans I usually charge the client what it would cost them for a single site. So if I own a lifetime plan that cost me $199 and a single use site is $49, I charge $49 even though I don’t need to buy a license. You very quickly make your money back this way and you build a nice collection of plugins and themes.

Your questions regarding divi are exactly why I use nulled plugins. Find it, download it, try it, and if you like it, buy it.
 
Hey, thank you for your reply!

Yeah I was actually looking into Divi and was just about to purchase it until I stumbled upon more and more people online saying it is slow, bloated and not optimized for the future. How true is that? I honestly have no experience with Divi. From what I've read, Elementor pro, and especially Oxygen, are the better choices to go for since they are faster.
However, with that in mind, my way of thinking is similar to yours (business minded), I want to provide clients a product they are happy with, a design they like, and one they could possibly manage themselves in the future.

How customizable is Divi by the way? I've heard about header and footer problems....

Would appreciate your input, and will definitely PM you for some guidance! Thanks again :)

In comparison to the others you've listed, it can be slower - HOWEVER that's on the basis that the other sites you're running aren't also running third-party plugins to offer things like sliders, social media icons, contact forms etc. Divi has all of this built in as standard, so of course it's going to be more bloated but it means you also don't need to be spending time installing and managing all of those additional plugins.
By the time you add those other plugins to an elementor or oxygen based site you're going to be at around the same level speeds wise.
We just ensure that all of our sites are optimised for speed by compressing images, running the DNS through Cloudflare and combining this with a decent caching plugin and we're ranking our clients extremely well with no issues.

Don't forget though that you've then got the additional time it might take to manage the other websites built on other builders, like I said Divi is the only one that we can comfortably run hands-off.

More than happy to help in DM's where I can.
 
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