In any business dealings, proposals are essential. It’s no different when someone uses my services. I sent proposals to let them know my scope of work and deliverables.

When someone wants me to develop a website using WordPress, a quick rundown of the proposal will make them come across plugins. Usually, some lines on my proposals go:

Plugin Usage and Costs
During the development of your website, if needed, I will purchase and integrate premium plugins as needed to achieve the desired functionality. The first year of subscription costs for these plugins will be covered as part of the development process, ensuring you have access to all necessary features without additional upfront costs. After the first year, the responsibility for renewing and maintaining these plugin subscriptions will transition to you. This approach allows you to benefit from advanced functionality while maintaining flexibility and control over ongoing expenses.

This makes my clients curl their eyebrows.

To make things clear, this blog will talk about what plugins are, why you need it and why investing one will help you complete your website.

What are Plugins?

Consider a car. The basic function of a car is to get you from point A to point B. All car does that.

Given the two same cars, car A is the basic, out-of the factory stock, while car B has several accessories installed. Car B has GPS installed for navigation, an all-surround sound system for better entertainment, and a seat warmer for comfort.

Now, which of the two cars offers better travel experience? Of course we know the answer. Although both cars get you to the place you want, car B offers a better way to drive around.

Plugins are no different. WordPress plugins are a small software that extends the functionality of your WordPress website. A bare WordPress website is very limited in terms of what it can do. Chances are, during the development stage (or even in production) of your website, you’re going to install plugins to achieve the functions you want for your website.

For example, when you plan to add a functionality wherein a user can send an inquiry or message directly into your website, a basic WordPress website can’t do that. However, with the use of a plugin, you can easily add a contact form on your website.

A contact form is just one example. Some functions that you might want to have could be an eCommerce, online booking, and many more.

Depending on the website on how heavy or light the required functionalities, you can end up installing around ten to twenty plugins. Remember, plugins come in different shapes and sizes. One plugin might do only one function, while one plugin can carry loads of functionalities – a two-birds-in-one-stone feature.

Free vs. Premium Plugins

There are two types of plugins: free and premium.

Free plugins are plugins you can use at no cost. A lot of website owners enjoy the use of free plugins, thanks to thousands of contributors who make WordPress thrive. One way or another, you’ll come across free plugins that’s needed to make your website work properly.

Sometimes, using free plugins is enough. However, sometimes, free plugins are limited in functions. Once you get to know WordPress, the usual scenario is that you want a plugin to perform more to expect your needs. You’ll find that a free plugin’s function is quite “still not there“.

To extend the capability of that free plugin, they will introduce to you the “pro“ version. More often that not, you can find free plugins offering their pro version. That plugin can now be considered a premium plugin.

Premium plugins are more robust in terms of functionality, have a wide range of settings, and often get the job done. Because it’s now a paid plugin, you can expect priority support from the developers in case you encounter problems when using it. With premium plugins, it opens up a lot of functions that satisfy your needs.

This is best explained through an example. Let’s say you’re trying to build a contact form. In this plugin, WPForms, which is, by the way, a popular plugin, one section at the left side says “Standard Fields“. In the free version of this plugin, you’re free to add these fields in your contact form. This includes a dropdown field, numbers, email, text area, and many more.

But, if the purpose of your contact form is to get the user’s address, there’s an appropriate field for that, which you can find under “Fancy Fields“. But to use that, WPForms would ask you to upgrade your plugin to their Pro plan to add that field into your contact form.

Using free or premium plugins is based on a case to case basis. Depending on how will your website run, one website’s set of plugins differs from another website. Sometimes free plugin is sufficient and sometimes getting a robust, premium plugins are a need.

Different Uses of Plugins

To go deeper with plugins, plugins fall into different groups depending on their use.

For example, if you want to make your website secure, you need to get security plugins. When you want to improve your website’s speed and performance, optimization plugins are where you want to look at.

It’s a mortal sin not to have back-ups of your site, so having a back-up plugin is a must. In case you want to sell on your site, an eCommerce plugin is what you need.

There are also plugins that have specific uses. All you have to do is identify the function that you want and research if it’s the right fit for your website.

Conclusion

Plugins extends the functionality of your WordPress website. With the core WordPress alone, your website is only confined to very limited functions. With plugins, it extends to what you want your website to do.

Plugins can either be free or paid. Free plugins can be enough. However, when you need robust or custom functionality, paid or premium plugin is what you need. Sometimes, free plugins offer you limited functions but then will ask you to opt for a premium when you needed an extended functionality.

Getting plugins than hard-coding (meaning, coding it from scratch) is a supremely cheap option. Plus, technical supports are responsive and are always there should you need help with their plugins.

With WordPress plugins, the possibilities of what your website can do is endless.