Is It a Good Idea to Invest in Paid WordPress Plugins?

This is one of those questions that everyone who has worked with WordPress has had at some point of time or the other. When it comes to plugin WordPress options, there are so many free ones available, that many new users ask if it even makes sense to invest in paid plugins? If there are advantages in doing so, what are they exactly? We will tackle that question in this article and try to show you the situation as it stands, from a neutral point of view

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Advantages of Free Plugins

Developers release free plugins to get recognition in the WordPress community or simply to help others out. It’s also an excellent way of sharpening coding skills in the field as WordPress has some strict quality checks in place before any plugin is accepted on the official WordPress.org website. Consider the following points as the main advantages of using a free plugin on your WordPress powered site:

  • They are completely free
  • There’s always one available that gets the job done
  • Established and immensely successful plugins like WordPress SEO and Akismet are free, so quality is not always the issue

Disadvantages of Free Plugins

Free plugins aren’t perfect, though, and they do have a few big issues that make them unsuitable in certain scenarios:

  • Free plugins don’t usually have the necessary tech support
  • You will need to search through community forums and wait for an answer if you have a problem with a plugin
  • The time it can take to set up a particularly complex plugin with your site might make it unusable
  • Free plugins do not get regular updates

Advantages of Paid Plugins

People usually opt for a paid WordPress plugin only when they are unable to find the solution they need in the list of free plugins. These are the reasons as to why you may want to pay for your plugins.

  • Paid plugins from good developers get constant updates
  • They also have dedicated professional support available at all times to help their customers
  • You can be more productive because of the time you will save thanks to immediate and reliable professional support
  • They are usually more secure than free plugins since the constant updates keep patching up security threats

Disadvantages of Paid Plugins

It’s not all sunshine though, as there are a few things about paid plugins that you may not like as much.

  • Some of them can be quite expensive
  • Even after charging a hefty entrance fee, some developers may ask for even more money in terms of in-app purchases before giving you access to features within a plugin that you already paid for
  • Sometimes, you may find that you have access to a better free option which you had no idea about

It is all about what you are looking for really. While most things can be handled by free plugins, some of the more complex alterations you want to make to your site might make it necessary for you to invest in a paid WordPress plugin to get the solution that you need, especially in the long run.