Best Paying Niches for WP Developers 🤑

đź’° Money & Business
1

If you were just starting out developing for WordPress, what field or area would you build your business in?

I’ll start with talking a bit about WooCommerce pros and cons (as all my plugins are on Woo):

  • It’s e-commerce so there’s definitely a lot of money flowing around, and generally customers can justify the cost, which is a big thing. Customers will buy it if they think it will make more money for them down the road.

  • The biggest issue and problem with developing for WooCommerce is that they’re constantly updating it and changing stuff around and you have to constantly keep up. Not only that, sometimes they will even add features to Core, making some plugins or developers’ work obsolete.

I think the ideal niche is one that can ALSO apply to WooCommerce sites but not constrained by it. I imagine something like Translation does super well because it applies to all WP sites and price points.

2

Yes, this is a big problem it kinda applies to WordPress as well, but is not that drastic…

In my case, the plugins only replace the default product images, but even there in the latest WooCommerce version, it doesn’t work anymore, so I have to update about 40 plugins :slight_smile:

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3

If I were starting out fresh today, I’d look for something that adds clear business value and it is something that people need right now. Stuff like SEO, AI, automation, integrations with external platforms, all of these are needed on every type of site. Also, the whole AI buzzword is everywhere right now and people are actually willing to pay if you can give them a practical edge with it. WooCommerce is a huge market and with some luck on your side, you can create cool plugins which sell well in the WooCommerce niche or in other niches.

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4

Definitely agree with you,

Speaking of AI, I got an interesting email today from WPML which have just built an AI translation tool for plugins and other software: https://ptc.wpml.org/ (previously translators quoted me as much as $1k+ for just 1 translation)

Very cool. I feel like AI is opening up so many new business models.

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5

Yes, translators are first on the list when it comes to job loss, imagine going to university for five years …

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6

Yeah, that must be absolutely brutal for some.

Some many years ago I used to do academic writing projects for pay (e.g. essays, dissertations etc, it’s an entire industry with big companies like ukessays doing this and many writers doing it for a living). Thank god I got out of that…

7

I am absolutely convinced that AI will destroy the world as we know it. We are getting closer to Elysium-like scenarios, where a few are rich and most are poor. I don’t even want to think about Terminator-style outcomes—if it came to that, AI would surely find far more efficient ways to wipe us out. A lab-created virus, for example, would not be difficult for a superintelligence to accomplish.

It is an awesome technology—I use it every day, and I can now do things that I wasn’t able to do in the past. Used in the right way, it could bring abundance and a better life. But we humans seem programmed to self-destruct. :slight_smile:

8

Interesting. One problem I see with AI is that the level of scrutiny and analysis it can bring to code, documents or text, it can also do for individual human beings.

You apply for a job but turns out you made some really problematic posts in your teenage years, and a particular anarchist 4chan post raised some red flags with compliance. As a response society becomes very uptight and scared to ever say or act anything negative or against the power structure - there’s always a camera somewhere - and the 100000 tera-bop-flops of AI processing power CAN and WILL know about it.

9

Yes as I said, it will be used in all kinds of bad ways…

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10

Regarding AI, in my vision, there might be an “AI Bubble Burst”, similar to the Dot Com bubble burst from 2000.
AI is massively overhyped currently, many people think that in 10 years AI will take over the world. However, I don’t think it works like this.
The current AI architecture is based on increasing processing power (add more GPUs) to the training of AI models and get better models as a result.
This is ok, but has great limitations, as the processing power can be increased only until a specified limit.
Also, as you can see with the case of gpt-5, there will be diminishing returns when it comes to newer models, trained with more processing power. “Next level” AI models will be very much similar to current models, but with some small tweaks and improvements.
Because of this overhyping, I think there will be a bursting point, when people will realize that the current AI architecture is limited and cannot bring the results many expect from it.

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11

Sorry just catching up now after an eventful 24 hours getting rid of some twazzacks that think it’s amusing to hack a website :enraged_face:

If I were starting out now then I would probably have botox injections, fake suntan and talk about how crap my day was whilst selling or promoting an item on Tik-Tok :slight_smile:

Wordpress - any wordpress theme, plugin or add-on - I would want to make sure that they were not so easy to hack and for that you need to be an excellent PHP coder who knows everything and anything. Because sadly there are too many people out there who will try to find exploits just because they can.

As for Ai well that is a brilliant thing, BUT where is the humanity in it? Pretty shortly kids will be walking around grunting at one another, because they won’t know how to speak, write or engage without Ai telling them to wipe their ass.

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12

Just thinking about the wiping I think most kids are already there :wink:

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13

I agree, and this is starting to show.

Even if we eventually have super-intelligent AI, there will still be a need for specialists. This applies to everything, not just coding. I don’t understand why people fail to see this. For example, I have no clue about cars—how am I supposed to use AI effectively if I don’t even understand how an engine works? Do you think AI can explain this to you, maybe, but you still need to get your hands dirty to understand, theory is not the same as practice or experience… so a solid knowledge base is still required and the better you are the better the result with AI.

Currently, if you use AI long enough, you realize that it’s just a complex algorithm—capable of doing some things impressively well but also failing at simple tasks so badly that it becomes clear it’s far from what is advertised with ChatGPT.

Is it useful? Absolutely. I use it every day, and at this point, I couldn’t do without it. But from my perspective, it’s still just a tool. The problem is, if I try to push it with more methods or complex workflows, it often messes things up so badly that everything falls apart.

In my experience, AI is excellent for small tasks and specific algorithms, as long as they remain within a limited context. But when it comes to the bigger picture, AI quickly gets lost.

The way I see it, at some point, the world will realize that AI is just a tool to make us better. As for “super-intelligent” AI, I’m not sure what to say. Even though I use ChatGPT every day and it helps me a lot, it still makes really weird mistakes that show it’s ultimately just a complex software algorithm—far from truly “intelligent.” No matter how advanced AI becomes, there will always be a need for specialists in every field to make it work; otherwise, the society as we know it will become chaotic. Of course, CEOS are pushing this because their main goal is to make money… we all know what this idiot Hichame Assi did with Envato…

Take programming, for example. Just putting a website online and this is basic, I am not talking about putting a plugin together… as a professional requires knowing so many things. For the average person, even with super-intelligent AI, it would still be confusing. They’d constantly wonder, “What did I just do?” It doesn’t work like that. Life is not a gamble, and if you treat it as one, at some point you’ll pay the price.

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14

AI today is being sold like a magic pill, but it’s mostly snake oil wrapped in shiny marketing. Sure, it can draft code, generate text, or even fake “insights”, but the moment you scratch the surface, it collapses.

And the most dangerous part? Corporations are feeding this hype because they see a new gold rush, not because the tech is anywhere near what they claim.

You said it right… AI is just another tool. And sure thing that worshipping your hammer does not sound like a good thing to do.

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15

They are throwing hundreds of millions on this like it is nothing… either way this bubble is starting to burst…

We see that the more we use it is really cool, it is part of us now, but the pure idea that it can replace any specialist is just stupid… and I know in my gut I am right, I have been doing this for almost 30 years now from the Pascal days :slight_smile:

I’m just adding this simple scenario with the idea that AI handles everything code and app related. Create a basic app with AI using your idea and see how good it is. For someone who knows what they’re doing, it might be useful — but for someone with no coding background, it’ll be pure nonsense. This doesn’t work in the real world.

I believe the CEOs who claim developers will be replaced don’t really understand the field. And those who do understand it but still push this narrative are doing it purely for profit. This mindset applies to pretty much any niche.

Seeing what the Hichame Assi did with Envato nothing is surprising me anymore… is descusting!

You were optimistic in that video, I knew from day one he is the wrong guy, only a developer and freelancer can do this right and this is showed in the way you guys did WpBay…

Rememebr this video, how he f.. up so bad I have no idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDCz8tjT9hU

16

You guys are such bears on AI :sweat_smile:

Let me take the other side on this. I don’t think it’s a bubble at all - the 2000 tech bubble was characterised by a lack of revenue backing up the valuations.

Check out the NASDAQ forward P/E (price / earnings, basically the premium paid for stocks):

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It was around 100 at the peak of the tech bubble and currently it is much more reasonable.

Also this NVDA chart I think is quite interesting:

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Despite all the craziness in AI, the PE ratio of Nvidia has been going DOWN. Why? because the EPS (earnings per share) have been going up so much as to match the valuations. So to me it looks like there’s very real revenue and customers who are backing up the valuations.

And personally I am paying more and more for AI, not less and less.

Sure, it’s not perfect yet. Yes, it has limitations. So what, it’s already VERY good + it’s only getting better from here.

By the way - 3 FREE Google VEO video generations, this weekend only!: http://gemini.google.com/veo Ends Sunday 10pm PT.

17

How cool is this!?

It looks like it can basically do Pixar-quality animation.

18

:sweat_smile: :sweat_smile:

19

I agree AI is awesome, the only thing that I don’t agree with is that now everybody can be anything without proper training…

20

@stefan_admin

The videos are amazing but so what? Fiveer where doing this years ago and they all looked good then too. You still NEED A HUMAN BEING - either who runs the business, or who works on the website for the client.

It’s a bit like the ape AI videos all over tik-tok at the moment - of course they look amazing, but who are we then selling this to? A bunch of adolescent teenagers who think cats in suits and apes walking around talking looks funny?

I suppose it depends on your age - at 62 I look at things differently and I know a lot of new clients coming onboard with us think TikTok videos are God.