Upgrading Wordpress dilemma

derickmc

I started designing / developing sites in Wordpress about a year ago

I have done a few websites for small businesses. Usually for small enough money too - typically 600 to 1200. These are 1 off payments but the clients would often come back to me asking to add something in the future. Before I started using wordpress this wasn't a problem, I just edited my code.

Now however, a change might involve installing a plugin, maybe some type of gallery or Google+ add on .. the problem is when I go back on to the website that I developed a year ago I find it uses wordpress 2.X, many plugings now require WP version 3 or higher ..

Upgrading WP and plugins a number of versions at a time may well break existing plugings take ages to fix and all for small money that I have charged to make a small update ..

No doubt I'm not the first to hit this dilemma ... just wondering what others do in this situation ..

cormee

derickmc wrote: »

I started designing / developing sites in Wordpress about a year ago

I have done a few websites for small businesses. Usually for small enough money too - typically 600 to 1200. These are 1 off payments but the clients would often come back to me asking to add something in the future. Before I started using wordpress this wasn't a problem, I just edited my code.

Now however, a change might involve installing a plugin, maybe some type of gallery or Google+ add on .. the problem is when I go back on to the website that I developed a year ago I find it uses wordpress 2.X, many plugings now require WP version 3 or higher ..

Upgrading WP and plugins a number of versions at a time may well break existing plugings take ages to fix and all for small money that I have charged to make a small update ..

No doubt I'm not the first to hit this dilemma ... just wondering what others do in this situation ..

Don't make any major decisions like that on your own (or on a forum). Tell your client exactly what you posted above, and let him decide.

As I'm sure you know, the upgrade process is simple and can be done through the dashboard with no need for FTP - just look at the plugins currently used on the sites and make sure they are available for the latest version of WordPress, if so, it should be a very simple process. But definitely run everything by the client first.

Trojan

What cormee said, and be aware that it may not be as simple as it appears on the surface.

I will never forget the time I foolishly said "I'll upgrade that plugin for you for no extra charge, it's just a simple update" and then needing to spend 6 hours of my evening fixing stuff that got broken because of a chain of dependencies between theme and plugins. I'm not a big fan of the "multiple by 2 and add a bit" approach to predicting time-to-complete, but sometimes it's far closer the mark than the original estimate.

Usually these days what I do is make it very clear that if something breaks due to an existing component, then fixing that gets charged in addition to the original project fee.

was.deevey

First thing I've been doing of late during installation is turning off Auto Updates and charge a minimum 1/2 hourds for testing on a backup site prior to deployment of a new plugin that may or not break things.

If they do things on the cheap try to do it themself first and they break it, I charge double rate.

If its an old site they want some new features on, I'll charge for backup/restore/testing time.