According to data from the Canada’s Job Bank, the median hourly wage for web developers in Canada is $30.50. That works out to an annual salary of around $63,000 based on a full-time work week. It’s important to consider other costs associated with hiring an employee: benefits, training, and employment insurance. These costs can add significantly to the overall cost of putting a full-time webmaster on staff.
It’s important to carefully consider the costs and benefits of hiring a webmaster on staff versus using a website management company, and to consult with a web design professional or marketing specialist to determine the best course of action for your business.
Things to consider when deciding whether to hire a webmaster on staff or use a website management company:
The best option for your business will depend on your specific needs and resources.
With a webmaster on staff, you have a full-time staffer and all of the costs that come with them. A WordPress support agency can cost much less than a dedicated staffer. In a pinch, they can bring the whole force of their service to the clients in times of need. When something goes really wrong, there’s not way to scale a single webmaster, but WordPress support can commit multiple people to making a fix.
Traditionally, WordPress support services commonly include:
WordPress support services can help businesses and individuals who use WordPress to manage their websites by providing a range of technical and design support services. Beyond the basic services, Web321 offers more services to fulfill the role of a webmaster.
The best time to retain a WordPress support company is when the company is too big to ignore the Web (ie. if the company grosses more than $100k), yet small enough that they can’t bear the expense of a dedicated staff member. If a company is spending $500,000 on payroll, one full time webmaster would cost $60-80k or 11 to 16% of the overall payroll. Ideally, the webmaster role should account for 5 to 10% of the payroll. Their work should be key to digitization of the business and the marketing successes. Put another way: what’s the return-on-investment (ROI) of a full time webmaster on the payroll? If they cost $80k/yr, they need to do work that generates far more than $80k per year. Is that the case? if the role of the webmaster is only making a modest gain on the company bottom line, then a less expensive option is the better solution. A company like Web321 can come into play to help the company, but create a positive ROI. This is what we do: we take care of websites and offer WordPress support.
