Web Design and Development Resources

This is a running list of resources I use to manage my freelance design and web development business. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather, solutions that I regularly use and recommend. I keep this page updated as solutions change.

Note, some of the following links are affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase. This helps me create more useful articles like this one. I only recommend companies and products I’ve actually used in my business. Thanks for your support!

Time Tracking, Estimates, and Invoices

Toggl

Toggl is my favorite time-tracking app. Use Toggl to track the daily time you spend on work tasks. Assign your time to projects and clients, allowing you to see how much time you spend on projects easily. View the project summary page or run reports when it’s time to send an invoice for your time. With paid accounts, you can integrate with other apps such as Jira, assign billable rates, and create fixed-fee projects. If you are a solopreneur, the free version of Toggl may be just fine for you.

Harvest

Harvest is a time tracking and invoicing app with a well-designed time tracker and a unique way to visualize project budgets and progress. The interface is easy to use and provides valuable insights into project budgets and time spent. Harvest has always offered fair pricing in an age of expensive SaaS products, especially for a small team. I use the Harvest Forecast app to keep track of project scheduling.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks makes it easy to track your time and invoice your clients. Create estimates and proposals, record your time spent on projects, accept online payments, and run reports to check the health of your business. I have used FreshBooks for over ten years to send invoices and track project time. I especially like the ability to create recurring monthly invoices and accept online payments. The reporting is also helpful for end-of-year tax preparation.

Quotient

With Quotient, you can quickly create professional quotes. Innovative features include quote templates, reusable price items and text snippets, recurring pricing items, and optional items. I particularly like the optional and recurring price items, which can be used for monthly billing, such as website hosting and maintenance. After years of creating PDF documents and fumbling with e-signatures in Acrobat, Quotient is a pleasure to use and takes the pain out of creating quotes and estimates. The review feature built into Quotient has helped me get a few more testimonials and Google reviews.

Wave

Wave helps you send estimates and invoices to clients for free! Wave is strictly for invoicing and accounting. Unless you are signed up for Wave’s payroll feature, you won’t keep track of your time with Wave, but you can use it to invoice clients, create reports, handle accounting, and get organized for taxes. As your business grows, you can use Wave to manage payroll. Compared to FreshBooks and other services, you must use Wave as a payment processor. The payment processing fees are similar to those of Stripe and other options.

Bonsai

If I were not already using Wave, Quotient, and Toggl, I would use Bonsai. In fact, I’m tempted to switch. Bonsai combines project tracking, invoicing, time tracking, a CRM, and other tools that you’ll find useful as a solopreneur or small business owner. I’ve only experimented with a free trial, but one thoughtful detail I really appreciate is the ability to accept or require a deposit as part of a contract agreement. You can do this with Quotient if you already use Xero or QuickBooks, but the rest of us are out of luck.

Project Management

Basecamp

Basecamp is one of the most well-known project management sites out there. It’s effective for gathering all team discussions in one place. The shared calendar makes it easy to track milestones, and the to-do lists are useful for breaking down projects into specific tasks and assigning them to team members. Share files with Google Drive, Dropbox, and other services. I’ve kept projects on track since 2007 with Basecamp. And Basecamp is intuitive enough for your clients to use.

Monday.com

Monday.com is like a super-spreadsheet. Okay, that’s a little unfair to Monday.com, but the user interface does remind me of a spreadsheet. Having used it recently while part of a larger marketing team, Monday.com is especially useful for keeping track of a project’s status. Projects can be broken down into sub-tasks, and each item can be assigned to a team member. You can easily see if something is blocked or if the project is on track. The side-scrolling interface takes some getting used to, but overall, Monday.com is extremely helpful for tracking complicated projects with multiple team members.

Freedcamp

Freedcamp includes features similar to Basecamp, with some added customization and features that are missing in Basecamp. For example, you can organize your tasks into a Kanban view or get a Gantt chart to view the critical path. With added complexity comes a more complicated interface. Freedcamp can work well for an internal team, but there is a learning curve that may make it more challenging to use with clients. Still, if you feel limited by Basecamp and need additional features, Freedcamp might work for you. As the name suggests, the starter plan is free to use.

Design Software

Figma

If you are working in any UI, UX, web design, or other design role, you will most likely be using Figma. Figma has quickly become the go-to software for professional UI/UX designers. The collaboration tools allow you to work together as a team. And Dev Mode speeds up the transition from design to development. As both a designer and front-end developer, Figma has been an essential tool in my workflow.

Photoshop

Photoshop is excellent software for image processing and exporting. I’ve used it since the early days, and I still rely on it for image cropping, adjustments, resizing, and saving for the web. The new AI features can be useful for expanding a background or isolating an image subject.

Canva

Canva is useful for creating presentations, documents, graphics for social media, or other designs. As a designer, you might feel that Canva is a templated platform aimed at those without design experience. The software does put decent design within the reach of those without graphic design training, and that’s a good thing. However, Canva can be used as another tool in a designer’s arsenal, especially for quick graphics and documents that don’t require extensive design.

Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher

The Affinity design software suite by Serif is a direct competitor to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. I’ve used both Affinity Designer and Publisher with success. And it’s allowed me to cut the Creative Cloud bill to just Photoshop instead of the entire Creative Cloud plan. In contrast, Affinity uses a one-time licensing cost with optional upgrades as they become available. Canva recently acquired Affinity software, making it challenging to predict what to expect in terms of future development. Still, it’s worthwhile to explore as an alternative to Adobe software with a feature set very close to what you would expect.

Squarespace

Squarespace is the best website platform for small businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. It combines an intuitive website builder with website hosting, security, e-commerce, marketing tools, and support. I recommend Squarespace for businesses and nonprofits seeking to establish an online presence with minimal hassle.

Design

With built-in templates, Squarespace provides a straightforward starting point for your website. The design is customizable, and you can easily preview changes to colors, fonts, and other site elements. Websites are responsive by default so that they will look good on any device. The built-in photo galleries allow designers, photographers, architects, and others to create a compelling online portfolio.

Marketing

When you need to add a marketing pop-up or banner or grow your email list, you don’t need to track down yet another plug-in to add to your website. Squarespace already gives you the tools you need to enhance your marketing efforts.

Commerce

If your website project includes an e-commerce component, use Squarespace to sell physical and digital products, memberships, services, and courses. There’s no need to switch to another platform as your business grows—the tools are already available to you within Squarespace.

Donations

For nonprofits, setting up online donations can be a frustrating but necessary hurdle. Squarespace makes it easy. Use the built-in tools to apply for Squarespace Payments or connect to an existing payment processor such as Stripe or Square. Add a donation block to your page, and you’re ready to accept donations.

Membership

Creating a membership website shouldn’t require a degree in engineering. Compared to WordPress membership websites, Squarespace is elegant and user-friendly. Build membership websites, put content behind a paywall, and sell online courses. Membership capabilities are built into the platform.

Website Management

Understand your website visitors with built-in analytics. Comply with privacy regulations using the included cookie consent banner. Manage other website users and their permissions. Best of all, there are no software updates to keep track of or worry about.

Other Features

We are not endorsed by or affiliated with Squarespace—we think it’s an effective platform for small businesses and nonprofits. For a full list of Squarespace features, check out their Feature List page.

WordPress Themes

Blocksy

Blocksy is my top WordPress theme of choice for small businesses and nonprofits. It’s well-designed and flexible enough for most types of websites. I’ve used it for numerous small businesses and nonprofit websites. Despite having the word “block” in the name, it’s a classic theme that works just fine with block editor plugins and page builders.

Astra

Astra is a high-performance and lightweight theme suitable for blogs, businesses, and e-commerce websites. The array of starter templates (both free and premium) provides a jumping-off point for new websites. I’ve used Astra with the Spectra block editor and page builder. As they are both made by the same company, they complement each other well.

Neve

Neve is another lightweight theme perfect for blogs, businesses, and nonprofits. Neve offers a collection of starter websites that provide a head start for new website owners. The developers of Neve also offer their block plugin, Otter Blocks, which works well with Neve. I especially appreciate the Neve theme for smaller websites with straightforward project requirements.

WordPress Plugins

WordPress is useful software on its own, but unless your requirements are extremely basic, you are going to need plugins to complement the software. If you build websites for clients, over time, you will likely develop a list of plugins that you use on most websites. Here’s my list:

Akismet

Akismet helps keep the spam out. It works in the background to block comment and contact form spam. I use it with Jetpack. It just works, and you don’t need to configure it or think about it.

Better Search Replace Pro

If you don’t have a search and replace tool built into your web host or don’t have access to WP-CLI, Better Search Replace Pro has the same functionality but is easily accessible via a plugin.

Email Encoder

Email Encoder is a simple plugin that obfuscates email addresses on your website to help combat spammers and automated web scrapers.

Imagify

Imagify is an image optimization service that helps compress your images for the web. It converts JPEG and PNG images into next-generation web formats, such as AVIF or WebP.

Jetpack

Jetpack is the Swiss Army Knife of plugins, handling security, optimization, statistics, social media publishing, and other features. Many WordPress web hosts bundle Jetpack security, backup, and anti-spam features with their hosting plans.

Plausible Analytics

Plausible is a lightweight alternative to Google Analytics. Their companion WordPress plugin helps you integrate Plausible into your website.

Solid Central Pro

Formerly part of the iThemes suite of products, the renamed Solid Central Pro gives you an easy-to-use management dashboard to keep track of website updates. See what needs to be updated, and perform website updates from a centralized dashboard.

Yoast Duplicate Post

Another simple plugin that does what you would expect, Yoast Duplicate Post provides a quick way of duplicating pages, posts, and other items within WordPress.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is one of the most widely used SEO plugins for good reason. The free version gives you great control over website SEO and basic guidelines for creating content that ranks well.

Additional Plugins

While I don’t use these on every website, these WordPress plugins serve specific needs and are helpful depending on the type of website project.

Advanced Custom Fields PRO

Not to be confused with the recently cloned Automattic version, Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF Pro) is the best way to create custom fields within WordPress. This allows you to extend your website beyond posts and pages and build custom content types.

Charitable

I’ve used other donation plugins in the past, but Charitable stands above the competition for its features and ease of use. If you need to set up a nonprofit website, I recommend the Charitable plugin for its donation and fundraising capabilities.

CommandUI

Navigating within the WordPress dashboard can be slow and annoying. CommandUI provides keyboard-friendly navigation shortcuts within the dashboard, familiar to anyone who has browsed modern documentation or used a modern web application.

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights

Ever since GA4 was introduced, I have tended to avoid Google Analytics and use alternatives like Plausible instead. If you have to use it, MonsterInsights is the easiest way to integrate Google Analytics into your WordPress website.

Health Check & Troubleshooting

The Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin is great for performing basic sanity checks and diagnosing issues with your WordPress site.

Instant Images

I’ve always appreciated the Unsplash integration with the Squarespace media uploader. The Instant Images plugin offers similar functionality to WordPress and integrates with other services, including Pexels and Pixabay.

Post Type Switcher

When you need to change a post to a page or a page to a custom post type, the Post Type Switcher plugin handles this basic functionality with ease.

Redirection

When you want to manage website redirects and don’t want to deal with editing configuration files, Redirection is the WordPress plugin you need.

Smart Slider 3

While carousel sliders are sometimes an overused way of presenting information, they can be helpful for specific types of content (and sometimes clients really want a slider). In those cases, Smart Slider 3 is the most straightforward WordPress plugin for creating sliders.

Spectra and Spectra Pro

Spectra is a block builder plugin (or page builder, depending on your perspective) that enhances the core WordPress blocks. I’ve found Spectra to be quick to use with functional design patterns for building marketing websites.

Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks

Much like Spectra and other block plugins, Stackable provides you with a collection of blocks that enhance the block-editing experience. You’ll find responsive design and other tools that are lacking in the core WordPress blocks.

SureForms

The free SureForms plugin offers a range of features to create contact forms and other types of forms suitable for small business websites. The paid versions offer additional features, including digital signatures, Zapier integration, and a unique conversational form type.

WP Interactions

Often, page builders include their own set of animation tools. WP Interactions is a stand-alone animation plugin that complements the block editor and block plugins.

WP Mail SMTP

The WP Mail SMTP WordPress plugin is used to enhance the deliverability of transactional website email (password reset notices, form submissions, comment submissions, etc.).

WordPress Hosting

Pressable

Pressable is an excellent managed WordPress hosting platform. Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, Jetpack, and other products, owns Pressable. Pressable offers a comprehensive platform for managing multiple websites, complete with all the features you expect from a managed hosting provider—notably, Pressable claims 100% uptime with redundant failovers. Most of my WordPress client websites are hosted at Pressable.

Kinsta

Kinsta is another fantastic managed WordPress hosting provider. Independently operated, Kinsta provides rock-solid WordPress hosting without any drama. The management dashboard and tools are exceedingly professional and easy to use. One specific feature I enjoy is the deep integration with Cloudflare. Instead of configuring a separate firewall at Cloudflare, Kinsta provides this as an integral feature of its platform. Kinsta now offers web application hosting in addition to its core WordPress hosting, making it particularly useful for developers who offer services beyond WordPress websites.

Pantheon

Pantheon is a unique hosting platform for WordPress, Drupal, and, most recently, Next.js. The primary advantage of Pantheon over other web hosts is its development-to-production workflow. Each website has three environments: development, staging, and production. Development is writable by either Git or the WordPress application and is where changes are tested and reviewed. After changes have been pushed to staging, this environment provides an opportunity to verify application integrity using production data. Deploy changes to production seamlessly and without causing problems. While more expensive than other platforms, Pantheon provides a unique workflow for organizations that need it.

DreamPress

DreamPress WordPress hosting by DreamHost is a solid and straightforward WordPress hosting option at a reasonable cost. It’s well-suited for small businesses and nonprofits that don’t require complex solutions. DreamHost is a reliable and independent web host that has been operating since 1997. They are well-regarded in the WordPress community.

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