I find it harder than quoting a project with a detailed brief.

Sometimes a client knows they need a new website, but once you start asking about what he actually needs, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

providing a fixed quote too early can backfire, but asking technical questions before giving any indication of cost can also lose the client.

How do you approach pricing when the scope is unclear?

i’ve been cutting down plugin usage on WordPress builds lately, especially for small functionality that can be handled cleanly with a few lines of code.

it's not becoz of plugins are bad. but installing a plugin for every redirect, CPT, tracking script or minor WooCommerce tweak can turn a fairly simple site into something with a lot more dependencies to maintain.

My current approach is pretty simple if the functionality is small, stable and easy to maintain, I’d rather code it. If it involves complex logic, frequent updates or something I don’t want to maintain myself, I’ll use a reputable plugin.

Interested to hear where other WordPress developers draw that line.