How to Hire a Developer for WPBakery, Bricks and Other Page Builders

Your page needs a fix or a new section, and the developer who built it is gone. The site runs on WPBakery or Bricks, and every freelancer you message offers to rebuild it in Elementor.

Fewer people work in these builders, and the wrong hire can mean paying for a rebuild you didn’t need.

Here’s what I check in ten minutes, and how to hire someone who knows your exact builder without losing control of the site.

What makes WPBakery and Bricks sites different

Your text and images usually survive a builder fault. What changes is who can work on it and what happens when you want to leave.

I check these details first:

• A WPBakery copy bundled with the theme Many themes ship WPBakery inside them. A bundled copy has no license of its own and updates only when the theme author releases one, so an abandoned theme leaves the builder on an old version.
• A theme’s own version of WPBakery Some themes, like Salient, ship a modified WPBakery. General WPBakery experience doesn’t always cover it.
• Layouts saved as shortcodes WPBakery stores each layout as shortcodes inside the page. Switch the plugin off and visitors see the raw shortcode text instead of the design.
• Bricks is a theme, not a plugin It can’t run next to another theme, it has no free version, and its layouts sit outside the normal post content. Leaving Bricks means rebuilding the pages.
• Paid add-ons and a license in someone else’s account Extra element packs and the builder license often belong to whoever built the site. When their license lapses, updates stop.

For Beaver Builder, Avada’s builder, Oxygen or Breakdance, hire someone who works in that exact builder. For a site-wide critical error or white screen, read how to hire someone to fix a broken WordPress site.

Try this first (10 minutes)

These checks change nothing on the site. Write down what you find for the developer.

1. Find out which builder you have. Go to Appearance → Themes. If the active theme is Bricks or a Bricks child theme, it’s a Bricks site. If not, open a page in the editor: WPBakery shows “Backend Editor” and “Frontend Editor” buttons. Other builders usually add an “Edit with…” link in the Pages list.
2. Note the theme and its version. In Appearance → Themes, write down the theme name, version and whether a child theme is active. For a bundled WPBakery copy, the theme decides how the builder updates.
3. Check whose license runs the builder. In Bricks, open Bricks → License. For WPBakery, look under WPBakery Page Builder → Product License (a bundled copy may not show one). Note whether a key is active and whose account it belongs to.
4. Copy the system details. In Tools → Site Health → Info, note the WordPress and PHP versions and the list of active plugins.

Hire straight away if a sales or lead page is broken, the builder won’t open, or nobody knows who holds the license.

If these checks don’t settle it, or you’d rather not dig through settings, stop here. Every extra change makes the developer’s job harder.

Fix, add pages, or move off the builder?

Most sites need a fix or new pages in their current builder. Moving off it is a bigger job. Ask why it’s needed before you pay.

When the cause is unclear, start with a paid assessment. Ask what’s wrong and get separate prices for the repair and the move. An expired license or a missing developer alone is not a reason to rebuild.

For a move, start with one representative page to check the quality and time needed. For the wider scope, read what a WordPress redesign costs.

Where to hire a developer

I recommend Fiverr Pro for WPBakery, Bricks and other builder work. Fiverr vets Pro freelancers by hand for their experience, portfolio and service record before they get the Pro badge. I work on Fiverr myself and know how its orders work.

Check their experience with your builder yourself; the Pro badge doesn’t confirm it. On bigger builds or moves, ask whether the gig offers milestones. Some gigs from $100 let you pay in parts, and each milestone gets eight days for review instead of the usual three.

What it costs

The builder, the number of templates and the add-ons set the price. At the time of writing, Fiverr Pro packages for this kind of work fall into these ranges:

Pro packages cost several times more than the cheapest builder gigs. Compare what each package covers.

Fiverr adds a service fee at checkout, and faster delivery costs extra.

What drives the price up

Page count matters less than how the site is built:

• headers, footers and templates shared by many pages
• Bricks global classes and components that change every page at once
• listings or dynamic content pulled from custom fields
• forms, a shop or bookings that need testing
• more than one language
• paid add-ons that need checking after an update

What the cheap price usually skips

Basic is the smallest scope a seller offers. Check whether it leaves out:

• a backup and a staging copy before the live site is touched
• finding the cause, so the next update doesn’t undo the fix
• checking the shared templates, not only the page you reported
• testing on tablets and phones
• a short walkthrough so you can edit the pages yourself

For sales or lead pages, I’d insist on staging and phone testing.

How to choose the right developer

Fixing someone else’s WPBakery or Bricks site takes different skills from starting fresh. Look for proof of the work you need.

Check reviews for your builder

Read reviews that name your builder and your kind of job, including the one- to three-star ones and the seller’s replies. A review that says “fixed our WPBakery mobile layout” tells you more than ten “great communication” ones.

Ask for a live example

Ask for a live site built in your builder and open it on your phone. For Bricks, ask how they name classes and set up components, so you know how you’ll edit the site later.

Watch how they answer your message

A good developer asks which theme you run, whether WPBakery came with it and which add-ons the site uses. A promise to fix “any page builder” in an hour tells you little.

The questions I’d ask before ordering

• Have you worked with this theme’s version of WPBakery, or with Bricks on a site you didn’t build?
• Will you take a backup before you change anything?
• Will you work on a staging copy?
• Which add-ons will you install, and who pays their renewals?
• Whose license will the builder use, and how will I get updates if we stop working together?
• If you recommend a move, can you show me why in writing first?

Red flags

• They push a full rebuild before looking at the site.
• They offer a paid add-on or builder “for free” with no license behind it. A copy bundled with your theme is fine; anything else is a pirated copy, and pirated plugins can carry malware.
• They ask for your hosting account password when a WordPress user and SFTP access would do.
• They want payment outside Fiverr. Its support can only help with orders placed there.
• Their portfolio has screenshots only, no live links.

A seller’s own builder license is fine if they explain the trade-off. Bricks’ license terms allow a developer’s license on client sites, but your updates then depend on that developer. A license in your own account keeps the site independent.

How to give access safely

Share access only after ordering, through a password manager. Use separate accounts and remove them when the work is done.

1. Take your own backup first. Back up the files and database in your hosting panel. Store the copy off the server.
2. Create a separate WordPress user. Give Administrator access only if the developer needs to change plugins, the theme or builder settings.
3. Give file access through a separate SFTP user created in your hosting panel. Never share your hosting account password.
4. Keep the builder license in your account. If you hold the license, add the key yourself. Never share your Bricks, WPBakery or theme marketplace account password.
5. Close access when the job is done. Delete the developer’s WordPress and SFTP users, change passwords, and check Users for accounts you don’t recognize.

Keep your hosting, domain and builder license in your own name. Whoever controls those controls the site.

What to send before the work starts

• page URLs and the staging URL, if you have one
• what’s broken or needed, and what counts as done (“the pricing table works on iPhone and Android”)
• desktop, tablet and phone screenshots, plus exact error text
• when it started and what changed just before
• your theme, its version, child theme and builder version
• whose license runs the builder and which add-ons the site uses
• your host, WordPress and PHP versions (Tools → Site Health → Info)
• whether you have a backup, what you’ve tried and which access you’re ready to give
• for new pages or a move, your page list and deadline

Agree on “done” with the seller and record it in Fiverr’s order requirements.

After the work: check, accept, own your pages

Fiverr gives you three days to review a delivery before it completes on its own. Check it the same day:

• open each changed page on phone, tablet and laptop
• open two pages you didn’t change, to catch a broken shared template
• send a real message through each form and make sure it arrives
• change a heading and an image in the builder yourself
• ask what caused the fault
• ask for any changes through Fiverr before you accept the delivery

After a move, also check that old URLs open or redirect, page titles and descriptions came across, and a test order goes through on a store. On a store, ask for the move to go live without copying the staging database over the live one, so orders placed in the meantime stay.

Remove the developer’s WordPress and SFTP users. Ask for a full backup, add-on renewal dates and, for Bricks, an export of templates and global classes. Back up before builder updates and test them on staging first (on a store, every update). Regular maintenance helps you catch a broken add-on before your visitors do.

Summary

A WPBakery or Bricks site usually needs a fix or new pages. The risk is hiring someone who doesn’t know your exact builder or theme, or paying for an unexplained move. Check which builder and whose license you have, then hire a WPBakery or Bricks developer for one clearly scoped job, with a backup and separate logins.