I am a researcher in a software house. We need to replicate the following website at minimal cost and add a shopping cart feature. The site is currently made in WordPress using the expensive Kadence theme. Would hiring someone from Fiverr or Upwork to create a custom website be a cost-effective solution?
Could you please guide me on finding a cost-effective solution?
It’s completely the wrong direction.
Although that’s a simple site to replicate visually, anyone who says they can build you a quality custom theme for the prices of Kadence is either lying or not someone you want to be working with.
WordpPress is quite frequently updated - if you get a custom solution then you are going to have to pay again to keep it up to date and secure.
If you invest in Kadence (or a similar managed option) then you can get commerce properly integrated and avoid the ongoing update or security patch costs.
It’s really not a huge amount when long term will save you a huge amount of cost and headache
There’s also a question about what the cart is for - if its minor transactions then it’s less of a deal but if people are going to be making bigger payments or sharing more data then again you need to be prioritising proper quality build, coding etc