Ever since Pods has come out, I’ve been hooked. About 98% of the sites I create are powered by WordPress and almost all of those sites utilize the Pods Framework. It is one of the few plugins for the WordPress platform that truly expands on its functionality and pushes the envelope in many directions. It offers premium functionality and is 100% free (cost is free and I can freely use the code). Even better, it will always be free as the developers have pledged to keep it free by setting up the Pods Foundation. While Pods doesn’t accomplish anything I couldn’t and have already coded myself, it dramatically speeds up my development and standardizes the process. That being said, I am able to offer my clients competitive rates on services and offer them a stable, secure, and robust product. In the end everyone wins; I make a reasonable profit, and the client gets a reasonable price.

How we can all help

Since I gain a significant amount of work from using Pods, I have opted to donate a portion of my revenue towards the project. This not only shows support for the idea and the community but furthers the development of the project. While this concept is widely understood, it is rarely put into practice. A donation is always a smart idea; it decreases our annual (or however you choose to file) net income and overall gives us less taxes to pay. Either way, donating to the project pushes the features we wish to have to the forefront of development. This in turn helps us create and produce faster, ultimately increasing our hourly wages and our quality of work.

I cannot see this being anything other than a win-win.  While we end up making a bit less per project by making donations, we gain so much more in the long run; more features, more power and faster developer turn around time.  Not to mention that we help out a great project fueled by developers who have spent countless hours developing and supporting Pods for free – which we all benefit from.