Developer side project experience: plugins products or one-off custom plugin builds?

Hello everyone,

I’m an experienced full time developer looking to start a backend side project for a bit of fun and extra income. To that end, I’m keen to hear about people’s experiences of selling a plugin they’ve decided to make vs selling their time for freelance custom plugin builds alongside their 9-5.

What do you like and don’t like about these two ways of working and what has gone well and what hasn’t etc? This isn’t a ‘what can I do to make cash fast!’ sort of post. I know whatever I do will take a lot of time and effort so I’m trying to do a bit of research before I dive in. I’ve heard that the plugin market is saturated but equally I worry about managing freelance clients alongside the day job.

At the moment, I am torn between:
\- building a WooCommerce plugin, trying to get listed on the Woo market place, spending my time offering customer support, marketing the plugin etc (ie selling a product)
\- looking for good clients needing a high quality one-off custom plugin to meet a specific need (ie selling my time)

Thanks 🙂