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We at Solspace have been watching the economy very carefully as we enter the first phases of the Covid-19 pandemic, as I am sure you have been as well. We're all trying to make some predictions about how our web projects are going to go. For years our sales figures for ExpressionEngine and Craft CMS have been telling indicators of the web development economy generally as well as for those platforms specifically.

When the Covid-19 pandemic first got real, when municipalities, provinces, states and other governmental bodies around the world enacted shelter in place orders, the various global stock indices dropped. Our plugin sales followed this drop. When those stock indices rose and showed some recovery, our plugin sales also followed that curve.

Based on numbers from the last few days, we're seeing at least a temporary return to normal web development volume out in the marketplace. This is cause for encouragement as we all look around for any sign of what to predict. To be sure, we're hearing stories of web development clients pulling back on budgets and pausing projects, but these are at the moment limited to about 20% of web development activity.

Some of the hardest-hit sectors are obvious, mainly travel and hospitality are taking the biggest hit. With this in mind, I encourage my fellow web developers to reach out to those of your clients who are in these sectors. They are busy trying to take care of their own staffs of course, but they could also benefit greatly with some help in their urgent needs around digital transformation. This is a time to price your services creatively, respecting the financial strain these clients are under. Offer to extend delayed payment terms or enact long term repayment plans or even revenue share arrangements.

Solspace is holding steady through this pandemic and doing what we can to support our community with the idea that we’re all in this together. We hope you will find this update encouraging, and that you are holding steady too.