If you’ve never had WordPress or any other website yourself, you’re probably wondering how much costs to run a website.
The answer to this question in some cases may vary depending for what the website is used for. Is it a personal blog? Small and simple business website? Massive WooCommerce online store?
WordPress website price range can be all over the place. But in this guide I’ll give you some real examples how much WordPress website cost.
How much does WordPress cost
To make things as clear ar possible – here we are talking about self hosted WordPress websites (https://wordpress.org/), not about WordPress.com website builder.
Is WordPress free, or do you have to pay for WordPress?
WordPress as a software is 100% free. If you have a server for hosting it and website address (domain), then you will have WordPress website literally for free. There are no subscriptions, no recurring fees, no one time payments. No hidden fees.
If you want to start a blog, build a website for your business, make a portfolio website, and you’re willing to do some work, WordPress will not cost you anything.
Here’s the real world example – this website you’re reading at the moment. It runs latest WordPress version, uses free Frost theme (no coding skills required so no development costs). It also uses free SEO plugin, free pagespeed optimization plugins, free image optimization plugin, and basically that’s it.
No paid themes or plugins are required to run a fine WordPress website. Of course, you may find paid plugins or themes for WordPress, but they are only necessary in specific cases. You may want to have a specific design, custom functionality – that may cost you. But if you’re building a blog or a business site, and you’re wiling to setup WordPress and add content yourself, there are no extra cost related to WordPress.
How much WordPress cost for business
You’re maybe wondering why agencies want thousands of dollars (or euros) for building WordPress websites. And the answer is simple actually. You don’t pay agencies for website because of WordPress. WordPress is free. You’re paying for work – for things you might do yourself, but don’t have time or enough experience.
Here’s what you pay for when hiring WordPress agency:
- Research. If your business needs website, you pay for agency work to find out what kind of website your business really needs, what your competitors are doing, to make sure you come up on top.
- Custom design. You may build good looking are well performing WordPress website yourself, but if you don’t have skills or time, agency creates and builds WordPress theme for you.
- SEO and speed optimization. Again, if you don’t do it, agency does it for a fee.
- Content. Agency adds content to your website, and optimizes it for auditory and search engines
- Marketing tools integration. Agencies often add conversion tracking tools, newsletter software and other tools for measuring website and business performance.
- Custom development. If you need specific functionality that cannot be found in default WordPress.
- Updates and support. You pay agencies for making sure they work and your website are in top shape all the time.
As you see, you pay for WordPress agencies not for WordPress but for skills and time. If you have enough skills, time to do everything yourself, or you don’t need such a complicated WordPress website for a start, then WordPress website may and should not cost you at all.
How much WordPress cost per year or per month
Ok, now we can get back to more specific numbers – what is yearly cost of fully working WordPress website.
As we saw earlier, WordPress website itself can be literally free if you don’t need any specific functionality and you’re willing to run and update WordPress content management system yourself. Then the only things that cost is hosting and domain.
How much domain cost
WordPress does not require any specific domains – you can use any available domain you want.
Domain prices may vary, but usually domain cost from $10-$50 dollars per year.
How much WordPress hosting cost
Great thing is that WordPress does not require any specific hardware or software so it can run almost on any hosting as long as it supports PHP and includes database. Any popular shared, VPS and managed hosting providers support WordPress.
Some hosting providers even offer hosting dedicated to WordPress. Usually it’s the same shared hosting, just optimized specifically for WordPress.
Hosting prices may vary depending on company, country, support and additional features.
One feature is very important – every website has to have SSL certificate. Otherwise browser will show website visitors that website may is be safe. So it’s crucial to have SSL certificate in any website – WordPress or not.
WordPress hosting price usually start from $8 – $10 a month. If you get a good deal from hosting provider, the price may include SSL certificate and a domain. And you don’t need anything more expensive for running a personal blog or relatively small business website. Relatively small I mean no heavy custom modifications, and up to up to 1000 visitors a day.
WordPress yearly costs and hosting recommendations
WordPress itself is free. Don’t overcomplicate it, use and lightweight theme (Frost, or default WordPress theme), don’t overcrowd it with masses of plugins, and your WordPress website will cost around $10-12 per month, or $100 – $150 per year. Including everything – domain, SSL certificate, hosting server.
Personally I always recommend WordPress hosting by Hostinger. It’s safe, reliable, affordable, and if you use the right package (like WordPress Starter), it includes all things needed – email, SSL, domain, backups, and it all cost less than $10 a month. And what’s better – everything easily accessible from one control panel. Click here for more details.
