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The question of ‘how much does a WordPress website cost’ is a difficult one to answer – and the first question to ask in response is are you planning to build it yourself (completely possible with a little time and effort to learn how) or have someone else (perhaps a webdesign agency) build it for you? And then there’s the fact that a one-off fee simply won’t be all you’ll need to pay: because websites need to be maintained and updated — they simply aren’t something you can have created (or create yourself) and then forget about…
Here’s how to determine what a website will cost you…
How much does a WordPress website cost?
– (note: video credits to Topher DeRosia – creator of HeroPress)
Video Transcript:
Hi, this is Topher with WinningWP. In this video we’re gonna try to answer the question, “How much does a WordPress website cost?” There are two different scenarios we’re going to take a look at here. One is building it yourself and the other is hiring a developer. However, there are a couple of universal costs regardless of which method you choose. You’re going to need a domain name and you’re going to need hosting. Domain names are about $ a year and beginner hosting is about $ a year. Let’s take a look at that real quick. I’m here at Namecheap.com which is a fairly common place to buy domain names. I just invented a name, octocrock, and it says that all of these different variations are available. Now .com is usually the gold standard of what you want and they charge $. a year. However, the retail is $. so that’s where I got my number of about $. But as you can see, .xyz is only $ a year and .life is a $.. On the other hand, .global is $.. So the prices can vary quite a bit, but generally speaking you’re gonna pay about $ a year. Now for hosting, when you’re starting out, I like SiteGround and they have a start up plan for our $ a month and then a medium plan for $ a month and then a larger plan for $. I averaged those out to get about $ a year. But now let’s take a look at some of the other costs and we’re going to start with looking at building it yourself. You might end up paying nothing more than just hosting and a domain name. It’s perfectly possible to set up a WordPress website using only free plugins and, if you building it yourself, then you’re not going to pay anything. But generally speaking, people do end up buying a few premium plugins. Let’s take a look at a couple. Gravity Forms is an excellent forms builder for contact forms. You can even build forms to let you sell things and that’s about $ a year. iThemes Security is an excellent security plugin and for a blogger you’re gonna pay about $ a year. And you’re going to want a backup plug-in. Backup Buddy is an excellent one and it’s about $ a year to start with. Now iThemes sells their entire suite for $ which, if you need these other things, is a really great deal. If you don’t you’re better off going one by one. But I ballparked your cost for plugins at about $ a year. One last piece of software that we want to talk about before we move on is a theme. Over here at WordPress.org there’s the commercially-supported GPL themes and these can cost anywhere from $ to $. And then over a ThemeForest, we’re looking here at the top sellers page, and you can see that they’re from $ to $ to $ and here’s one for $ and so on. So you can expect to pay anywhere between $ and $ for a good quality premium theme. Additionally you may want some higher-end hosting. WP Engine starts at $ a month and can go up to $ and even more if you really, really need it so I ballparked that at possibly $ a year. So let’s review real quick building it yourself. You might end up paying nothing more than hosting and a domain name, but with some high quality paid add-ons you’re looking at maybe $ a year and then some higher quality hosting possibly $ a year so that’s almost $ a year. But again it varies depending on need. You may not need all of those plugins, you may not need any, you may not need the advanced hosting, but now you’ve seen some of the things that can cost money. But now let’s take a look at having a developer be involved. It’s almost the same in many ways. You may still want those higher quality paid add-ons and the higher quality hosting, but then you add in the developers time to build it and that can range anywhere from $ to $, depending on whether or not the developer is actually building custom work or just installing your plugins for you and getting everything set up. And, again, this varies depending on need. I’ve seen websites go to $, and $,, but they’re very advanced and they have a lot of custom work with excellent developers. I would say the bare minimum, if You simply want them to set things up and install your plugins, it’s going to be about $. If you ask them to do a little custom work, maybe some design, you’re probably looking at $, to $,. So as you can see the answer to, “How much does a WordPress website cost?” can vary pretty wildly. If you’d like to learn more about WordPress, check out WinningWP.com.
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