WordPress Website Cost | Ins and Outs

We often see someone’s thousand-dollar website barely attracts a customer. In contrast, a million-dollar business runs on a website that costs $200 only. Why does it happen? It happens due to a lack of ideas regarding costing and planning.

People barely know which thing on a website attracts them the most, so they don’t know where to spend money. Here we will share all about the WordPress website cost. It’s Because WordPress holds 40% of the total website market.

Moreover, we will discuss every detail of website cost regarding different categories. We will also talk about cost ranges with minimum and maximum prices.

Basic Approach To Build A WordPress Website and Its Cost

Nowadays, creating a website is no big deal. WordPress is suitable for anyone wishing to create their dream website for business, office, or personal use. There are many ways to create a website based on your budget.

It is possible to create a website with a ten-dollar bill. Also, you could find a website that costs around half a billion. Yes, that’s true.

But before diving into the budget, cost, and expenses discussion, let’s check out the basic approach to building a WordPress website.

Steps	Name	Purpose	Pricing
Step 1	Website Domain name	This is the identity of a website, which contains the main name. Example – WordPress.com	$1 to $30 (per month)
Step 2	Web Hosting	It provides facilities to manage clients.	$1.99 to $1000 (per month)
Step 3	Web Storage	This is used to store data, files, pictures, etc.	$0 to $600 (per month)
Step 4	Website Theme	We install a theme on the website to make it more reasonable. It controls all the design and features.	$0 to $250 (You need to pay the price only once)
Step 5	Website Plugins	It contains the features and functions of a website.	$10 to $900 (You need to pay the price only once)
Step 6	Website Security	It guards the database and gives protection against hackers.	$40 to $1000 (per year)

So by now, you know the 6 steps to building up a website. Not every step will consume the same amount of money. For example, web hosting and plugins will consume most of your budget. In contrast, ‘domain’ and ‘theme’ will take only a few dollars.

Now let’s calculate website costs. Here we will see how your budget will be distributed among these things.

1. Domain Name

The first and main thing about a website is its domain name. You can find different kinds of websites with different domain names. Some of them have .com, some have .us, .org, etc. There are different kinds of domain names out there with different prices.

Top-tier domains have higher prices than low-tier domains. But compared to the other steps, it costs the least. Another thing you should bear in your mind, after buying a domain, you’ll need to provide a registration fee for it per year, this will typically cost you $10-$15 per year.

Costing Range: $1 to $30 (per month)

Here, we’ve provided a price comparison between some common and popular Domain names.

2. Web Hosting

Hosting is something like the manager of your website. It controls everything. For instance, managing storage, looking after security, and providing service to visitors.

Costing Range: $1.99 to $1000 (per month)

On the basis of the typical cost of web hosting, this price range is offered. We have a price chart that breaks down costs for several types of web hosting, including shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, and WordPress web hosting. You’ll be better able to select the ideal candidate with its assistance.

Also, if you want to have an SSL certificate then you’ll be charged extra between $10 to $450 per year. On average, it costs around $50 per month. The SSL certificate provides your website’s URL with a little green lock in the URL bar of a browser. Also, nowadays, google often favors a website that has an SSL certificate.

3. Web Storage

The price of web storage depends on storage capacity. You don’t have to waste too much money on short web storage. For example, you need to spend only $5 to $8 for 1GB per month.

However, for 500 MB or 1TB space, you probably should spend $120 to $300. But some web companies usually provide free short storage for their clients.

Costing Range: $0 to $600 (per month)

4. Web Theme

A theme is the visual representation of a website. In general, the theme is a key point of a website, because it provides a visual branding of your website. The theme can express, which kind of work or service you’re providing.

An attractive theme can increase traffic and gather much attention. To get the most accurate one for your job, you have to buy them. You can have a WordPress theme and a custom-built theme for your website but the custom-built theme will cost you more. The WordPress theme will cost you more than $200 whereas a custom-built one will cost more than $6000.

But to get the most accurate one for your job, you have to buy them.

Costing Range: $0 to $250 (Permanent)

5. Website Plugins

This thing brings life to a website. It’s software with essential features and additional functions to make the website more meaningful. . Generally, plugins provide advanced functions and security to a website. A plugin basically helps to provide live chat, email marketing, etc. features that come with a strong CRM.

Plugins are usually hard to get free. Although you could get some basic plugins for free, that won’t make your job done.

Costing Range: $10 to $900 (Permanent)

6. Website Security

Security is essential as long as you deal with data, products, or anything related to money. Web security gives you full protection from all sorts of threats. And it will always give you updates about the websites.

So even if your website is not very valuable, you should still get security to avoid unwanted issues.

Costing Range: $40 to $700 (Permanent)

We hope you understand the procedure to build a WordPress website. At this point, either you can hire a professional to manage everything, or you can do it by yourself. Again when you hire a professional, your budget needs to be increased.

But if you take responsibility, you might save a lot of money. Anyway, we will talk about both.

• Do It Yourself: What do you need to do here exactly? No, you are not going to write code here. According to your work preference, your job would be to make a perfect framework for your website.

It requires finding a name that fits your business, a budget-friendly hosting and theme, and an appropriate security system.

Initially, you can start with the free domain and theme if you want. But you have to buy the hosting, plugins, and security. (the pricing already discussed)

You can also choose the WordPress Starter plan. You’ll get a custom domain name for a year, of storage 6 GB, and Google Analytics Integration, and you’ll able to collect the payments. For this plan, you’ll need to pay $60 per year.

There is another plan which is the WordPress Pro plan. Initially, it provides you with all of the features of WordPress Starter planner, and additionally, it offers more.

• Ad-free experience.
• Unlimited Plugins.
• Premium themes and support.
• And it provides you the ability to sell your things with WooCommerce.

For this plan, you’ll have to pay $145 per year.

How to buy this stuff? Well, buying hosting, plugins, or themes is not much different from ordering a pizza online. You have to order them and then install them on your WordPress websites.

You can do this by following WordPress instructions. If you think it is hard, you can hire a professional.

• Hiring a Website Professional: when you hire a professional, you don’t have to do many things. It is up to the professional to do most of the work. You have to mind map what you want to see on your websites and then provide instructions.

Your professional will do the rest. The benefits of hiring a professional are that your website will be well organized. Besides, you will learn a lot of things from his actions.

Afterward, you can apply the knowledge to your next project. Anyway, you will have to count $60 to $100 per hour for an expert. Though a freelancer will charge you $35 to $70 per hour.

Types of Costs to Build a WordPress Website

There are a few different types of costs available in making a website. If you are determined to build a website, this part will be extremely beneficial for you. The website cost can be divided into many aspects. But here, we have separated them according to dependent and independent expenses.

This means some expenses which are not dependent upon goods. For example, Domain name, theme, or hosting. We usually call them fixed costs. Whatever website you will make, you have to pay a fixed amount for that depending on its standard.

Similarly, some expenses depend on the service. We called them variable costs. CEO, PPC, event sponsorship, and Email can be examples of that.

Fixed Cost: Some users don’t add additional things to their websites. In that case, their variable cost turns zero, and the fixed cost becomes the ultimate cost.

But when you are making a website for a large business, additional features matter. So variable costs play an important role.

Well, let’s see what the Fixed cost of making a website are.

1. Domain
2. Hosting
3. Security
4. Plugins and themes

Small Website Fixed Cost: Minimum fixed costs for small businesses can be $200 to $220. Depending on the type of website, the cost can increase.

For example, if it’s an e-commerce or entertainment website, then this price will cross $500 very easily.

Large Website Fixed Cost: For a large website, you have to spend a maximum of $1000 to $1500 or even more than that. If it’s a large company, corporate, or finance website. Then the price will be $5000 to $10000.

Variable Cost: This cost is mainly spent on the overall development of the website. As we have mentioned earlier, you could build a website without spending a penny on variable costs.

But that won’t attract visitors that much. For getting enough traffic to your site, you have to work on SEO, Email marketing, Sponsorship, and PPC (pay-per-click).

Variable costs don’t have any specific range. It depends on your choice and service quality. Just for an idea, you may have to pay more than $5000 if you take the expansive service.

Nonetheless, you can still get your deal done for under $1000.

Maintenance Cost: This cost is for monitoring the website, getting reports, and fixing problems. The maintenance team usually monitors the problem from time to time. They also suggest solutions to the admin.

The cost of maintaining each website varies depending on the category.

• Personal And Professional Websites: For professional and personal use, choosing WordPress Starter or WordPress Pro will be a great thing. Both of the plans come with a complete package. The WordPress Starter will cost you $60 per year and the WordPress Pro will cost $145 per year. The Pro package will give you more benefits than the Starter package.
• Small Business Website: If you’re looking for a plan for your small business purpose then the Business plan will be the cherry on the top. This plan offers-
  • Customization ability and you can install plug-ins and themes which are bought from a different source.
  • It also provides SSH File Transfer Protocol aka SFTP and provides the full website control authority.
  • It has huge storage; you will have storage of 13 GB to more than 200 GB.
  • Ad-free experience, better search engine results, and many more. In general, this package cost $300 to $700, but you can spend more than this limit if you want.

• Corporate And Entertainment Websites: This type of website requires a high maintenance fee because the traffic increases insanely now and then. So, it is pretty hard to control and make the server stable. Here the cost Range starts from $200 and can go more than $2000.

• Financial And E-commerce Websites: The E-commerce plan is for large business purposes. This plan offers-
  • Advanced features which are great for online stores.
  • Provides the ability to do business all over the world, and the owner can accept payments from more than 50 countries.
  • Can include an unlimited number of products, and provides E-commerce marketing tools, and many more.
  • Here the cost Range starts from $550 and can go more than $3000.
  • If you are willing to build a custom website, then it’ll cost around $3000 and you might spend around $600 to $1000 for the monthly maintenance because a custom website required advanced technology and advanced means you have to spend more money.

Summarizing the whole thing, you can see that the packages are for different purposes, you can see, there is no actual cost, it totally depends on you. There is only an upper limit and a lower limit.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does the small business website cost?

It depends on what type of business it is. If it’s an e-commerce business where customers can order products, then the price will be higher.

On the other hand, if this is a business blog website where you post product information, but no direct buying is involved, it will cost less.

However, for initial knowledge, we can say $500 is the minimum cost for that.

How to calculate the pricing of a website?

Calculating the price is pretty simple, to be honest. You have to write down what you want to see on your website and what type of service you prefer most.

You need a domain, hosting, theme and plugins, and a security system. Next, choose what type of service you like. Is it a low-end service or a premium one? Then sum up all the prices.

Final Word

We hope now you get a clear picture regarding WordPress website cost. It was pretty straightforward. The cost entirely depends on your choice and preference. However, it varies on the websites’ category, which doesn’t create much difference.

When you plan to make a website, try to know the different costs. Closely work on fixed cost, variable cost, and maintenance cost. Try to make your budget depending on these aspects.

Frankly, you can be in charge of making your dream website if you want. But better get a professional, in this way you can avoid the mistakes and will be able to make the website more interesting.