Hi I’m Praneeth Kumar.
In this blog you will learn how much it costs to start a blog on WordPress and build a website.
After reading this ultimate guide all of your queries and doubts regarding how much does it actually cost to start a blog on wordpress and run it successfully will be answered.
So without further ado let’s get started.
Here is a 30000 Foot view of the blog post.
How much does it cost to start a blog on wordpress?
To be honest, it does not really cost you much in order to start a blog on WordPress.
Your blogging cost to start a blog on wordpress will depend and vary upon various factors like these,
- Is your blog a b2b or b2c which depends on your blog niche and audience type?
- Are you starting a blog as a hobby or side Hustle and looking to make a full-time career in Blogging?
- Do you want a passive niche blog or an authority blog?
All these factors will help you determine how much money you should spend on your WordPress blog.
But before we talk about the additional cost of running a blog you first have to take a look at some of the basic costs and expenses everyone should spend in order to start a blog on WordPress.
Basic costs for starting a blog on WordPress:
Here is a list of 5 basic costs of starting a blog on WordPress, you cannot ignore or skip these expenses, these are the primary things where you should be spending money on.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Web Hosting.
For those of you who do not know what the web hosting is and why you should purchase that,
Web hosting is a place where you host your website on the internet so that other people can access it.
You can call it as a home of your website where all of your website files and documents will be stored.
Because we are starting a blog on wordpress and you know that wordpress is an open source content management system which means anybody can start a blog on wordpress for absolutely free of cost but,
they need to spend money on hosting and domain name in order to start a blog because wordpress is an open source CMS. There are many web hosting companies on the Internet that provide lots of Amazing web hosting services.
But among all of them I would highly recommend you to start a blog using the bluehost hosting.
- You can check the Bluehost review.
As a matter of fact bluehost is the hosting company which is officially recommended by wordpress itself and because you are essentially starting a blog on wordpress the hosting company is highly optimised for wordpress websites.
You can easily get started on Bluehost for as low as 2.95 dollars a month.
The estimated cost:It costs around 70$ for the first year if you start on bluehost.
2. Domain name.
Your domain name is the name of your website on the internet so it is the most important thing.
If you start a blog on Bluehost then you don’t have to spend money on domain name for the first year of your blogging journey because bluehost offers a free domain name in the hosting package.
If you don’t want to start a blog on bluehost, then you might have to spend money on buying a domain name and connecting it with your web hosting company.
Depending upon the type of domain name you are purchasing it will cost you around 10 to $25 a year,
if you purchase extra add-ons like domain privacy then it will cost you a little bit more money for the service which is billed every year.
You can easily save at least 15 dollars by starting a blog on bluehost because it offers a free domain name for 1 year. You can buy domain names on namecheap and godaddy other than bluehost which are popular registrars.
The estimated cost: It costs around 15$ a year for almost all types of domain names.
3. Theme & website design.
I assume that you have purchased the domain name and hosting for your website now it’s time to install wordpress on your web hosting account and.
After you have installed wordpress, you will have to install and design your website appearance.
Your website theme and design is important because it is going to be the first impression of a website on the internet and if you have a bad website design/theme and look then people will judge it,
you know first Impressions are very much important on the Internet and people will judge a book by its cover.
Your website theme and design will also help you build credibility, trust and authority with your readers and audience.
Now, here you can decide whether you want to spend money or not because you also have free alternatives. There are literally thousands of free themes that you can install and use on your wordpress website for absolutely free of cost.
Some of the popular wordpress themes that are available for free are,
You should only invest money in purchasing a premium theme for your wordpress blog if you want to get higher customisation and flexibility in your theme.
If you don’t want to spend time and energy on designing your website then you can hire a freelancer on platforms like upwork and fiverr, you can easily get your website custom designed by a professional website designer and developer.
This is completely optional and it depends upon person to person whether they want to invest money in these things or not.
The estimated cost: The average cost of a premium theme is 100$ and if you want to custom design a theme and website then you it can cost around 400$ with a professional freelance web designer but for most cases if you get a premium theme maximum, it is completely fine and you dont need to get a custom theme.
4. Plugins.
The plugins on wordpress are a simple line of codes and whenever you install a plugin on your wordpress website the code get attached to your core wordpress file and you can have the specific feature that you want within a matter of minutes by installing a plugin for it.
The plugins in WordPress are the most important aspect and even though there are more than 50000 free plugins that you can install on wordpress and
there is a plugin for every functionality and feature that you can imagine on a website but still there are some important plugins that you need to purchase on your wordpress website.
There are lots of free alternatives for this plugin mentioned below and it is completely optional and dependent upon your needs and interest whether or not you want to invest money on these plugins or not.
- Wp Rocket– it is a performance booster plugin for wordpress Websites and you can get it for 49$.
- Elementor– it is a plugin to help and design the WordPress website with lots of templates and drag and drop features, you can get this for 49$.
- Akismet– it is a plugin to help and remove all the spam comments and moderate comments on your blog, you can get it for 80$.
- Optimonster-turn your website visitors into leads by creating attractive optin, you can get it for 200$.
- Wordfence– it is a security plugin in WordPress in order to secure your wordpress website from Malware and hacking, you can get it for 100$.
These are all the prices for 1 year and these are of the basic plans, it is completely optional to choose these things there are FREE alternatives for these as well.
You can also read my ultimate guide on all the important plugins you need to install on your wordpress website.
The estimated cost: The average cost of these plugins is 500$ for 1 year.
5. Laptop.
I assume that you have a laptop with yourself already when you are thinking about starting a blog on WordPress.
If you don’t have one then it is the first and the most important investment that you need to spend before you purchase the hosting and domain name and move forward with it.
You might argue that you can do all the work with your mobile phone but it is not possible because at some point of time you will definitely have to switch to a desktop.
It won’t be really convenient and comfortable for you to do all the work of creating a website and running, maintaining a blog on wordpress with your mobile phone.
You can easily purchase a good laptop with good battery life and processor for a couple of hundred dollars on Amazon. You can also purchase a keyboard and mouse if you want and this completely depends upon yourself and your comfort.
The estimated cost: The average cost of a good laptop would be 1500$ and if you want to add all the additional charges of keyboard and mouses then it would get extended to 2000$.
Total costs for starting a blog on WordPress;
Here is a quick table of all the total costs you need to spend in order to start a blog on wordpress and this is the basic primary costs.
| S.no. | Primary feature. | Cost. |
| 1. | Web hosting. | 70$ for 1 year. |
| 2. | Domain name. | 15$ for 1 year. |
| 3 | Theme & design. | 100$ for 1 year |
| 4. | Plugins. | 500$ for 1 year |
| 5. | Laptop and other accessories. | 2000$ |
| Total cost. | 2700$ |
Now let’s take a look at some of the additional costs of running a blog on wordpress which varies from blog to blog, it also depends upon you whether or not you will like to invest the money in these services and if your blog is b2b or b2c.
Additional costs if you want to run a professional blog:
Here is a list of 8 different services and expenses you might have to spend to run a professional blog on WordPress.
Note: just ignore all these costs and expenses if you are just wanting to start a blog as a hobby if you are not really serious and passionate about blogging, you should not probably invest money in these services.
You should only think of investing money in the following services below as long as you are having a blog as a side hustle or looking forward to making your blog as a full-time career and you want to build an authority blog in your industry.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Canva.
Whether you are running a b2b blog or a b2C Blog, this is a graphic design tool that every blogger must use.
Using this freemium graphic design tool, you can do a lot of things like,
- You can create beautiful infographics with drag and drop features in a matter of minutes which can help you in building backlinks to your website.
- You can create attractive social media posts like Instagram carousel, Pinterest pins, and Facebook cover photos.
- You can create beautiful blog post banners, in all of my blogs you should notice that I only use custom images and I make them on canva.
You can also read my ultimate review of Canva here.
If you want to have a professional blog and website on WordPress, I think you should probably invest money in the graphic design tools like canva to create beautiful Graphics for your blog.
If you are just satisfied with using stock images and photos on your website then it will hurt your website credibility and your website will not stand out in the competition.
The estimated cost: The cost for Canva is 100$ for 1 year.
2. Content writing services.
Because you are having a blog where you are having it as a side Hustle or looking forward to making a full-time career in blogging then publishing content is going to be the most important aspect of blogging.
You can absolutely start publishing content by yourself when you are initially starting to blog.
But you should also realise the important fact that irrespective if the blog is b2b or b2c more content and blog posts you publish on your website the more chances you have to get traffic to your website from search engines and social media platforms.
The fact is,
According to Forbes, B2B companies that publish 16-plus blog posts per month receive 3.5 times the amount of traffic as companies that publish only 0-4 posts per month.
The story is similar for B2C companies: those that post 16-plus entries a month enjoy 4.5 times the amount of traffic as those that upload only 0-4 posts.
But, because you are a human being not a robot so you can’t publish a lot of blog posts every month consistently.
Then you can think of hiring freelancers and content writing services to publish content on your website at a faster pace, you can choose platforms like contently, fiverr, problogger, etc..
The estimated cost: The average cost for an article from a copywriter is 50$ for hour.
3. Platform for selling courses.
By far the best way to make money from blogging is by selling your own products,
If you were to analyse the top most highly paid bloggers then the majority of these bloggers will have their own products that they sell online to their target audience.
When it comes to selling products you can sell different types of products like e books and online courses to your audience.
In running a professional blog revenue is the most important aspect so, depending upon your blogging niche and topic, you can create any online course and start selling it on platforms like teachable.
Teachable is an online platform which allows you to create and sell online courses and coaching services to your audience, in order to do that, you need to buy the subscription of teachable.
The Estimated cost: The starting price of teachable for 1 year is 350$ a year.
4. Paid ads.
Look when you are starting a blog on wordpress and when you are publishing content on your blog on a regular basis it is going to be hard for you to get traffic to your blog especially from search engines so you can use other methods to drive traffic to your website and get some sales and promote your blog.
In such cases you can run paid ad campaigns on social media platforms and also do search engine marketing of your blog.
By running these ad campaigns of your blog on different platforms you can do Marketing of your blog and reach a large audience fastly.
This is completely optional for you as a blogger to decide whether or not you want to to run paid ad campaigns or not for your blog. If you want you can run paid ad campaigns on many platforms like Facebook, Instagram, twitter, Google, YouTube and Pinterest.
Then you will have to pay money on a pay per click (PPC) basis which means every time a visitor Clicks on your ad and visits your website you will have to pay money to the platform.
The amount of money you need to run ad campaigns on these platforms will vary on various factors like,
- The niche.
- The target audience location.
- The keywords you target and the competition.
But for example if you want to run ad campaigns on social media like Facebook then the average cost would be around 0.6 dollars to $1 as cost per click.
The average cost of google ads cpc is 1$ and 2$.
The estimated cost: The average cost of running ad campaigns on these platforms is 100$.
5. Logo designer.
When you are running a professional blog whether it is a B2B or b2c, the logo of your website will play a huge role in branding and marketing of your website on the internet.
The logo will create a good first impression of your brand online and people will remember your brand by your logo and it is also a matter of credibility and building a trust of your brand by having a good logo.
Even though you can create a free logo by yourself on many free platforms like Canva and other free logo maker but,
Because you are starting a professional blog then you cannot afford in a free logo maker, it is going to directly impact and hurt your branding and credibility of your website and business,
in this case you can hire a freelancer and a graphic designer on platforms like upwork and fiverr to get the job done for you.
This is a one time investment that you need to do on your website and you can get your logo designed by a professional graphic designer for around $15.
Another benefit is, by creating a professional logo by a graphic designer on softwares like Photoshop you can copyright and Trademark your logo which you cannot do by creating a logo on free platforms like canva and free logo maker.
The estimated cost: The average cost of designing a logo is 15$ on fiverr.
6. SEO and content marketing Tools.
When you are starting a professional blog on wordpress then, content marketing is the top priority.
And when you are publishing content on your website Search Engine Optimisation is also a huge task that you need to get. And because you are running a professional blog as a side Hustle and want to make your blog grow higher and faster then,
You cannot ignore to not invest money in premium SEO tools like,
These are some amazing SEO tools which can make your blogging and SEO journey easier. You can also use lots of free alternative of these amazing tools like,
But the free tools are highly Limited, you should invest in purchasing any one of those premium tools.
Along with that you should also invest money in content marketing tools like,
- You should invest money in tools like grammarly to improve and check the grammar and spellings of your content.
- You should invest money in plagiarism checker tools like copyscape to check the plagiarism of your content and protect your content from getting plagiarized online.
- You can also use tools like trello to organise your work.
In this case it is completely optional and depends upon you, but if you want to invest money in these tools and software then you cannot purchase them at a time you will have to take monthly subscription plans of these tools and it can cost you a lot.
It is only recommended if you want to get things easy with your blog.
The estimated cost is: The average cost of all the tools mentioned above would be around 250$ a month.
7. Social media tools.
If you have a General B2B blog then you should probably build an audience of your blog on social media platforms like Facebook group/page, Pinterest and telegram group.
If you have a specific blog niche that suits a particular social media platform like for example if you have a blog about food or health, you can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website because health or food is a b2C blog but you can drive lots of traffic to your website from Pinterest but you need some tools mentioned below.
There are various tools that you can use like,
- Hoot suite-to schedule and manage social media posts and accounts.
- Tailwind tribes-if You want to drive traffic from Pinterest, You need this to schedule and join boards.
- Shutterstock– to get premium stock photos for your social media posts.
Total estimated cost: The average cost of all the tools is 60$ a month.
8. Email marketing tool.
Collecting emails and email marketing is the most important part of starting and running a blog.
By email marketing you build a long lasting relationship with your audience and build trust of them with yourself.
But you should also learn an important fact that not every blog needs to do email marketing.
If you have a General b2c blog then it’s better not to invest money and time and energy in collecting email addresses and creating lead magnets and so on.
It is just not required even if you want to make your blog as a full-time career but it still has a b2C blog.
If you have a big corporate company and you want to sell a specific product to your audience like for example any SAAS product from your blog then
you should probably think of starting email marketing on your blog but in the remaining other cases it is not worth your time and money.
In other cases where you have a b2b blog, and if you have a plan to sell any product where the audience must get educated before purchasing a product and require a lot of logical reasoning behind purchasing a product then
you should probably invest money and time in generating leads and email marketing for your blog.
There are many popular email marketing tools like convertkit, get response and mailchimp which you can use for email marketing purposes.
The estimated cost: The average cost of email marketing tool is 30$ for a month.
Total costs of running a blog professionally;
Here is a quick table of all the additional costs you might have to spend on your blog if you want to make it professional and have a different blogging topic and industry.
| S.no | Secondary feature. | Cost. |
|
|
Canva. | 100$ a year. |
|
|
Content writing services. | 50$ per article. |
|
|
Platform for selling courses. | 350$ for year. |
|
|
Paid ads. | 100$ avg. |
|
|
Logo designer. | 15$ |
|
|
SEO and content marketing tools. | 250$ for a month. |
|
|
Social media tools. | 60$ a month. |
|
|
Email marketing tools. | 30$ for month |
| Total cost. | 950$ |
These are all the essential blogging costs you need to spend on your blog.
With that said let’s conclude the blog post.
Ending remarks;
These are all the places you need to invest money while you start a blog on wordpress and run a professional blog.
Do comment down which places you choose to invest money in for your blog.
Consider sharing the blog posts with your family and friends if you have found it helpful.
Sharing is caring.
You can read my blog on how to start a blog on wordpress step by step explained.
I will catch you next time till then keep learning and keep growing.