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How Much Does it Actually Cost to Build a WordPress Website

Author: Published on: Published in: Digital

When it comes to Content Management Systems (CMS) it really isn’t hard to figure out which one is the most popular. WordPress is absolutely free and there are tons of free templates and plugins for it that range in price from as little $5 to $10 or as expensive as $500 to $10,000. Thus because of this fact the most common question I receive as a full stack web creative is, “How Much Does it Actually Cost to Build a WordPress Website?” Particularly when not using a quality killing service like Fiverr.

Whereas there is no real easy way to answer this question. I think it best to start at the beginning of the process, and break things down so all those reading won’t get scammed with a website you’ll need to redevelop sooner rather than later.

Having more than a few years of experience with WordPress, I always recommend you starting small and scaling up overtime as your marketing and audience expand. I say this because there are some premium plugins that your website doesn’t require while in it’s preliminary stages.

Check Out: Why Fiverr is the Worst Resource for Quality Design

 

So without further ado, let’s break down how to determine the price of your WordPress website on a customized budget. So that we can potentially lower the cost to build your WordPress website and make it fit your diverse needs.

Note: Typical Pricing sections are recommended for the beginners who love to cut costs while the Advanced Pricing sections are optional. If you wish to keep your budget tight then you can skip reading the Advanced Pricing sections.

How Much Does it Actually Cost to Construct a WordPress Site

1. What’s Needed to Get Your Site Off The Ground

Like I said before, WordPress is an entirely free open source software that will give you the freedom to install it on any kinds of website you desire.

So if WordPress is free, then where are the startup costs coming from?

The cost of the items needed to get your WordPress site off the ground can be broken down as follows:

  • Domain Name
  • WordPress Hosting
 

Pricing Plan for Domain Name

The very first step to starting any website, WordPress or otherwise, is a Domain name. It is the URL or the address of your website that visitors will remember and type in their selected browser to find you online.

You’d be surprised at how costly and cheap pricing plans for Domain names have become. Usually, Domains ending with a .com extension are pretty inexpensive and are the most used extension. But be wary, I’ve seen some .com domain names reach as high as $50,000 if they’re either already owned, or if they have very popular keywords for SEO.

Typical Pricing (Recommended for beginners)
On average, your typical Domain Name will generally run you roughly between $10 to $15 USD per year. You can find some providers like NameCheap who will sell for a little over a dollar cheaper. But not surprisingly, you can find providers that will support your hosting while giving you a deal that will include your domain for free. Thus getting the cost to build your WordPress website that much lower!

Advanced Pricing(Optional)
An advanced Domain Name is essential for those of you who are looking for Social Media Marketing, SEO and above all Branding of products. This means that you will have social media accounts’ names available in accordance with the name of your Domain Name.

For these purposes, it’s wise to buy Domain Name from knowEm. It will cost $158 for the standard plan, But remember, choosing a unique and SEO friendly domain name can act as a cornerstone of a successful website.

 

Pricing Plan for Web Hosting

Web Hosting is the place where all the information for your site is stored. Once you purchase your domain name, the web hosting will be the place you publish your site.

The cost of your web hosting varies significantly depending on the provider and the scale of your site. What’s more, the price of web hosting continues to rise higher when it comes to WordPress websites. Don’t feel stressed out though, below are a few options that will help you keep those costs down.

Typical Pricing (Recommended for beginners)
If you have a newly launched website or you’re about to launch a website, then you might as well buy a low priced shared web hosting service. This is because newly launched websites usually have less traffic than the well-established ones. So the lower the flow of traffic, the less pressure on the server. Which means you can share a server with a few other websites without worrying about your site being down or having slow loading speeds.

The two top rated hosts that I suggest my clients go with are BlueHost and SiteGround. Who both have rates between $3 to $4 monthly for services that include 1 Website, a Free SSL Certificate, Free Email services, 24/7 customer service support and so much more. Also like I said before, each plan provides your domain name free for the first year. 

 

Advanced Pricing(Optional)
The advanced pricing however makes hosting a whole new ballgame when it comes to costs. Usually this is because you have an established site that already drive a tremendous amount of traffic, or because you are an established brand that will be adding on an ecommerce service to your already existing site. Again, the lower your traffic numbers the more you can save. While the higher the traffic, the more likely you’ll need a dedicated server at a much more elevated price point.

To tackle this budgeting hassle, you will have to go for some premium plans like NameCheap professional hosting plan that will cost $49.88 per year. The renewal price is $78.88 per year which is quite impressive when compared to other company’s premium price.

If budget is not an issue then you can opt for a WordPress oriented web hosting service like BlueHost, SiteGround or HostGator. They will provide you additional services for backups, security, and speed enhancement. Pricing with these companies ranges from $50 to $100 and goes as much as up to $400 per year depending on the services you add on.

How Much Does it Actually Cost to Construct a WordPress Site

2. What Does It Usually Cost to Build Your Website?

Depending on your needs, your cost to Design a WordPress website can range from $100 to $500 to $3000, to even as high as $30,000 or more. The cost is directly connected to the number of features, pages, and the overall goal of what the site needs to achieve. Which is why it’s important to know what type of website you are building, and what you’ll need for.

For the sake of this article, let’s break down websites into different budget categories:

  • Building a WordPress Website (Low Budget)
  • Building a WordPress Website (With More Features)
  • Building a WordPress Website for a Small Business
  • Building a WordPress eCommerce Website
  • Building an Entirely Custom Coded WordPress Website
 

Building a WordPress Website (Low Budget)

So the lowest budget option means leaving the developer or UI/UX designer work out, and doing as much as you can on your own. Now this can sound daunting, and for most beginners to WordPress the thought of putting a few weeks into building their site while dealing with the learning curve can be a bit overwhelming. But building the website yourself can end up costing you anywhere from $100 – $500. But to make the most of the savings, I would suggest doing the following…

Join Themeforest or Elegant Themes and purchase a theme for your WordPress site based on the industry your website will be focusing in. Each of these theme providers will include all the plugins that your site will need to be successful. But a word to the wise, be sure to purchase any extra premium plans that those plugins may not include in the purchased theme. It may not lower the cost to build your WordPress website, but it will save you headaches when those plugins need updating.

Feature Plugins

Website Optimization Plugins

Website Security Plugins

Building a WordPress Website (With More Features)

As one of the cheaper options to developing your site, once again you’ll be leaving out hiring a professional developer or UX/UI designer and doing as much as possible to build your site. However for the additional features like setting up a Content Delivery Network (CDN), or adding on Google Analytics, Adwords, or Tag Manager may require a small amount of help that can be provided by a backend developer. Which by the end of adding the additional features could cost you anywhere from $300 to $1,000 depending on the quality of the developer you work with.

Either way, taking the leap of faith and watching YouTube to setup your CDN under say Cloudflare will save you loads, and will provide you with more control over your site’s security and more moving forward.

Feature Plugins

Marketing Plugins

Security Plugins

  • BackupBuddy – For automatic WordPress backups
  • Sucuri Firewall – Website firewall and malware protection
  • Cloudflare (Free) – For SSL Certificate and Protected Global Server Reach  

Building a WordPress Website for a Small Business

You can estimate the cost for a small business WordPress website to be somewhere between a low budget WordPress site and a WordPress site with more features. Keeping in mind that you don’t add a full-fledged eCommerce store to your business website. Which in that case, see the next section in this post for a more accurate estimate.

If you are just starting out and need a simple website showcasing your products and services, then we recommend starting with the Bluehost. Their starter plan will reduce the cost significantly and will leave you with money that you can spend on other premium tools if needed.

If you have a more flexible budget, then you can sign up for SiteGround’s GrowBig plan. They are known for their excellent support, which is a good thing to have for a small business owner with no technical background.

Now let’s talk about plugins.

You will need to use a combination of free and premium plugins to control the cost. Following are some of the premium plugins that are absolutely essential for a small business website.

Feature Plugins

Marketing Plugins

  • Constant Contact – One of the best email marketing service, specially for small businesses.
  • OptinMonster -Helps you convert website visitors into leads and customers. You’ll need it for Lead generation and conversion optimization.
  • MonsterInsights Pro – The best Google Analytics plugin helps you see where your users are coming from and what they do on your website. This allows you to make data-driven decisions to grow your business.

Security Plugins

  • UpdraftPlus (Pro) – The premium version of the plugin comes with incremental backups, automatic backups before updates, and several remote storage locations to keep your backups.
  • Sucuri Firewall – Website firewall and malware protection
  • Cloudflare – For SSL Certificate and Protected Global Server Reach 

Building a WordPress eCommerce Website

The cost of building a WordPress eCommerce website can be significantly higher, but there are always ways to build a WordPress eCommerce website while avoiding potential losses and overspending. In addition to hosting and domain, your eCommerce site will also need an SSL certificate which costs around $69.99/year. SSL is required to securely transfer customer data such as credit card information, usernames, passwords, etc.

Again, I recommend using Bluehost Ecommerce plan. It gives you a free domain and SSL certificate, plus discount on hosting. After that, you need to select a WordPress eCommerce plugin.

There are several eCommerce plugins for WordPress, but none comes even close to WooCommerce. It is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin that allows you to build robust online stores to sell your products/services. Next, you will need to install WordPress and WooCommerce on your website. 

While WooCommerce is free, you will need to use paid add-ons for additional features. The cost of your website will go up depending on how many add-ons you need to add on your website.

Once you are up and running, you will need to choose a WooCommerce ready WordPress template for your site. There are several paid and free WordPress templates with full WooCommerce support. Choosing a premium or paid template gives you access to support and extra features.

Here is a list of the best free WooCommerce add-ons, but depending on your needs, you may have to use some paid extensions as well.

Here are some other paid services that you’ll need on your eCommerce website.

Feature Plugins

  • WPForms – To add customer inquiries and feedback forms
  • Beaver Builder – To create stunning landing pages using a drag and drop page builder
  • Soliloquy – Create beautiful product sliders with their WooCommerce addon

Marketing Plugins

  • OptinMonster – Convert visitors into customers with this powerful lead generation tool
  • Constant Contact – powerful email marketing service
  • MonsterInsights – Ecommerce tracking with real time stats using Google Analytics

Security Plugins

  • BackupBuddy – Automatic WordPress backups
  • Sucuri – Website firewall and malware scanner
  • Cloudflare – For SSL Certificate and Protected Global Server Reach 

Remember the best way to keep your costs down is by starting small and adding extensions and services as your business grows.

Total cost of building a WordPress eCommerce Website: $1000 – $3000. It could be higher depending on how many paid add-ons and services you add to your site.

 

Building an Entirely Custom Coded WordPress Website

A custom WordPress site is when you hire a WordPress developer to create a unique design and build specific features for it. Usually well established, large to medium-sized businesses choose this route.

To support a custom WordPress site, you may also want to go for a managed WordPress hosting provider. This is a WordPress centric hosting environment, with managed updates, premium support, strict security, and developer friendly tools. In addition to your hosting and domain name, you will also be paying the web developer that’s building your website. Depending on your need, you may want to get quotes from several theme developers, web designers, and agencies.

The cost of a custom website depends on your requirements, budget, and the rates of the developer or agency you hire. But as a standard custom WordPress theme alone, a site can cost you up to $5000. More robust WordPress sites with specific custom features can cost up to $15000 or even higher.

Check Out: Google Fonts: Help or Hinderance

 

How Much Does it Actually Cost to Construct a WordPress Site

3. How to Avoid Overpaying & Cut Down Spending

Even though I’m a UI designer and WordPress developer, I always recommend that users start small and then scale their WordPress site as they grow. In many cases, you don’t need all the premium features that you see on many well-established websites in your industry. Keep in mind that those websites had a head start, and it likely took them some time to figure out how to manage costs and grow their business.

You can start with a budget website using free plugins and template. Once you start getting visitors, you can consider adding premium features like a premium template, email marketing, paid backup plugin, website firewall and so on. Same goes for your eCommerce website. Start with the bare minimum and then as you start selling, you will find out exactly the tools that will help you and your customers.

Look for the best WordPress deals and coupons to get additional discounts whenever you can. Many thanks to wpbeginner for providing the coupons for all of you and lowering the cost to build your WordPress website!

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