How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website? A Detailed Guide for WordPress Users

Building a new website can cost anywhere between less than $100 to several thousand dollars a year. The exact cost of making a website will depend on many factors, such as the platform you use, hosting, how many pages it has, and the level of complexity. This article explores each factor contributing to the cost of building a website using WordPress, a website builder, and a web developer. We’ll also provide practical tips on reducing web development costs if you’re on a tight budget.

Website Building Costs Summary

The cost of building a website depends on the method you choose. The table below briefly summarizes web development costs using three different approaches – WordPress, a website builder, and a web developer. These price ranges generally apply to small to medium-sized business websites. If you’re planning to build a large and complex website, expect to spend more. In the following sections, we’ll discuss the cost of building a website in more detail.

What Factors Affect Website Cost?

Every website project has different needs. Some may only need basic functionality, while others require specific and sometimes costly features. That said, the exact amount you charge for a website can vary. So, how much does it cost to build a website? You must determine your website needs first, which we’ve grouped into six categories:

Website essentials. The fundamental requirements to launch a website are a web address, a web hosting plan, and an SSL certificate. A web address is also known as a domain name – for example, yourwebsite.com. Meanwhile, a website hosting plan is a rentable server space to store your website files, and an SSL certificate secures your site data by encrypting it.
Website design. How a site looks significantly impacts user experience. To calculate web design prices, consider the cost of a theme, a template, or a professional website designer. Complex and unique web design is usually more expensive.
eCommerce functionality. To launch your business online, you need eCommerce features like stock management, payment gateways, shipping options, and product pages. An online store is often pricier due to these additional functionalities.
Plugins or add-ons. Some websites need plugins or add-ons to be more functional. Premium plugins or add-ons offer advanced features at a higher cost. The more features you need, the more you will have to spend.
Marketing and SEO. To drive traffic to your website, dedicate time, energy, and money to apply proper digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. Alternatively, hire professional marketers and SEO experts. If you go for complex, multi-channel strategies, your website cost will be higher.
Maintenance. A website isn’t a one-off project. It’s important to create a website maintenance plan to make sure it’s always running smoothly. Use free or paid tools to automate site maintenance or hire an expert to do the job. The more elaborate your maintenance routine is, the more you must spend.

If your website cost is too high, there can be two main reasons. One, your site needs more resources and features than average. Or two, you’re spending more than necessary. The following sections break down three main options for building a website and their estimated costs. This way, you can choose the right method that caters to your needs and budget.

Cost of a WordPress Website

WordPress is a popular and free content management system (CMS) for building a website. According to W3Techs, over 43% of all websites are built with WordPress. The main reason for WordPress’s popularity is its outstanding flexibility. You can fine-tune nearly every aspect of a WordPress site, from its features to how much money you want to spend on building one. The total cost of WordPress sites varies depending on their type, scale, and set of features. If you’re a beginner with no prior website-building knowledge, using WordPress will require a bit of learning. However, if complete freedom when creating a website is a top priority, learning WordPress is worth the time and energy. Here are the pros and cons of building a website on WordPress:

Pros
Outstanding flexibility. WordPress offers complete freedom to build a professional website that fits your needs and budget. You can always alter the site when these factors change over time.
More affordable. Compared to other options, the long-term cost of WordPress websites can be lower.
Cons
Requires a learning curve. It can take some time for beginners to understand how to build and manage a WordPress website.
No dedicated support. WordPress.org doesn’t provide customer support. Fortunately, many hosting companies offer managed WordPress hosting services with premium support.

To learn how much it costs to build a website on WordPress, let’s look at some of the main factors.

1. Website Essentials

While WordPress is free, you must purchase a domain name and a web hosting plan before building a website. A new domain name costs around $10-20/year. Popular extensions like .com are usually more expensive due to their perceived worth. If you’re on a budget, you can always opt for a cheap domain, like .site or .online. Your web hosting costs will depend on the chosen provider and plan. Conduct proper research to find an affordable yet reliable web hosting package. This lets you allocate more money to other WordPress needs like themes and plugins. Entry-level users gravitate towards shared hosting since it’s the cheapest hosting option. The average price of shared hosting plans is around $2-15/month. Meanwhile, a more powerful web hosting service on a cloud server or VPS (virtual private server) infrastructures can cost around $10-80/month or more. Some hosting companies offer plans specifically designed for WordPress websites. Hostinger offers various managed WordPress hosting plans that cater to different needs, starting at $2.99/month. If you have the budget, dedicated hosting is an option. Although the hosting cost is the highest, a dedicated server offers the most resources and endless customization. Besides a domain name and hosting, you’ll also need SSL for your WordPress site. SSL certificates enable HTTPS on your website, which is a more secure version of HTTP. HTTPS encrypts the data exchanged between a browser and a web server, ensuring private communication between websites and visitors. Many hosting companies, including Hostinger, include a free SSL certificate with their hosting plans. These plans can reduce your total cost when building a small business website on a tight budget. However, large-scale companies might need to purchase an SSL with a higher level of validation and better liability protection. These paid SSLs can cost around $8-1,000/year.

2. Website Design

WordPress offers complete freedom when customizing a website’s design elements, which also gives you more control over the costs. If you’re well-versed in web design and development languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, add custom code and modify the site to your liking. If you’re not a web design pro, WordPress has thousands of free and premium themes. They let you transform the look and feel of your site quickly and simply. Free themes might work fine for a simple website. However, they have fewer features than a premium WordPress theme. Premium themes usually include extensive customization options, such as drag-and-drop editor support, free plugins, demo templates, and dedicated support. They are also more professional-looking, which can elevate your brand image. You can install a WordPress theme from the official theme directory or third-party marketplaces like Envato Elements, ThemeForest, and MOJO Marketplace. Premium WordPress themes cost $57.54 on average. Customize your website design further by getting additional elements like fonts, icon sets, and logo templates from marketplaces like TemplateMonster. These design elements vary in price, but you should expect to pay around $3-50/license. If you want to create a custom WordPress theme for your website, hire a freelance web designer or developer. The fee will vary depending on their skill set and the project’s scale and complexity. The average cost of web designers is about $30/hour. A complex WordPress site with custom functionality can cost $5,000-15,000. Here are our recommendations of the best WordPress website design companies if you’re currently planning to hire one. Compared to freelance website designers, web design agencies charge higher fees. Thus, hiring a freelancer is a great way to minimize total web design costs. Freelance marketplaces like Upwork are great for finding web designer candidates. To choose the best web designer for your site, thoroughly check their portfolio, qualifications, and customer reviews. You can also invite them to a chat or video interview before hiring.

3. eCommerce Functionality

WordPress is a powerful platform for eCommerce activities of any scale. You can add eCommerce functionality to your business website using different WordPress plugins. A good eCommerce plugin adds features that transform your site into a fully functional online store. It helps you handle business tasks such as payments, taxation, shipment tracking, and stock management. To learn how much it costs to build an eCommerce website on WordPress, you must first know which eCommerce plugin to use. Consider your budget, business needs, and online store type when choosing one. A small business website will be cheaper since it requires fewer resources. On the other hand, an advanced website for a large business will cost more. Let’s take a look at some eCommerce plugin options:

WooCommerce. The most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress with over 5 million active installations. Hundreds of extensions are available, making it easy to add more features to your online store. Expect to pay $29-299/year for a paid WooCommerce extension. Plus, you may need hosting. Hostinger’s WooCommerce hosting starts at $3.99/month.
Ecwid. An easy-to-use eCommerce solution that integrates with various platforms, including WordPress. The free plan has basic website features for small businesses and online stores. Starting at $14.08/month, the paid plans provide dedicated support and multi-channel selling on Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, and eBay.
Easy Digital Downloads. A feature-rich eCommerce plugin designed for selling digital products like software, music, and eBooks. Customize your digital online store using extensions from the Easy Digital Downloads marketplace or third-party sources. The core plugin is free, but you can upgrade to the premium plans starting at $99.50/year to unlock advanced marketing features.

4. Plugins and Add-Ons

WordPress plugins let you add more features to your site without coding. All you have to do is find a suitable plugin, install it on your website, and activate it. There are over 60,000 plugins in the official WordPress plugins directory. There are free, freemium, or premium plugins. Free plugins offer basic functionality, while premium plugins provide richer features. If you go with the premium ones, expect to pay $15-200 or more. The pricing structure also depends on the plugins – some charge a one-time fee, while others offer an annual subscription. Here are some of the most popular plugin categories:

Comments. Manage the comments section, protect the site from spam, and automate replies.
PDF viewers. For embedding PDF documents into the site.
Bookings. Help website visitors book reservations and appointments.
Real estate. Lets you add property listings, mortgage calculators, automatic maps, and other features essential for a real estate business site.
Menus. Add extra functionality and aesthetic elements to a site’s default menu bar.
Instagram integration. Showcase Instagram feeds on a website.
Google Analytics. Lets you integrate Google Analytics for monitoring site performance.
Reviews. For adding product reviews and business evaluations to your website.
Website migration. Lets you migrate data from an old website to a new one.
Project management. For planning, organizing, and monitoring projects on your site.
Donations. Add a donation button so that visitors can directly support a site.
Pop-ups. Add pop-ups on pages, directing visitors’ attention to specific website content such as the company newsletter or promotions.

WordPress also lets you download and install plugins from third-party sources. Be sure to get them from trusted platforms to avoid website errors and security issues.

5. Marketing and SEO

Although WordPress core is already SEO-friendly, most sites need extra help to compete for traffic and sales. Fortunately, many tools can help you apply the best marketing and SEO techniques to your WordPress website. Marketing and SEO costs vary depending on your business needs and strategies. To determine the cost of your website’s marketing and SEO efforts, you must first decide whether to execute it yourself or hire a professional. Hiring a digital marketer and SEO expert is often more costly. Freelance digital marketers charge around $50-200/hour, while agencies charge up to $500/hour. The do-it-yourself approach involves using WordPress SEO plugins, digital tools, and ads. While this method requires extra work, it’s more flexible budget-wise. Here are some DIY strategies to market your own site:

SEO. Use SEO tools like Ahrefs (from $99/month), Mangools (from $29.90/month), or Semrush (from $119.95/month) to plan and monitor your SEO strategies. There are also freemium WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO or All In One SEO to increase organic traffic.
Email marketing. Increase, retain, and update your site’s subscribers by sending content straight to their mailboxes. Use freemium email newsletter plugins like Mailchimp for WordPress, MailPoet, or Newsletter.
Social media marketing. Promote your website content to large audiences on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Use freemium social media integration plugins like Blog2Social, Social Media Share Buttons, or Add To Any.
Affiliate marketing. Get influential affiliates to promote your website for a commission. You can start an in-house affiliate program or sign up for an affiliate network like LinkConnector or Fintel Connect. Use affiliate marketing plugins like AffiliateWP (from $134.55/year) or ThirstyAffiliates (from $79.50/year) to manage your affiliate links.
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Join ad networks like Google Ads or Facebook Ads to promote your site in exchange for pay-per-click. The cost-per-click (CPC) varies depending on your industry or niche. The average cost of Google Ads and Facebook Ads is $2.69 and $3.77 per click, respectively.
Landing page. Creating a landing page is essential to increase traffic and conversion rates. Use plugins like SeedProd (from $31.60/year) or Beaver Builder (from $99/year) to build one.

The DIY approach provides more control over your strategies and spending. If you own a small online business, start with free SEO and marketing tools. Once you have grown in traffic and revenue, upgrade to the premium plans for more advanced features.

6. Maintenance

A poorly maintained website is vulnerable to errors and security breaches. These issues can negatively impact user experience and put your site’s sensitive information at risk. Therefore, it’s crucial to perform regular site maintenance to make sure your WordPress site remains functional and protected from security threats. To calculate your website maintenance costs, you should first decide whether to do these tasks yourself or hire a website maintenance service. Hiring a professional will take the workload off your shoulders, but it’s more expensive. That’s why most small websites prefer doing maintenance on their own. It’s a demanding task, but it can significantly reduce maintenance expenses. WordPress already comes with some useful maintenance features. You can set WordPress to automatically update its core software, plugins, and themes. Regular website backups are also an essential maintenance task. Numerous plugins can automate your website backups, such as BackWPUp, UpdraftPlus, and Jetpack Backup. In addition to software updates and backups, consider changing WordPress passwords, fixing 404 errors, clearing cache, and troubleshooting broken links as part of your maintenance routine. If you don’t have the time and knowledge to handle these tasks independently, hire professionals to assist you. A maintenance provider may charge $50-300/month or more, depending on the website’s scale and complexity.

Additional Tips for Calculating Your Website Budget

There’s no right or wrong way to create your own website. The best choice is the one that fits your needs and budget the most. Hopefully, you’ve decided which website-building option you’ll go with. If you’re still unsure, ask yourself the following questions:

How much are you willing to spend? If you’re building a simple website, use a website builder or WordPress. A custom website built by a web developer can be costly and better suited for a large business. And if you prefer complete control over your budget, go with WordPress.
How much effort are you willing to put in? WordPress arguably requires the most effort, from website development to maintenance. Alternatively, a website builder is simpler, and you don’t need to worry about maintenance. Finally, recruiting a professional requires effort during the hiring process. Once that’s done, all you have to do is wait for the final product.
Are you comfortable with learning technical skills? WordPress and custom-built websites require some level of technical expertise to operate. You may need to include the additional costs of hiring a developer or an IT expert if you can’t do it yourself. In contrast, you don’t need any technical knowledge to create and manage a website builder site.
How much do you value flexibility? WordPress is the best platform for people who want complete control over their site and third-party themes and plugins support. A website builder is less flexible since the templates and add-ons are limited to what the platform provides. Lastly, hiring a professional gives you the specific website you want. It also offers flexibility over your site if they use WordPress or other CMSs.

Tips on How to Reduce Website Development Costs

We have answered how much it costs to build a website on different platforms. But before you start building, consider reducing any unwanted expenses. Here are some helpful tips to lower website development costs:

Avoid hiring a professional unless necessary. If you encounter problems with your site, try to troubleshoot it yourself. Rather than going to an IT expert, read tutorials or contact your hosting provider first. The same goes for web designers – unless you need a fully custom design, installing a premium theme is more cost-effective.
Prioritize long-term investments. Get quality hosting, themes, and plugins. Low-cost products are attractive initially, but many can cause future issues and add to your expenses. Investing in good quality products and services is better to avoid extra costs down the line.
Remember the primary purpose of your site. Don’t get caught up with unnecessary expenses. When in doubt, return to your website’s primary goal. Prioritize your money for strategies and tools that fulfill that purpose. For example, if you own an online store, prioritize an easy-to-use and functional payment system instead of worrying about how your online store looks.

Finally, remember that money is not the only cost of creating a website. Consider the cost of your time and effort as well. Some people prefer investing more money in exchange for less work. In contrast, others don’t mind working more if they can lower their website costs on paper. Whichever option you choose, it should be the one you’re most comfortable with.

Conclusion

So, how much does it cost to build a website? To find out the average price of a website, you must know your options first. In this article, we’ve broken down the cost of building a website using WordPress, a website builder, or hiring a professional. Each option caters to different needs, budgets, and purposes. We hope that you’ve found the most suitable choice for you. We wish you success in building your site. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave us a comment.

Website Cost FAQ

Find answers to commonly asked questions about website cost.

How Much Does a Website Cost per Month?

The monthly cost of running a website varies depending on its platform, scale, and complexity. If you use WordPress or a website builder, expect to spend around $50-500/month.

How Much Does It Cost to Maintain a Website?

For the DIY approach, you can use web maintenance plugins for $0-70/year. If you prefer hiring a web maintenance service provider, the price is much higher, around $50-300/month.

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website for a Small Business?

If you’re short on budget, the cost for a small business website can be less than $100 using WordPress or a website builder. If you hire a web developer, expect to pay around $5,000-30,000 for a custom website with advanced functionality.

How Much Does It Cost to Design a Website?

WordPress and website builders let you design a website for free. For a more unique look, purchase paid themes or templates for up to $100/license. Alternatively, hire freelance web designers for around $30/hour.

Authors: Hasna A. and Brian Fajar Mauladhika

Hasna is passionate about tech, culture, and the written word. She hopes to create content that helps people succeed on the web. When not writing, rearranging, or polishing sentences, she enjoys live music and overanalyzing movies. Brian is a Content Writer who loves telling complex stories in a simple way. He has written all types of content, including tutorials, blog posts, landing pages, social media posts, white papers, infographics, and YouTube scripts. Follow him on LinkedIn.

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