If you are looking to build a WordPress blog website for your niche business you may wonder how much cost up front you will need and what the costs over time are. With web this can be front loaded for a large discount or month to month at a substantially higher hosting cost.
How much does a WordPress blog cost? The average cost per month for you to have a WordPress blog will run from $1 to $35 per month for most average size websites with domain and hosting costs. As your website grows and adds traffic these costs can go into the $100s per month or more to support this volume of visitors.
Why such a large variance in the costs per month you may ask, well there is a multitude of services you will need to pay for in most cases for your business. There are some costs which you don’t have to pay for up front and some that you should expressly pay for up front to save money long term.
This is your identification online for your business, most services will have you pay between $9-$15 to register a .com domain. There are a lot more possible TLD (Top Level Domain) options available but the public will always look for a .com first in almost all instances.
We prefer NameCheap as our domain registrar as they include free domain privacy so they don’t publish your public information on the domain allowing you to not get phone calls, emails, and mailings to your home address, instead they provide their own.
You want this to be easily associated with the niche site you are planning but if you want to become an authority site you may want to make it a more brandable name and not something with like the niche in the name.
| Domain Registrar | Cost Per Year (.Com) |
| NameCheap | $8.88 / Year |
| GoDaddy | $1 / Year First Year – $17.99 / Year |
| BlueHost | $11.99 / Year |
| SiteGround | $15.95 / Year + $1 Domain Privacy |
Now that you have your domain name you will want to start up a hosting account, there is free options but I would suggest if you are serious that you look at the hosted web services below instead of direct through WordPress.com.
While this option exists and may be an option if you are totally broke it has tremendous limitations in its viability moving forward. A free (or even paid) WordPress installation on the WordPress.com platform doesn’t allow install of many plugins and themes which can limit you, they also have limits on installing ads onto the site.
Also note a free account doesn’t allow use of a custom domain name, for that you will need to update to their personal plan which is $4 per month bulled yearly ($48).
This doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful or useful to many people who are looking to get started, I can tell you from the standpoint of a business owner when you offer services for no cost they have no value so many who start a “free” website never build a site and quit.
When you invest in a business you have a reason to keep coming back and a reason to keep working and trying new things. Without this urge most people will quit and this makes it appear to most that “niche marketing” doesn’t work when in fact it does very well if you give it the time and attention it deserves.
This is the way every internet marketer will tell you is the best and they are being honest as to you having complete control over your WordPress website and the best methods to make an income.
When you host through a hosting company you are able to add an plugins you choose and if you want to have ads from AdSense, Ezoic, or larger companies you have the choice it isn’t decided for you.
There is multiple possible web hosting options available and while many online will tell you theirs is the best they really are working from gaining the commission driving that decision. While I do gain a commission if you choose to purchase through my links I want you to be happy and able to work without issue also.
| Hosting Provider | Monthly Cost (Total for Year) | Paid Yearly (UpFront) |
| BlueHost | Only Offer Yearly | $71.40 |
| SiteGround | $3.95/mo + $14.95 ($162.30) | $47.40 |
| InMotion Hosting | Only Offer Yearly | Only Offer Yearly ($107.88) |
| WPX Hosting | $24.99 ($299.88) | $249.96 |
| BigScoots | $34.95 ($419.40) | $394.24 |
| Kinsta | $30 ($360) | $300 |
Each of these service providers will be able to get your WordPress website up and running very nice for your first year as you start and build the business up.
As you build up past the 20-30k pageviews per month numbers you will need to look into better hosting which would be when I would suggest WPX Hosting, BigScoots, or Kinsta.
Your theme will dictate the overall visual look of your WordPress website, this is why this choice is a very important part of your setup. While there is themes which come installed stock with your website, they aren’t always the best for showing all your content or getting the website visitors to your money pages.
There are a lot of good quality free themes available on the market, I would say if you are looking at this route to start, which is fine, I would choose GeneratePress which is in the WordPress repository when you search absolutely free.
GeneratePress also has a pro version which gives you control over much more of the setup and display that are fairly limited in the free version and their license is relatively inexpensive, but yearly.
You don’t need to get the look “dialed in” in the first 6 months anyway, many people spend far too much time trying to get their website looking right and skip or forget the content which is what will get the visitors to your site.
The biggest true cost of a free theme is that they have limited or no support at all should you need something changed you will need to learn how to do it yourself or pay someone to make the changes.
Additionally they are more prone to becoming out of date and having security holes develop as the WordPress core changes theme makers need to update their themes or they could break the site or allow hackers easier access.
Typically have support for at least a year after purchase and more when they do a yearly subscription. This ensures the theme is always up to date and as secure from a coding perspective as it can be.
There are many different paid themes, more than the amount of colors in the world, maybe not but it feels like it. As with most themes this will establish the look and feel of your site so click on them and look at their demo websites to see if you like the look and feel before you purchase.
| DEVELOPER | COST | SUBSCRIPTION? |
| GeneratePress | $49.95 | Yes |
| Acabado | $50 | Yes |
| Astra | $41 | Yes |
| Ultra | $59 | Yes |
| DIVI | $89 | Yes |
While no plugins are “necessary” to run a WordPress website they add on some functionality which can greatly help you achieve better results. There is a few plugins that I will run on almost all of my sites to help me get more clicks and to help manage functions.
| PLUGIN NAME | COST | SUBSCRIPTION? |
| Elementor Pro | $49/Year | Yes |
| Link Whisper | $77/Year | Yes |
| WP Rocket | $49/Year | Yes |
| OptinMonster | $108/Year | Yes |
| Schema Pro | $55/Year | Yes |
| Amalinks Pro | $67/Year | Yes |
I would recommend any of the above plugins for almost every niche website as they help out and drive increases in revenue. There are free plugins which are somewhat similar on some of these but like I stated above in a business you will have expenses and saving time is where I focus.
I only have so much time, anything that helps me spend less TIME on a site is a overly valuable tool to add onto my website, that and if it helps me convert visitors to my site into purchasers.
As you can see there is costs to run this business it isn’t something which can be done for free overall with good results. Though you can mitigate your costs by limiting what you pay for and adding onto your site in layers once you build some sweat equity.
In fact for many I would rather you sink that money into 36 months of hosting and skip the theme and the plugins to give you a chance to run your site for three years, if you work hard for three years you should have a solid business running.
If you have questions you can always contact me or leave a comment and I will respond as soon as I can give a good reply that will help you out.
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