WordPress Website Cost : How Much Does it Really Cost?

What do you need to build a website for? Are you a blogger? Do you own a small business? Or maybe you run a multi-million dollar company? The truth is, the reason behind building a website is always unique in every situation, and as any website pricing calculator will demonstrate, the cost of having the website built will normally always vary based on the preferences of the company or business having the website built. Both the reason behind building a website and the preferences that impact the overall cost the website are often influenced by common preconceived notions about businesses owning a website in general. Some people think that every business must have a website without question while others think it will attract new customers, and in truth, both of these answers are correct in their own right. However, at the end of the day, a website is a tool that can be used for many purposes, and similar to a computer, work truck, or any other piece of equipment, not all websites are created equal.

Due to this digital fact, most people choose to build their website with one of the most popular and well known content management systems (CMS) in the world, WordPress. How popular? Well, by some of the most recent estimates, about 75,000,000 websites are operated with wordpress, which equals more than 25% of all of the websites in the world. Yes, It’s pretty popular for a reason. WordPress’s appeal is centered around two things, ease of use and price, but each WordPress website generally requires certain upfront costs associated with having a web designer actually build the website and recurring costs after the website is built.  

Recurring WordPress Website Costs

General WordPress Website Costs

As a general matter, every website website powered by WordPress has two costs, the cost of using WordPress itself and the cost of hosting your website. Hosting companies like GoDaddy, Bluehost, and Hostgator own the computer servers that store the computer code for your website while WordPress is used to both build and display your website’s web pages. These two services work together, and they should always compliment each other. Luckily, due to the size of WordPress as a CMS platform, there are tons of website hosting services to choose from that easily integrate with WordPress.

Typically, the cost of using WordPress alone can range from $8 to $25 a month, depending on which plan you choose. Hosting costs can vary significantly depending on which company you choose to use, but plan on paying $2 to $20 per month. Moreover, there are other a few more general costs that come with owning a WordPress website that are essential such as registering your website’s domain, which costs about $25 annually, and maintaining a secure website certificate, which costs about $175 per year.

Customized WordPress Website Costs

The reason the cost of owning and operating a WordPress website can rise over time is, businesses often need paid-for plugins that give the website owner the ability offer additional features on their website. These plugins are often built specifically for WordPress websites by third party software companies. Although there are some plugins that are offered by WordPress for free, the paid-for plugins typically offer the type of features that a website owner either wants or needs in order to facilitate online growth. Below, you will find a list of plugins that most website owner’s usually pay for:

• WPForms($39.50/Year): This plugin comes in a free version, WPForms Light, and a paid version, WPForms. The plugin allows you to make custom contact forms, online polls, payment addons through paypal, and more. Essentially, any type of contact form or online payment information that you need in order to convert a website visitor to a potential customer can be obtained by creating custom fields with this plugin.

• Google Analytics and Monster Insights ($99.50/Year): Google analytics is an open source website tracking software that is offered by Google. This plugin essentially allows you to track how many people visit your website, where your website’s visitors are coming from, and more. Google Analytics is free, and it easily integrates with WordPress. Normally, website owners purchase an additional plugin that complements Google Analytics called Monster Insights. Monster Insights allows you to better track and understand the data provided by Google Analytics with features like advanced link attribution, ad tracking, popular post tracking, and mobile user analysis tools, among other things.

• Optinmonster ($29/Month): Optinmonster is pretty much all you need for hardcore conversion rate optimization campaigns. By offering features like subscriber recognition, cart and form abandonment tracking, device targeting, and more, Optinmonster has become the go-to plugin for effective conversion rate optimization and customer acquisition campaigns.

• Stripe Payments (2.3% + 30¢ per transaction): Stripe payments is a plugin that gives website owners the ability to accept credit card payments for purchases. Stripe also allows you to to add taxes, collect payments for shipping, etc., and it is often considered an essential website plugin to get your website off the ground.

The plugins discussed here a just a few of the hundreds of website add-ons that are offered to WordPress website owners, but they easily demonstrate the fact that plugins are where the bulk of additional recurring WordPress website costs come from. If you decided to use the  first three plugins discussed, you would be adding an additional $40 per month in additional costs to maintain and operate your website.

As such, the key to keeping your WordPress website costs as low as possible is to use plugins that allow you to make your website more effective and more valuable. Each custom feature you elect to add to your website should increase its profitability in some form. Whether it is through a better understanding of where and how users are finding your website or facilitating a user’s ability to make a purchase or sales inquiry, each additional cost you incur due to the addition of an app or plugin for your WordPress website should add value to your website and have an impact on your website’s overall performance.

Upfront WordPress Website Costs

WordPress Website Design Costs

Typically, the most expensive part of building a WordPress website is hiring a web designer to actually build the site for you. Normally, web designers charge $125 per hour, and depending on the amount of content you want, building a website can take some time. Moreover, the other main cost associated with building your website is hiring a content writer to write content for your website that will both engage your website’s visitors and help your website rank well with search engines. Typically, content writers charge $100-150 per page for content.

Your best option is to hire a web design company that offers WordPress website packages. This can usually save your business some money in upfront costs. Generally, WordPress website packages normally cost:

• $3,500-$5,000 for a basic website with all of the essential features and 10 pages of professionally written content.
• $5,000-$7,000 for an enhanced website with 25 pages of professionally written and multiple feature to enhance the user’s overall experience
• $7,000-9,000 for a fully optimized and integrated website that includes multiple addons and custom coded designs and features with 25-30 pages of professionally written content.  

These are generally one-time up front costs spent to get your website built professionally. The money spent on having a professional web designer build your website can be well worth it in the long-run, because a web designer understands how to build a website that both attracts customers by ranking well in Google’s search results and serves the needs of your website’s visitors by ensuring that your website’s structure and design facilitate online sales growth.     

Do you Still have Questions about WordPress Website Costs?

Don’t worry. The web design experts at On The Map Marketing have answers! Give our WordPress website specialists a call today to discuss how our team can help you build a website that increases sales, engages with your customers, and allows your business to grow. Our WordPress specialists will explain in detail how much your WordPress website will cost and how it will ultimately look when its done. Our portfolio is filled with successful WordPress websites that our team has built from the ground up, and our web design team is ready to help you. So call our office today to speak with a web designer that is ready to build your website!