How Much Does It Cost to Build a WordPress Website?

Do you want to build a website with WordPress? What is the cost? We’ve got you covered. This comprehensive article provides all the information you need about how much the WordPress website costs. From domain name registration to web hosting, design, and maintenance, we break down the costs of each process step, giving you a clear picture of what to expect.

So, whether you’re a small business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur, you can find out here how much it costs to build a WordPress website and be able to make an informed decision.

WordPress has become a popular content management system (CMS) for building websites due to its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options. Initially developed for blogs, WordPress has evolved over the last ten years to provide a robust platform for building all websites, including online shops, using various plugins.

There are six main reasons why different brands opt for WordPress:

With these features, WordPress offers a highly adjustable system with a wide range of options to successfully meet different levels of expectations on WordPress website costs.

Restricted by a tight budget? Start with the basics and use WordPress for free. As you scale up, you can add customization based on your requirements. Let’s see how the price is formed.

WordPress website pricing varies based on required complexity and customization.  The steps below  help you get a rough cost estimate of your website:

1. WordPress.com Plan: If you choose WordPress.com, you have several options. The pricing for these plans ranges from free to $45 per month, billed annually.

2. Domain Name: The second step in building a website is to purchase a domain name, an average cost of around $2 to $200 or even $500 per year.

3. Web Hosting: After purchasing a domain name, you will need web hosting to make your website live. Web hosting usually starts from $2.50 per month but also can cost $30 and more, depending on your chosen hosting provider and plan.

4. SSL Certificate: To ensure the security of your website, you’ll need an SSL certificate, which can cost anywhere from $0 to $200 per year.

5. WordPress plugins and extensions: WordPress has a vast library of free and paid themes and plugins. The cost of themes and plugins depends on your needs and can range from free to $500.

6. Custom Design: The cost can range from $1,000 to $10,000 or more if you need custom design and development. The price depends on the complexity of your requirements and the expertise of the developers.

7. Maintenance: Once your website is live, you must maintain and update it regularly. Developer support can cost anywhere from $50 to $500 monthly.

Overall, the WordPress website pricing can range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. The cost depends on your requirements, the project’s complexity, and the developers’ expertise. By estimating the cost of each component, you can get a better idea of the average cost of building a WordPress website. Now, let’s go granular on the cost.

As with mobile app development, there is a formula for WordPress website development costs:

The scope of work for a WordPress website depends on required features and degree of customization needed. This determines the number of hours necessary, which impacts the overall cost. If you plan to use existing functionality, just integrate a plugin from the WordPress store. However, we can modify a plugin or develop the source code from scratch if you need a specific feature. Keep in mind that more work means a greater expense.

Hourly rates vary depending on the company’s geographical location. India and Southeastern Asia have the lowest rates, while Western Europe and the USA/Canada/ Australia have the highest. Eastern Europe offers a great quality-for-price ratio. Also, companies with in-depth experience and a solid portfolio typically have higher prices.

It’s also important to consider certain expenses, such as branding, sales, and support, which can greatly impact your WordPress price. Additionally, you must ensure that your customers’ personal information is secure 24/7; this means you must have an SSL certificate.

Each cost item can significantly affect how much the WordPress website costs. Now let’s move on directly to them.

Remember, when you choose WordPress, you first encounter a WordPress plan. WordPress offers users a range of plans and subscriptions, depending on their needs and budget.

Here are the WordPress plans and their respective costs:

1. Free Plan: WordPress offers a free plan that allows you to build a basic website with limited features and reduce the overall cost of a WordPress website. However, this plan comes with ads, and you won’t be able to use your domain name.

2. Personal Plan: This plan is suitable for individuals who want to create a simple website with their domain name. This plan costs $4 monthly and includes a custom domain name, basic design customization, and 6 GB of storage space.

3. Premium Plan: The plan is ideal for small businesses and bloggers wanting to add more website features. This plan costs $8 monthly, including advanced design customization, unlimited storage space, and access to premium themes and plugins.

4. Business Plan: The business plan suits larger businesses and e-commerce websites. This plan costs $25 per month and includes everything from the premium plan, along with the ability to monetize your website with eCommerce features, unlimited access to premium themes and plugins, and advanced SEO tools.

5. eCommerce Plan: The eCommerce plan is designed for online stores and costs $45 monthly. This plan includes all the features of the business plan, along with additional eCommerce.

6. Enterprise: This plan starts at $25,000 annually and allows you to achieve unsurpassed performance and security on the enterprise content platform.

If you need clarification on whether WordPress is the right CMS for your website, you can start with a free plan and upgrade later as needed. However, it requires more back-end work than the other plans, including purchasing a domain name.

WordPress.org doesn’t include a domain name in its paid plans, unlike most website builders. Instead, purchase one from a domain registrar like Domain.com or GoDaddy.

Finding a suitable and easy-to-remember domain name can be challenging and costly. The minimal average cost of domain names typically starts from $2 and can go to $12– 15 per year, but prices vary based on the registrar, extension, and add-ons.

For instance, a business name with a relevant top-level domain can cost anywhere from $50 to $500 to register, with some desirable words reaching into the thousands or even millions.

We recommend choosing a domain name that closely matches your business or site name, is concise, and is memorable. And remember to renew your domain name annually!

The cost of the WordPress website also includes the web-hosting pricing. Selecting the right hosting provider is crucial as it determines where your website resides on the internet. This step is essential because it affects your site’s performance, speed, security, and functionality.

Unlike the domain name, where you can pay less with enough creativity, you always get what you pay for with web hosting. The price depends on how many visitors (= server load) you expect.

Talking about some popular host providers, you can use Bluehost with their prices, starting from $2.95/per month.

While other providers like A2 Hosting (starting at $2.99/month and can go to $159.99/month) and DreamHost (starting at $2.59/month) offer their own prices.

You can use a WordPress website on any hosting, choosing between:

• Shared hosting ($ 2.50 – $10/mo.);
• Virtual private server ($35 – $60/mo.);
• Dedicated server (from $65/mo.);
• Cloud hosting ($45 – $600/mo. and up.)

Your selected plan determines the allocated resources, including CPU, storage, traffic, and additional options. Also, you can choose from different service-level agreements (SLAs) that define the quality, availability, and responsibilities of the provided service. The higher the level of the SLA, the more expensive it is.

Moreover, paying annually for hosting can result in cost savings. However, it is crucial to reduce expenses on web hosting and optimize resources that are not in use. Remember, those cheap web servers may not sustain user demand when your business gains traction.

All these details impact the cost of building a WordPress website, so let’s continue to explore the next ones.

SSL certificate is an important factor to consider when estimating the cost of a WordPress website. A digital certificate establishes a secure connection between a website and a user’s browser, ensuring that any information transmitted is secured and protected from potential hackers.

Some web hosting providers include SSL certificates in their hosting packages; others do not. Read descriptions of the packages very carefully. SSL certificates can cost anywhere from $0 to $200 per year, depending on the type and level of encryption required.

Plugins and extensions are essential to building a WordPress website. They allow you to add new features and functionality to your site. Their cost for WordPress websites can vary widely depending on your needs: some are free; others cost hundreds of dollars.

According to our thorough analyses, the cost of plugins and extensions can range from free to $500 or more, depending on your requirements. There are more than 60,000 free plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory. It’s important to note that while many plugins and extensions are free, you have better options for your website. Paid plugins and extensions often offer more features, support, and better security and updates.

An example of a premium plugin is Monarch. It enhances social sharing by including social media buttons on your website. Some popular paid plugins include Yoast SEO for optimizing your website’s rankings. UpdraftPlus offers free and premium plans for backups and restores. Sucuri provides advanced protection and hack fixing.

Additionally, custom plugin development can be a significant cost factor if you require a unique feature or functionality not available in existing plugins. In such cases, you may need to hire a developer to create a custom plugin or extension, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the project’s complexity.

When discussing the price of WordPress website design, you have several options. Let’s take a closer look at them.

It can be obvious that a fully custom WordPress website costs substantially more than the average one, as there are more working hours to prepare and polish the design.

A common misconception regarding custom WordPress design is that the abundance of WordPress professionals resulted in a constant price war and lowered design and development costs. However, this is far from the truth.

Many WordPress professionals’ availability allows quicker project commencement, direct communication, and a greater range of skills to choose from. Nevertheless, the rates charged by WordPress professionals vary significantly depending on the project requirements and specific tasks.

A basic 5-page website could cost between $500 to $1,500 at a one-time, flat rate. However, as the complexity of customization increases, rates also go up. A customized WordPress website with a custom theme, copy, assets, and support could range from $5,000 to $10,000. While some professionals charge by the hour, others work at a flat rate.

A good middle ground for hourly pricing is approximately $50 – $75. Upwork suggests that you can find a freelancer for $10 – $15 per hour, while design/development firms or agencies may charge $75 to $400 per hour as the costs are divided among those involved in the project.

Various factors influence the pricing of WordPress professionals, including experience, workload, project depth, specific domain, and the required skills. Some projects might require more detailed designs and customization, leading to higher costs. It’s important to note that even with many WordPress professionals available, quality work comes at a price that should align with industry standards.

If you need help answering – “How much does it cost to build a website for your specific marketplace?”, our experts can assist you in assessing all the details.

When considering the cost of WordPress website design, it’s important to note that you can choose a standard free WordPress theme or opt for a paid theme with higher responsiveness and more customizable options.

Free themes can sometimes be plain and lack customization. But pay attention to a whole selection of free themes from the WordPress library. These themes are created and submitted by developers and are carefully reviewed by the Theme Review Team. Additionally, user ratings are available for each theme, allowing you to choose one with a positive reputation.

If you prefer paid themes with updates and extended support from theme developers, there are several popular options: Astra plans start at $47 and go up to $187 per year. Another popular choice is OceanWP offers plans ranging from $38 to $95 per year. So, expect to pay $50 – $200 for a paid theme annually.

Once your WordPress website is up and running, it requires regular maintenance to ensure it remains secure, updated, and optimized for performance. Neglecting website maintenance can result in security vulnerabilities, slower page loading speeds, and poor user experiences.

So, how expensive is WordPress website maintenance? Maintenance cost varies depending on the level of support you need. You can hire a professional to handle maintenance or sign up for a monthly maintenance subscription.

Monthly subscriptions typically include regular updates to WordPress core, themes, and plugins, security scans, backups, uptime monitoring, and technical support. Basic subscriptions might cost around $25 to $50 monthly, including basic updates, backups, and monitoring. More comprehensive subscriptions might cost $100 or more per month and include additional services such as website speed optimization, content updates, and SEO optimization.

Hiring a professional as needed may be more cost-effective if you have a small website or don’t require regular maintenance. The cost of hourly maintenance rates can vary depending on the level of expertise and the specific tasks required. Hourly rates might range from $10 to $75 for freelancers and vary from $50 to $150 or more for agencies.

Overall, WordPress website maintenance costs are necessary to ensure your website runs smoothly and effectively. By investing in regular maintenance, you can avoid costly security breaches and improve the overall user experience for your visitors.

If you plan to build an e-commerce website on WordPress, you’ll need to consider additional costs beyond what it would cost to build a regular website.

Primarily, you’ll need to choose an e-commerce plugin or platform to integrate with your WordPress website. WooCommerce is one of the most popular and reliable e-commerce plugins for WordPress, and it’s free to download and use.

Revealing the answer to the question “How much does WooCommerce cost?” if you need more advanced features, you should purchase premium extensions or add-ons. WooCommerce cost of paid extensions ranges from $29 to $299 annually.

In addition to the cost of the plugin, you’ll need to consider the cost of hosting your e-commerce website. E-Commerce websites typically have more traffic and require more server resources, so you’ll need a reliable and fast hosting provider to handle the load.

Managed WordPress hosting for e-commerce can cost anywhere from $25 to $300 per month, depending on the features and resources you need.

You’ll also need to budget for payment processing fees, which can vary depending on the payment gateway you choose. Some payment gateways charge a flat rate per transaction, while others charge a percentage of the transaction amount.

Finally, you’ll need to consider website design and development costs. Building an e-commerce website requires more advanced functionality, such as shopping cart integration, product pages, and checkout forms. You might need a professional web designer or developer to ensure everything works properly.

We have collected a rough estimate of a feature list needed to build a simple ecommerce solution. The image below answers how much a WordPress website for e-commerce costs. It provides minimal working hours to design, develop, and set up a website. If you leave any specific questions, we will figure them out for you with our ecommerce software development expertise.

Now, understanding how many hours each stage a team will take, pay attention to the hourly rates in different parts of the world:

In summary, while having a WordPress website for free is technically possible, there may be other options for a business. A simple WordPress e-commerce solution can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $25,000 depending on the customization required, with Central/Eastern Europe offering a good quality-for-price ratio.

When developing a WordPress website, choosing the right service package is crucial to meet your specific needs while staying within your budget.

IT Craft offers various top-notch WordPress packages for different requirements and budgets. There are plans available with features and potential costs to help you make an informed decision about developing your WordPress website.

1. Starter package: Ideal for individuals or small businesses seeking an affordable online presence. It includes a responsive theme, basic customization options, and a limited number of pages.

2. Standard package: Offers advanced customization options, a wider range of templates, and integration with popular plugins. This package strikes a balance between affordability and enhanced functionality.

3. Advanced package: Encompasses all Standard Package features, plus  advanced customization, extended plugin integration, and e-commerce support. This package delivers a highly customized and feature-rich website at a higher price point.

The cost of developing a WordPress website with IT Craft depends on several factors, including the chosen package, the complexity of the project, and any additional customization or integration requirements.