WordPress is free—and that’s pretty amazing.
However, building a quality website and keeping it running does come with some costs. You’ll need to budget for essentials like hosting and domain registration.
Plus potential extras such as theme, plugins, and professional design or maintenance services. In this article, I’ll break down the core expenses involved in building and running a WordPress website.
Let’s dive right in!
How Much Does a WordPress Website Cost?
When assessing the cost of a WordPress website, it’s important to view the expenses from two angles.
First, consider the bare minimum—the essential costs required just to get your site up and running. This includes things like hosting, a domain name, and basic security measures.
Below is a simple table outlining these necessary expenses.
| Necessary costs to run WP site | Cost range |
| WordPress | Free |
| Hosting (Shared) | $5 – $30 / year |
| Domain | $3 – $15 / year |
Why do you need hosting and domain?
A domain is your website’s unique address (like tomthedesigner.com), where visitors find you online.
Hosting, on the other hand, is the service that stores your website’s data and makes it accessible on the internet. Most of my clients are small businesses that use shared hosting, which is cost-effective and sufficient for moderate traffic. However, if you expect high daily traffic, dedicated hosting might be a better option. But that comes with higher cost.
That’s pretty much all you need for a basic WordPress website.
While free WordPress themes exist, I highly discourage using them due to their limitations. Instead, consider investing in your new website for better functionality, flexibility and results.
How Much Does it cost to build a WordPress Website?
Let’s take a look at what it costs to build a fully functional and visually appealing WordPress website.
One option is to use a free WordPress theme or purchase an affordable theme from marketplaces like ThemeForest. A pre-built theme offers a quick way to give your site a polished look. You just simply click buy, install, and customize it to fit your brand.
| Cheap theme on Themeforest | $15 – $90 |
However, while this approach is budget-friendly, it may come with limitations in design flexibility and performance.
While for hobbyists it might be enough, small business needs a website they can scale with. Here is great article about limitations when it comes to pre-built WordPress themes.
So what’s the solution?
Custom-made website created by freelance web designer or web design agency.
But why should you invest so much money into your website?
There are many reasons. A custom website can function as a 24/7 sales machine with the potential to scale, deliver superior SEO benefits, and allow for tailored customizations. Plus, you’ll avoid cheap look of pre-built themes. I dive more about this in this article.
And what’s the cost of that?
| Custom made design & development | $2,000 – $50,000 |
Lower range is more common with freelancers, while higher range with web design studios.
Freelancers typically offer lower rates compared to web design studios. But if you choose to work with me (quick promo haha) the cost depends on your website’s complexity. Here’s a quick breakdown of my website packages.
This is helpful for you to see, what kind of prices you can expect.
| Number of pages | Website cost |
| up to 5 | starting at $3,000 |
| 5 – 10 pages | starting at $4,500 |
| 10 – 50 pages | starting at $6,000 |
Hopefully that gives you some ide on how much it would cost you to make a website and run it on the WordPress.
Cost of running a WordPress website
You built your website, you have all the plugins installed, all the content is live.. what it will cost you to keep the website running?
If you’re tech-savvy and comfortable with tasks like monthly backups, bug checks, and speed optimizations, your ongoing costs will be limited to hosting and annual domain registration.
However, if WordPress isn’t your strong suit, I highly recommend getting a website maintenance service from an expert. Regular updates and plugin management are essential to keep your site secure and bug-free. Without these, outdated plugins can leave your site vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Pricing for maintenance packages typically depends on the frequency of updates, backups, and security checks. Feel free to contact me to learn more about how I can help to protect your online presence.
Here’s a usual price of website maintenance. It all comes down to frequency of updates & backups and safety.
| Monthly updates & backups | $20 – $50 / month |
| Weekly updates & backups | $70 – $200 / month |
| Daily updates & backups + usually 24/7 support | $200 – $400 / month |
Majority of the small businesses need someone who will check their website once a month. It is also very important to keep the backups in case some problem occurs.
Wrapping it up
In summary, while WordPress is free, creating a professional website requires investment—in hosting, domain registration, design, and ongoing maintenance.
Understanding these costs helps you build a secure, high-performing site that drives growth and sets your business apart.
