How much does a WordPress website cost?
bikegremlin
ModeratorOGContent Writer
in WordPress
I've finally gotten down to writing an article on all the related costs when it comes to WP websites.
Surely, with a bit of coding and patience (read: "Black Friday sales") the costs can be significantly reduced, but I wanted to make a "pessimistic/realistic" overview, 'cause we all know that only pigeon pictures are really free:
Comments
WordPress.com : starting from zero US Dollars
Wordpress.org : starting from zero US Dollars
blog | exploring visually |
WordPress website costs a lot of pain
I'd say 1 dollar to somewhere around 70 dollars.
It's the content and the amount of organic traffic that matters. A site optimized for bots (AKA SEO optimized) ain't worth shit.
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kek
Just my opinion here, from the article:
"A vast majority of my websites are hosted with HostMantis Enterprise Reseller hosting. It costs around $ 22 per month"
OH my god no - I've never even heard of that host. My entire company and about 20 sub-partners, and sub-websites, run on Stablehost for about $30/year combined (so $1.50/year each?) on their pro unlimited domain plan - and have been running there for over a decade, and that is a touch on the high-cost side for wordpress.
There are about a dozen other large hosts I'd recommend in the $30 to $70/year cost range. But $22 a month for wordpress is ... yikes.
XR Developer | https://redironlabs.com
I'm interested in finding a good alternative.
DirectAdmin reseller hosting, preferably UK, or US-East coast location.
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I didn't read the article. Not worth it in my book. No point in reading any articles in 2022.
But several WP sites I run and maintain for others, each of them costs around 5 bucks a month.
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I agree, but HostMantis isn't that great either. They are doing huge price hikes in the name of cpanel hikes, but lot of people are still complaining about sub optimal performance.
If you are willing to spend 8 bucks more, might as well grab a slice and you get managed VPS, which will be overkill if you do not have much traffic.
If you are looking for alternative, then I might suggest Crocweb. I have been with them for almost a decade now, and they are pretty good. In spite of being in opposite timezone, they reply within minutes. And they do not have any affiliate system, so not many people promote them. Other option that I really liked was Ramnode, their uptime and support is really good.
I've tried a few other options, and in terms of uptime no one was better (so far), while regarding performance, Brixly was just a tad better (but had some other hiccups so it's not a good match for me).
Tried even some more expensive options, like Veerotech (I think they're still a bit more expensive for what I'm using the hosting for).
I've heard good things about CrocWeb, but haven't used the service.
MDDhosting reseller offers also look promising - again, for my intended use - they (now, as of relatively recently) limit the resources per reseller account, not per a created cPanel account, but since I manage all the websites (not re-selling hosting literally), that works for me - more flexibility.
Both of those are using cPanel - while I finally switched completely to DirectAdmin.
I'm always one step ahead behind!
I prefer a reseller package (Cloudlinux, Jetbackups and all), compared to paying (probably even more money) for a managed VPS.
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Well, if you use Cpenis, the overall cost is going to go up, yes. You don't really need cPenis. I mean we all need dicks, but CpEnis is worthless.
Get rid of it.
P.S. The 5 bucks I mentioned, it's 5 Canadian Rubles. In US currency, it should be more akin to 1 buck.
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I thought they be payin' you!? They ought to!
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We’re in Canada but we will eventually be migrating to NYC. PM me if you want to give us a try, first month on us
$7
7 is fair. Sell it to @revolver.
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(Between) Zero (to) Lots of Pain
30$ minimum/year if developed by yourself, If you hired someone then 30$/year + developing costs.
Why 30$?
10$-12$ for the domain cost, 15$ to 20$ for decent hosting, and you will need to learn how to use free themes.
For me it was 50$ for 2-3 years (and hopefully many more) using @MikePT lifetime hosting
Some even might get the small lifetime plan for 10$ which is more than enough for WP 
Props to Mike
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
I am also using Mike services, top notch, but here we're talking about general users who are not tech savy or looted by big companies Facebook or AdWords ads.
$3
wow! cheap vps and cloud server, 16 nodes. our site: www.surfercloud.com
A two year old thread?
One of the requirements for a provider tag is "minimum of 5 non-spammy posts."
Many people don't seem to understand what "non-spammy" means.
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Real talk: even with discounts, a decent WordPress site ain’t free. You’re looking at $50–150/year for solid hosting (cheap shared won’t cut it for speed or security). Domain’s around $12. Premium theme? $60 one-time. Plugins - backup, security, caching - another $50–100. If you mess up, recovery or dev help adds $100+. Renewals stack. So yeah, $200–300 first year, $100–150 after. Pigeon pics are free. Everything else? Not so much.
The cost of running a WordPress website can range from just a few dollars per month to hundreds, depending on whether you go for a budget DIY setup or a high-performance, professional stack.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of typical costs so you can see where the money goes:
Domain Name
Cost: USD $10–$20/year for a .com (other TLDs can be more expensive)
Notes: Paid annually. You can register with Namecheap, Google Domains, Cloudflare, etc.
Tip: Sometimes hosting companies give the first year free, but renewal is never free.
Hosting (Required)
Options & Costs:
Shared Hosting: $3–$10/month (Bluehost, Hostinger, SiteGround)
Managed WordPress Hosting: $20–$40/month (Kinsta, WP Engine, Flywheel)
VPS / Cloud Hosting: $5–$30/month (DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS Lightsail)
High-end Enterprise: $100+/month for very high traffic.
SSL Certificate (Required if you want HTTPS)
Cost: Free with Let’s Encrypt (most hosts offer it)
Paid SSL (e.g., EV or Wildcard): $50–$200/year.
Notes: Paid SSL usually only matters for specific corporate or e-commerce requirements.
Themes (Optional but common)
Free themes: $0 (from WordPress.org)
Premium themes: $30–$80 one-time or yearly (ThemeForest, Elegant Themes, GeneratePress)
Notes: Premium themes often come with better designs, features, and support.
Plugins (Optional but often needed)
Free plugins: $0 (many great free ones exist)
Premium plugins: $5–$100/year each
Examples:
SEO (Yoast Premium, Rank Math Pro)
Security (Wordfence Premium, iThemes Security Pro)
Backups (UpdraftPlus Premium, BlogVault)
Page Builders (Elementor Pro, WPBakery)
Typical spend: $50–$300/year if you use several premium plugins.
Maintenance & Backups (If not included in hosting)
DIY: $0 (manual updates & free backup plugins)
Paid service: $10–$50/month for outsourced maintenance.
Optional Extras
Email Hosting: $0–$6/month (Zoho Mail free tier or Google Workspace)
CDN (Content Delivery Network): Free (Cloudflare) or $10–$20/month (paid plans)
Custom Development: $20–$150/hour if hiring developers.
Example Cost Scenarios
A. Bare-bones personal blog (cheap)
Domain: $12/year
Shared hosting: $5/month → $60/year
SSL: Free via Let’s Encrypt
Theme: Free
Plugins: Free
Total yearly: ~$72
B. Professional small business site
Domain: $15/year
Managed WordPress hosting: $25/month → $300/year
SSL: Free
Premium theme: $60 (one-time or yearly)
Premium plugins: $150/year
Total yearly: ~$525
C. High-traffic e-commerce site
Domain: $20/year per domain
High-end managed hosting: $60/month → $720/year
Premium SSL: $120/year
Premium theme: $80/year
Premium plugins (WooCommerce add-ons, security, backups): $300/year
CDN Pro Plan: $20/month → $240/year
Total yearly: ~$1,480
Never make the same mistake twice. There are so many new ones to make.
It’s OK if you disagree with me. I can’t force you to be right.
Sums it up well - though my eye starts twitching when I hear "Bluehost" - LOL
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The greatest cost for websites like the bullet proof of bikes maniacs like the @bikegremlin one is the time. This superb person has dedicated probably over 10000 hours for content creation. 10000x40( or more per hour) euros per hour for mechanic price(car s mechanic charge between 36to 100 euros per hour) = 400000 euros just in time dedicated to it . More or less! Cost of the infrastructure is just a really small part of all the costs.
I believe in good luck. Harder that I work ,luckier i get.
Just this morning as my dog was insisting we do an extra 20 minutes of walk across wet streets... I had a long chat with chatGPT & grok on this very topic.
I pushed and pushed till both these tools agree that a low traffic/ lightweight WP site could run on Caddy + Sqlite with bare bones specs even in 2025. (not that I would set such a site up) Then we had a big back and forth on hosting, VPS specs, prices.... most of which I disagreed with ( AI Loves to recommend Hostinger or Hostgator, close to Bluehost territory)
Then, the most important line comes up in this discussion...
blog | exploring visually |
Who here, on the low end sites, have never used hosts like bluehost, 25mb host, 000webhosting and all those crappy sites?
Not to mention you can go complete free if you are willing to live with using your residential IP (with unblocked port 80 & 443) and a old computer you have, to setup your own infra.
Never make the same mistake twice. There are so many new ones to make.
It’s OK if you disagree with me. I can’t force you to be right.
Hell no; there are plenty of stupidly cheap hosters that aren't maliciously incompetent :-)
And you expect me to believe you never fell for it and knew from the start which hosts are good? Well, I for one wasn't that lucky and back in the 2000s I went with a lot of cheap/free hosts...
Never make the same mistake twice. There are so many new ones to make.
It’s OK if you disagree with me. I can’t force you to be right.
Not saying every hoster I've used has been great but no, never fell under the influence of bluehost and the like.