Cost weighs a lot when choosing the tool that will help you create your DIY WordPress site.
Here’s a list of all the costs you might encounter along the way:
- Buying a domain: prices can begin at ~$9/year.
- Acquiring hosting services: prices start as low as $4/month. If you host your site on WordPress.com you can go with a free plan (if you have less than 3GB of space), but won’t be able to get your own customized domain name. Your site will have “wordpress” in the URL, as in https://mywebsite.wordpress.com. And you will be placing ads on your site, but you won’t win anything out of them. The thing is that the needs of a website change while it grows. And you might end up paying more, according to your increasing needs (space, security, etc).
- Choosing a WordPress theme. Most of the themes out there are free, but the moment you want to customize them and add new features, you can pay around $30-70/year, or go with a lifetime plan.
- Now, there are some features not natively included in WordPress or a theme, and you will be needing WordPress plugins to compensate for these features/options. Many of them are free of charge, but if you want advanced options, you’ll need to upgrade to a paying plan.
This means that the most basic website can start from about $9/year if you’re using free WordPress hosting and a free theme. The moment you want your non-WordPress branded URL and advanced theme features, better hosting, and plugins, the cost will rise to about $50-300/year.
For online stores, you will be using the WooCommerce plugin, which is also free. But, the moment you want to customize more and to make your website stand out, you’ll be using extensions that have both free and paid plans. Also, the costs can increase significantly, because you need lots of functionalities, and you need to ensure the performance and security of your online store. But this is another huge topic.
If you want something custom-made, that requires coding, there are WordPress developers that can help you out.
Now, because I’ve mentioned hosting, themes, plugins, I’m going to get into more details in a minute.