How much does it cost to build a WordPress website?

One of the questions people ask us a lot when they think about building a new website is: How much does it cost to build a WordPress website? Soon you will find that the answer to that question depends entirely on your business goals and your unique needs.

Think about when you want to buy a house. If you ask a real estate person how much does it cost to build a house, they’re going to ask you back some questions, right? They need to figure out some things first: What do you want it for? How many floors? How many bedrooms? Do you want a pool on your backyard? Do you want wood or concrete?

This is the same when it comes to a website. Despite the core of WordPress is free, the cost of building a website comes from other things like custom design, features and coding.

You can also read our previous post if you want to know why should you use WordPress for your website.

So, how much does it cost to build a WordPress website? First, we’re going to talk about the basic components.

What are the basic components of a WordPress Website and how much they cost?

Let’s begin by talking about the main basic components of any website, and how much they cost:

1. Domain Name

This is your website address on the internet, and this is how users and clients are going to type to find you. Usually it all comes down to your company name or something easy to recognize and remember. For example: google.com or elecsis.co

A domain name typically costs about $15USD per year, depending on your choice. It could be more or less depending on your choice among domains ending in .com, .org, .co, .net, for example.

2. Web Hosting

All internet sites need to be hosted somewhere, so you need to buy the “space” to put all your website contents. This will be your website’s home online.

There are many hosting plans available for many different kinds of needs. You must choose one of them depending on your budget and your website requirements. If your website is just to showcase your products or services, you could choose a smaller hosting plan. However, if you’re setting up an E-Commerce site, you need to choose a bigger and more robust plan.

A regular web hosting plan for a regular website with a normal amount of web traffic typically costs about $120-$360USD per year.

3. Web Design and Development

One of the advantages of WordPress is that you have plenty of websites templates available for free to use. However, these free templates could become a problem in terms of design and when it comes to organize your information. Also, free templates can become easily outdated, don’t offer support and could have security issues.

So, we strongly suggest you go for premium templates or designing your look and feel from scratch. This way you can be sure that your online presence is adequate, goes according your brand image, appeals to your target audience and customers, and fits like a glove on your specific contents, products and services.

A premium web design for WordPress can be around $50-$200USD. A custom web design and development for WordPress could cost between $1500- $3.000 USD if it’s for a small company, and if you need built-in features or specific plugins it can go up to $6.000 USD.

The benefits of having a bespoke web design and development is that you’re not restricted by a pre-made template or layout. You will have complete freedom and can fully customize your website to scale up, add new features and capabilities, with an amazing look and feel.

4. Features and Capabilities

These are the apps, extensions or features you’d like your website to have in order to make it customer-friendly. In here you can have contact forms, image galleries, built-in chat, sliders, portfolio showcases, analytics, and so on.

There are a bunch of these features you could get for free on their most basic forms, and they can be useful for almost everything you might need. However, if you need a more robust or custom-made feature, you might have to hire a web developer.

The total cost of features and capabilities depends on what you want for your website.

5. Security

If you’re thinking about building an E-Commerce website, you will definitely need an SSL Certificate. This is required to securely transfer customer data, like credit card information, usernames, passwords, and so on.

An SSL Certificate costs around $70USD per year, but sometimes you can get it for free or for a smaller cost when buying your web hosting.

6. Setup

Ok, now you bought all the previous items, but that’s not it. You’re just starting on all the hard work! Now you have to set up your theme on your web hosting, associate it with your domain name, customize your plugins or features, and of course, upload the content and work on your SEO optimization.

Most people hire digital agencies or web developers to do all that work for them. This could be because you don’t have the time to do it, or because you don’t have the design and tech skills you need for the task.

The costs could be from $500-$2.000USD, depending on your website requirements and the amount of time needed.

We can help you design, customize and set up your website in just a few weeks, without you having to worry about anything else.

7. Maintenance and Support

After you have everything done, begins the maintenance and support stage. You have to keep your website with the latest updates and keep everything running smoothly like on day one.

Also, remember that you will surely need to update contents like blog posts, articles, products or services, so make sure you clear some budget for this.

Typically, this costs around $500-$1.000USD per year.

Ok, now I know the basic components of a website. Is there anything else I need to know?

How to estimate the cost of building a WordPress website

In order to correctly estimate the cost of building a WordPress website, first you need to know how do you want it to be. Remember when we talked about buying a house, and all the questions asked? Well, it’s pretty much the same here.

This is what you need to know before beginning your project, so you can figure out how much does it cost to build a WordPress website.

Have a clear scope of the project

Make a wish list of all the features you want on your website, and list down all the things you’d like to see. For example:

– Home page with chatbot, a testimonial slider and services
– Contact page with a contact form, and a Google Map with the ability to tell directions
– Customized portfolio showcase, with images, videos and text
– Blog section, customizable, with social media and subscribe buttons
– Amazing design with animations and videos
– 4 internal pages, like: About Us, Services, Clients and Contact

This list helps you to know exactly what you want, and also makes everything easier when it comes to quoting and setting timelines.

Also, think about what you need right now, and what you’d like to have in the future. You can start with a simple website and then upgrade to an E-Commerce site, but it helps to know from the beginning.

Define how you want to run your website

The cost of the project can go up or down depending on the resources you have. Ask yourself these questions:

– Are you going to manage the website yourself?
– Do you want to be responsible for updates and monitoring your website performance?
– Have you got a design for your website?
– Do you have the tech skills to code your website?
– What do you need: a basic website or a robust platform?
– Do you have the time to upload contents?
– Do you have the marketing knowledge to optimize your SEO?

Questions like these ones can help you realize if you’d like to fully commit to the project and build it yourself, or to trust all the work to experts in the field.

Conclusion

We know that sometimes thinking about a new website can be overwhelming, and we’re here to help.

So, let’s summarize all the previous aspects, and see how much a WordPress website could cost:

Basic WordPress Website:

Custom WordPress Website:

We know these numbers can be scary, but keep in mind that those are rough estimates. An adequate understanding of your website needs will determine the amount of money and time you need to invest on your new WordPress website.

Keep in mind that WordPress is so flexible that it could be as simple or as huge as you want it to be. It all comes down to what your company wants to have and to look online. If you can afford a custom WordPress design, is totally worth the investment on the long run. You will have unique branding, custom design and tailor made functionalities and capabilities to help your business grow faster and overrun your competitors.

We hope this article helped you understand the components of a website, its specific costs and how it all adds up when building a WordPress website. Hopefully now you will know how much does it cost to build a WordPress website.

If you’d like some help with your new site, don’t hesitate to contact us! We’ll be happy to help!