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How Much Does It Cost to Build a WordPress Website in 2023?

How much does it cost to build a WordPress website? 🤔

While WordPress itself is a free content management system (CMS), the subsequent deployment process may require some form of investment on your part. Expect to fork out cash for – among other things – web hosting, domain registration, website themes, WordPress plugins, and potentially even web development services.

Now, to help you make informed WordPress cost estimates, this in-depth guide breaks down all those supplementary attributes into their respective market rates. You get to find out roughly how much it costs to build a WordPress website at various levels.

We’ve even included the pricing rates for professional WordPress sites, WooCoomerce online stores, and enterprise websites.

how much does it cost to build a wordpress website

📚 Table of contents:

How much does it cost to build a WordPress website?

On the question of how much does it cost to build a WordPress website, you won’t find an absolute answer that sufficiently covers all the possible use cases. WordPress deployments vary quite extensively in structure, which then translates to huge disparities in website building costs.

Your upfront WordPress costs could be anywhere from $100 to $150,000+, while the recurring bills could add up to about $300 to $50,000+ per year.

👉 Here’s a summary of the price breakdown:

Domain registrationWeb hostingThemesPluginsWeb development and maintenance
  • Type of WordPress site: All
  • Cost range: $10-$50
  • Payment terms: Annually
  • Type of WordPress site:
    • Personal
    • Small businesses
    • Medium-sized businesses
    • Enterprises
  • Cost range:
    • $3-$20 for shared web hosting
    • $50-$150 for managed WordPress hosting
    • $100-$500 for WordPress/WooCommerce VPS hosting
    • $600-$5,000+ for dedicated enterprise hosting
  • Payment terms: Monthly
  • Type of WordPress site:
    • Personal
    • Small businesses
    • Medium-sized businesses
    • Enterprises
  • Cost range:
    • Free WordPress themes
    • $39-$145 for one website theme
    • $200+ for multiple paid themes
    • $1,000-$15,000 for custom themes
  • Payment terms:
    • Annually
    • One-off
  • Type of WordPress site:
    • Personal
    • Small businesses
    • Medium-sized businesses
    • Enterprises
  • Cost range:
    • $0-$500 for off-the-shelf plugins
    • $1,000-$45,000+ on each custom plugin
  • Payment terms:
    • Monthly
    • One-off
  • Type of WordPress site and cost range:
    • Personal – $500-$2,500 on website building; $350-$800 on WordPress maintenance
    • Small businesses – $5,000-$50,000 on website building; $1,000-$6,000 on WordPress maintenance
    • Medium-sized businesses – $6,000-$10,000 on an in-house WordPress developer
    • Enterprises – $250,000+ on an in-house DevOps department
  • Payment terms:
    • One-off
    • Monthly
    • Annually

WordPress cost #1: Web hosting

Your WordPress site will need a home, which should be in the form of a web hosting server. This is the infrastructure on which you’ll deploy WordPress, build and run the website, as well as store all the content and files.

The service is purchased from hosting providers, who charge anything from a few dollars to thousands of dollars a month – based on the server resources that you choose for your WordPress website.

💰 How much does it cost to build a WordPress website when you factor in hosting? Here are the various levels:

  • Personal sites: Personal sites that are just starting out are bound to have minimal resource demands, which can be catered to by a shared WordPress hosting service. The average cost for such is $3-$20 a month.
  • Small business websites: Solopreneurs, small online stores, and agency sites would be on the lookout for a more favorable balance between performance, cost-efficiency, scalability, security, and reliability. In that case, they’d probably go for a managed WordPress hosting service that offers technical maintenance, performance optimizations, regular updates, advanced security solutions, etc. Those WordPress hosting costs would add up to about $50-$150 per month.
  • Medium-sized business websites: Mid-sized businesses need a highly flexible and scalable hosting environment that can accommodate their fast-growing needs, fluctuating resource demands, and omnichannel deployments. The go-to option would therefore be an advanced virtual private server (VPS hosting) for a monthly pricing rate of $100-$500.
  • Enterprise websites: Enterprises run large-scale, custom-built WordPress ecosystems that are multi-layered, highly demanding, and intricately complex. Only dedicated enterprise hosting servers have the capacity to serve them, and they go for about $600- $5,000+ per month.
Pricing of Kinsta hosting

Examples of hosting rates from Kinsta Hosting

👉 Be sure to also check out our roundup of the best WordPress hosting services.

WordPress cost #2: Domain registration

Domain registration is the second step in building a WordPress site. This is where you reserve a specific domain name, which will then act as the official URL address for accessing and identifying your WordPress website.

The process itself is facilitated by domain registrars, who charge recurring fees to reserve domain names for a specific amount of time. Registration is typically done on a yearly basis, although you could opt for a 10-year renewal.

On average, the annual domain registration fees range between $10 and $20, with some paying as much as $50 or more to purchase their preferred domain names. Conversely, you might land yourself a web host that offers complementary domain registration.

💰 All in all, your total bill here ultimately depends on:

  • The choice of domain registrar.
  • Your domain extension: Top-level domains (TLDs) such as .com, .org, and .net are sometimes pricier (since they’re more desirable).
  • Domain registration period.
  • If someone else already owns the domain.
WordPress costs for domain registration

👉 Take a look at the cheapest domain registrars to get started.

WordPress cost #3: Site themes

When it comes to building WordPress websites, most people prefer customizing themes with prebuilt site templates. These are widely available on the WordPress theme repository, which offers thousands of free options. They are distributed across all the popular website categories, which also includes a plethora of free WooCommerce themes.

how much does it cost to build a wordpress website - Themes

For most personal WordPress sites, the incredibly large quantity of free themes offer enough of a selection to find something adequate. 👉 If this applies to you and you want to save yourself some time, feel free to browse our extensive list of the best free WordPress themes.

On the other hand, business and agency sites would be better off with the advanced functionalities that come with premium WordPress themes. You can source premium themes from developers such as our very own Themeisle, or from external marketplaces like Envato.

For a small business, one good WooCommerce theme would set you back $39-$145 per year.

WooCommerce costs for site theme

Medium-sized businesses, on the other hand, could purchase several themes to cover their multiple WordPress deployments. That means that they’re bound to spend upwards of $200+ per year on WordPress themes.

As for enterprise WordPress websites, a custom theme would be the best fit. How much does it cost to build a WordPress website with custom-made themes? The development process can be a relatively costly affair, with the bills adding up to about $1,000-$15,000.

WordPress cost #4: Plugins

How much does it cost to build a WordPress website with plugins? WordPress plugins could potentially cost you more than themes and web hosting services. That’s because you might have to purchase several of them, at different rates, and some of them even come with recurring charges.

The official WordPress plugin directory features tens of thousands of options, and most of them happen to be free (or freemium, where the free versions are limited, in hopes that you’ll upgrade). You can think of them as extensions – they integrate with the WordPress platform to provide supplementary functionalities.

WordPress costs for plugins

Free plugins are a mixed bag. Depending on your needs, many of them are sufficient enough to get the job done. However, in some instances, you’ll need to invest in premium (read: paid) plugins to unlock the advanced capabilities you’re looking for.

Premium WordPress plugins range from $15 to $200, payable as a one-off price or recurring payment. Some of them even offer multiple subscription plans, allowing you to upgrade their features and capacity as your site grows.

how much does it cost to build a wordpress website - plugins

Overall, a personal website could potentially run just fine relying solely on free WordPress plugins. However, some sites could benefit from using paid plugins, usually in the range of about one to five. The average WordPress cost for a setup that includes one or two premium plugins probably wouldn’t go beyond $100 per month.

In contrast, a small online store or agency typically requires more to support its business functions – somewhere in the realm of $20 to $500 a month on WordPress plugins.

For their medium-sized counterparts, the monthly cost of WordPress plugins would be in the $500-$5,000+ range.

Still, that’s nothing compared to the $1,000-$45,000+ bill that enterprises could accrue on the custom development of feature-rich WordPress plugins.

WordPress cost #5: Web development and maintenance

How much does it cost to build a WordPress website when factoring in web development and maintenance?

First off, it’s not a requirement to pay for web development and maintenance, especially for personal sites. But those without any development skills may require it, and it’s definitely necessary for mid-sized to large businesses.

Web development is usually a one-time project, involving steps like planning, wireframing, graphic design, site building, coding, and testing. Maintenance requires ongoing tasks/costs for everything from site backups to security, content updates, and error fixing.

Here are some common costs for WordPress development and maintenance:

  • Personal websites: For personal website development, you’d seek assistance from a freelance WordPress developer at the cost of $500-$2,500 (one-time). Periodic maintenance would then cost you about $350-$800 per year.
  • Small business websites: Small businesses often rely on web design agencies, which charge about $5,000-$50,000 for website building, followed by $1,000-$6,000 per year for maintenance.
  • Medium-sized business websites: At this level, you could potentially afford to hire an in-house web developer for about $6,000-$10,000 a month.
  • Enterprise websites: Enterprise sites have an in-house DevOps department that is tasked with large-scale custom development and maintenance. Such teams are paid about $250,000+ per year.

Over to you 🙏

So, how much does it cost to build a WordPress site? We’d advise you to start with a list of your website requirements and then match them up with our price estimates across each service category.

Otherwise, below are additional WordPress guides that help answer the question of how much does it cost to build a WordPress website.

Do you have any thoughts on our price estimates presented in this post? Let us know in the comments section below!

Don’t forget to join our crash course on speeding up your WordPress site. Learn more below:

 
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Davis Porter
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