A lot of people seem to think that setting up a website is expensive. It's not. In fact, it's ridiculously affordable to get started.
Friends and family are always asking me how much it costs. So much so that I'm going to break it down in this blog post.
This way I'll be able to direct anybody who asks me this question to this post and it will save us both a bit of time. Which is nice.
One minute! If you're wondering about the cost of actually setting up a website then you probably haven't done it yet, right?
In that case, you'll definitely want to check out my step-by-step guide to making your own website. Ya know, once I tell you how much it costs.
The cost of setting up a website
I think one of the reasons people think it's expensive to set up a site is because some local web design companies charge high prices. Especially if you're a small business.
The truth is that you don't need hundreds or thousands of dollars to set up a website. Lemme breakdown the costs so you can see just how cheap it is.
The Cost of a domain name.
Without a domain name, you don't have a site. Unless of course, you use one of those crappy free website builders. But nobody who is serious online uses them, do they? 😉
So the first purchase you make online would usually be your domain name.
Good news is that there's a lot of competition for domain name registration and it has driven the price down a lot.
How much? Well a typical new domain registration will probably cost you in the region of $8-12 a year for a .com, .org or .net. Others will vary and might be more or less. I register a lot of UK domains because, well, I'm from Blighty, and they cost me about $7 — a steal I'm sure you'll agree.
Woah there! Watch out for the renewal costs of domains. Some registrars and web hosting companies charge you double or triple the price to renew them when they expire.
Instead, you can transfer them to a new registrar like Namecheap or GoDaddy and only pay the new registration price. Easy.
P.S. If you're starting your first website, DO NOT BUY A DOMAIN. You'll get one for free when you register your new hosting account. You're welcome.
Cheap web hosting.
Another misconception is that web hosting is expensive. It ain't. Unless you consider $5 a month to be expensive, of course.
I've covered some of my favourite web hosting companies in the article Cheap Web Hosting Choices For Your Website and if you read that article you'll know that hosting is even more competitive than domain registration.
A no-brainer tip for getting even cheaper web hosting is to register it over 2 or 3 years. You'll get significant discounts for it and it means one less thing to think about as you build your site. Which is nice.
Special hosting deal! I've hooked you up with a special $3.99 a month rate for unlimited web hosting with Web Hosting Hub.
They are really reliable, amazingly cheap for those starting out, and they give you unlimited everything (within reason). I use their sister company InMotion Hosting and the service is awesome. Seriously. Check them out, yo.
Website software.
Okay, so far we've established the following:
- Domain names cost $8-12.
- Hosting costs about $3.99 a month.
- You can get a free domain with hosting.
So basically the cost to start our new website is currently at an eye-watering $4 a month. Massively expensive, eh?
But what about software to create and manage the website? That surely must cost an arm and a leg.
Nope. It's free.
I use a little bit o' software called WordPress to power almost all of my sites. It's free, easy to use, and massively popular. Over 50% of the top 100 blogs in the world use WordPress, and over 20% of all websites use it.
Fair to say it's well established. 🙂
For beginners it's the perfect platform to build your website on and if you're researching how much it costs to set up a website then the fact that it's free will be music to your ears.
Now if only there were some guide that shows you exactly how to build a site on WordPress…
Oh wait, there is! I've written a complete guide to installing WordPress and creating a website in 10 minutes or less. Lucky you.
Any other costs for starting a site?
For the princely sum of $3.99 a month you can have everything you need to set up and launch your website. So, as far as actual set up costs are concerned, it's cheaper than a Starbucks. And it's caffeine free.
There may be other costs that you need to consider later, but they aren't essential to starting. They might be things like:
- Advertising on Google/elsewhere to promote your site.
- Premium designs or themes for WordPress.
- Regular backups and security checks.
If you do choose Web Hosting Hub, they'll help with two of these anyway. You'll get a $200 voucher to spend on Google ads and their free Backup Wizard will make it easy to keep your site safe in case of crashing. You lucky so and so.
So, $3.99 a month is how much it will cost you using my How to Create a Website Guide. Not too shabby, eh?
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