How much will a website cost in 2023? While the cost of building a website varies greatly depending on what platforms and add-ons you use, a basic self-hosted WordPress website can cost as little as $115 per year.
But all things considered Honestly, it’s difficult to put a price tag on a website as it depends on your budget and the goals you’ve set for your business.
Reading: How much to create a simple website
Nevertheless, in this article, we’ll show you how much does it cost to build a website from scratch and what tools you can use to stay on budget while making room for growth.
We have divided the article into the following sections as it is very is lengthy, so you can jump ahead if you want. Let’s get started right away!
- What tools do you need to create a website?
- Plan and estimate the cost of creating a website
- How much does it cost to build a small business website?
- How much does it cost to build an advanced website?
- What does it cost to build an ecommerce store?
- Tips to avoid overpaying when building a website
What tools do you need to build a website?
When it comes to building a website you don’t need to hire professional web designers and developers with technical skills. There are many tools available on the Internet that you can use to easily create a do-it-yourself website.
But if you don’t choose the right tools, you’ll end up spending money on things you don’t need .
That’s why we’ve put together a list of tools that calculate how much a website costs. Here are 3 things you need no matter what type of website you are building:
- Domain name
- Website builder
- Web hosting
Domain Name
A domain name is a web address of your website that users type into their browser, e.g. B. www.yourdomain.com or www.MonsterInsights.com. It’s also the URL that appears in search results when people visit your site.
Once you’ve chosen a domain name, it’s time to register it. When you register your domain, you can use the same name for a year.
When choosing a domain name, it’s important to also choose the right extensions, e.g. .com, .org, . co or .net.
If you are an organization then .org is great. But one study found that 52% of websites have a .com extension, showing that they are more popular and identifiable with users.
And remember, your domain name registration takes a year , you will have to renew it every year. But if you don’t renew your domain name, it will expire and the domain name will be released to someone else.
Website Builder
After you get a domain name , It’s time to use a website builder. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an expert with a lot of experience, using website builders makes it super easy to create a website.
Using a website builder offers many customization options and lets you design a website the way you want. It also helps add important features like plugins and SEO tags.
There are several website builders you can use:
- WordPress.org – WordPress is open source, 100% free, and all you need is a domain and web hosting to get started. We recommend you to use WordPress because it’s very easy to use, supports more than 40% of all websites on the internet and gives you complete control over your website.
- Shopify – Shopify is a good option for building an ecommerce website. It offers attractive themes (free and paid), a simple interface for setting up a storefront and shopping cart, and easy management of your store.
- Web.com is one of the originals and the most popular website builders for small businesses. Since 1999 they have helped 3 million customers build a website for a very low price. It comes with an intuitive drag-and-drop builder and tons of pre-made website templates to get you up and running quickly.
Web Hosting
A big part of what what does the cost of creating a website is your web hosting service. Web hosting is where you store all of your images, videos, files, and other website content. Think of it as the home for your website.
Let’s say a user wants to view your website and types the domain name into the browser. The user is then directed to the web hosting server where all your website content is stored.
Moreover, web hosting’s internet connection makes your website available to users 24/7 and anyone can access it from anywhere .
When you build your website, you will come across different types of web hosting services including shared hosting, managed hosting, Cloud hosting and more.
Which type of web hosting should you choose?Let’s find out.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting is where your website has a web server shares with many other websites. You can think of it like renting an apartment in a building.
The advantage of shared hosting is that it is affordable and very easy to manage your website, domain and e -Mails.
See also: Creating a drop-down list in a cell
If you have a small business, personal blog or website with low traffic, shared hosting is great to get started.
On the downside is that shared hosting tends not to be as fast or secure as managed hosting.
Some shared hosting services may experience website downtime and slow speeds File load times due to slow server response time are always an issue, as a security flaw on another site can also harm your site.
That said, not all shared hosting services are bad.
Bluehost – Best Shared Hosting Option
Bluehost is one of the oldest and most popular shared hosting services. Even WordPress officially recommends it. Bluehost is great for first-time website builders or small business owners.
And if you’re worried about how much a website costs, then Bluehost is affordable and comes with exciting features like:
- One free domain for one year
- Free SSL certificate
- Free business email
- Very easy to use with its cPanel interface
- 24/7 customer support
- One-click install for WordPress websites
Managed hosting
Managed hosting is a Managed hosting company takes care of all your web hosting needs. Imagine having a home for your website accompanied by a chauffeur, security team, maids and maintenance staff.
Managed hosting is more powerful and different from shared hosting. The managed hosting company takes care of your WordPress website’s security, updates, and backup files and data.
Most companies also offer dedicated or premium customer support, so they can contact you anytime, anytime solve the problem.
Although managed hosting has its advantages, it usually has higher hosting costs compared to shared hosting. It’s only available for WordPress websites, and some companies may prevent you from using plugins that might slow down your website.
Therefore, this type of web hosting is more suitable for medium to large business, websites with high traffic or companies looking for a corporate web hosting service.
WP Engine – Best Managed Hosting Option
WP Engine is a popular managed WordPress -Hosting company . It keeps your WordPress website fast and secure by taking care of its health and performance. Some amazing features offered by WP Engine include:
- Free Genesis Framework
- 35 StudioPress WordPress Themes
- Automated SSL Certificates
- Daily website backup
- Automatic security updates
- 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone and tickets
Now that you know the tools you need, let’s look at how to estimate the cost of building a website.
Plan and estimate the cost of building a website
Before you start creating a website, it is important to plan the process based on your goals or you risk overspending.
Here are some questions to ask yourself should ask before you start so you can estimate how much it will cost you to create a website:
1. What features do you need?
It is important to know what features you want to have on your website. We recommend you write them down as they will help you determine the true cost.
Some features may require a premium plugin, others may need to go through the development process. So if you have a list of features ready, you can prioritize the ones that are important and save money.
2. Should you hire a professional designer or use a premade design?
The quickest and easiest way to get started is to use a pre-built theme. There are many themes offered by different website builders that help save costs.
But if you want a website to look and function a certain way, remember that the Website design and development costs can be particularly high when you decide to go with a custom website.
You would need to hire a professional to develop a custom website that works the way you want it to.The average cost of hiring a professional web developer can range from $20 to $100 per hour.
3. Do you have enough budget to get started?
Once you’ve listed the features you want, decided which premium plugins you need, and finished the website design, it’s time to review your budget.
Many website projects fail because they go over and over budget. That’s why it’s important to list your expenses and make sure you’re staying on budget.
See also: I Have a Good App Idea, But No Programming Skills. What You Can Do
Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to create a website. To help you, we’ve broken the costs down into the following sections:
- How much does it cost to build a small business website?
- What is the cost of the Building an advanced website
- How much does a website cost if it’s an e-commerce store?
How much does it cost to build a website for a small Building a business?
Building a basic small business website can cost anywhere from $100 to $500. But these costs could increase depending on your goals. A custom, feature-packed website can cost as much as $30,000 or more.
To get started with a website for your business, you need a domain name and web hosting. The cost of a domain is typically around $14.99 per year and web hosting is around $7.99 per month. Put them together and you’re looking at the cost of $110.87 per year to build a website.
Since these costs can be expensive for many people, we’ve signed a deal with Bluehost to offer our users a free domain, free SSL certificate for extra security, and 60+ % off on web hosting.
As we mentioned earlier, Bluehost is the best shared hosting option and is also recommended by WordPress. With its amazing features and low prices, you can save cost while building website.
To save further cost of building website, you can get free WordPress plugins and free theme. Here are some free plugins available in the WordPress repository.
Marketing
- MonsterInsights (free): Helps you make data-driven decisions by connecting your website to Google Analytics.
- WPForms Lite: Add contact forms to your website to generate leads.
- SeedProd Lite: Create amazing landing pages .
- RafflePress: create and run giveaways on your website.
Performance
- AIOSEO : Improve search engine ranking and optimize your website for SEO.
- W3 Total Cache: Boost the performance, speed and user experience of your WordPress website.
Security
- Akismet: Stop spam comments on your website.
- UpdraftPlus: Free plugin to secure your website.
How much does it cost to upgrade an advanced website create?
Over time, your site will grow, and to keep up with the increasing number of visitors, you need to add more features. This increases your costs as advanced features require premium plugins and may require switching to a more powerful web hosting service.
You can continue to use Bluehost, but with an advanced website we recommend using a managed hosting service like WP Engine or switching to SiteGround (GoGeek plan).
SiteGround will cost you something more than Bluehost, but their GoGeek plan comes with premium features like faster performance, more web storage, staging capabilities, and can easily handle up to 100,000 visitors per month.
When building an advanced website, consider using a premium theme for your website. Almost every website builder like WordPress offers paid themes that have additional built-in features, offer priority customer support, and give your website a more professional look.
As for plugins, here are some premium WordPress plugins, which you can use to enhance your website.
Marketing
- MonsterInsights Pro: See how visitors are using your website and use the data to make informed decisions
- OptinMonster: Helps convert abandoning website visitors into leads.
- WPForms Pro: Build contact forms, surveys, order forms and more with its simple drag-and-drop builder.
- Sendinblue: It’s a complete marketing toolkit with advanced features like email marketing, live chat and CRM.
- AIOSEO Pro: Improve search engine visibility with advanced features like video -Sitemaps, redirect manager and 404 error tracking.
Website Design
- SeedProd: Customize your website with beautiful landing pages using the drag-and-drop builder . It’s also coming soon and with maintenance mode features.
- CSS Hero: Change the entire design of your website without coding.
- Envira Gallery: Helps you create an attractive gallery with photos and videos.
- Smash Balloon: Embed social media feeds on your website.
Emails
- Continuous Contact : The best email marketing plugin for growing and managing your email subscriber list.
- Drip: One of the best email marketing plugins for WordPress .
Security
- Sucuri: Prevent malware and hackers from attacking your website with the best WordPress security plugin .
- BackupBuddy: Backup your website, store data offsite and restore your website in minutes.
These are just some of the premium Plugins you can use as there are many more . However, the total cost of building an advanced website ranges from $500 to $1000 per year, depending on how many plugins you use on your website.
What is the cost of the Creating an Ecommerce Store?
If you’re planning to run an online store and think it’s going to cost millions of dollars, then you’re wrong. Opening an e-commerce store is very easy and you don’t have to empty your wallet.
It’s even easier and cheaper than opening an actual physical store. And by going online, you can reach a much wider and global audience.
To create an ecommerce website, you need a domain name and web hosting, just like any other website. Since you are starting fresh, we recommend using the Bluehost WooCommerce plan.
With the Bluehost WooCommerce plan, you get attractive features to start and grow your online store. Here are some of its features:
- Free domain for one year
- Free SSL certificate to secure your online payments
- Storefront themes
- WooCommerce preinstalled with WordPress
- Dedicated IP address
- 24/7 dedicated customer support
For plugins you can use this free plugins that we listed earlier in the small business website building section. You can even add premium WooCommerce plugins for extra functionality and help grow your store.
So the total cost of opening an ecommerce store is around $190 each year. However, this could increase if you start using premium plugins and extensions.
Tips to avoid overpaying when building a website
Overspending when building a website are very simple and can lead to the downfall of your website even before it launches. That’s why it’s important to stick to your budget. Here are some tips to help you:
- Start small, then grow your site. Use free themes and plugins to start and spend on premium content later as your site grows.
- Stay on budget by prioritizing important features. It’s easy to be attracted to a feature you’ve seen on another website and then spend money on website development costs only to find out there’s no use.
- Optimize your website for a great user experience. No matter how small your website is, make sure it runs fast and smoothly on all types of devices.
And that’s it!
We hope you do liked our detailed outline of how much it costs to create a website. If you’d like, you can also read our guide on why your business needs Google Analytics.
Not using MonsterInsights yet? What are you waiting for?
And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for more helpful reviews, tutorials and Google Analytics tips.
See also: How To Create A Multi-user Website On WordPress
.
