How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?

I explained how to start a blog in the previous post. There I said professional blogging or blogging for money needs some investments. We can’t expect to earn money when we are not investing. Only when we spend some money, we will take blogging seriously and try to get success. I’ve already mentioned the reasons why we should not rely on free services and the advantages of paid services. Let’s take a moment to outline the potential costs associated with starting a blog.

This blog was created to showcase useful software and reveal the best ways to make money using our blog or doing part-time online jobs. Consider visiting other pages of my blog to find money-making ideas and income sources and use them to do blogging to earn money. This article will be helpful for you to get an idea about what are all the things you need to create a professional blog and how much they will cost you. A blog helps us to create our online business. So, this article answers how much it costs to start a business.

Domain Cost: $9.98

The first thing is to register a domain name. It will give an address to your blog. Recommended domain extensions are .com, .org and .net. Among all reputed domain registrars, the cheapest two are given below.

Name Cheap: $9.98/year and renewal at $16.98/year

BigRock: $11.42/year and renewal at $16.26/year

BlueHost is a hosting service that gives you a free domain (only the first year) for every hosting purchase. So, you can avoid domain cost expenses if you purchase hosting space and host your blog there.

Web Hosting Cost: $1 per month

We have to host our blog on a reliable hosting service. I recommend you host your blog on any of the following two hosting services, as they are trusted by millions.

Milesweb: $1 per month if you purchase triennially. 

BlueHost: $1.99 per month, with a free domain for the first year when purchased for at least 12 months.

These prices are for first-time purchases only. The renewal price may vary.

Blog CMS Cost: Free

If you are a programmer or web developer, you can build a customized website for your needs. But, it is a tedious task as you have to manage all the things manually. So, most of the bloggers use a Content Management System (CMS) to manage their blogs. CMS makes complex blog management easy. 

There are thousands of CMSs available. Some need developer skills and some don’t. WordPress is the most famous CMS which is very easy to use and doesn’t require any technical skill. WordPress is an open-source software. If you use WordPress as your blogging CMS, you require nothing to invest to get blogging software. You can download WordPress from WordPress.org for free of cost.

WordPress Installation Cost: Free to $100

After purchasing hosting, you have to install WordPress on the server space provided by the hosting provider. Some hosting providers have a control panel with a script installation tool. You can use that to install WordPress without any hassle. If they do not provide any tool to install WordPress, you have to install by yourself. 

There are some service providers or tech specialists who provide WordPress installation services. They charge you a maximum of $100 for this. So, do this on your own, so that you can reduce a huge cost. Installing WordPress is not that hard. There are thousands of free tutorials available online on setting up WordPress. I will also post some tutorials in future. You can get guides to install WordPress just by searching WordPress installation guide on Google.

Professional WordPress Theme Cost: $39

Professional theme plays a vital role in optimizing our websites for search engines. The theme we use should follow error-free coding standards and should have valid and minimal codes to avoid unnecessary overloading of codes. The theme should also be optimized for search engines. Faster-loading websites get higher rankings in search engines. Surely, you need an investment to get a professional-looking WordPress theme. 

To eliminate this cost, you can get a free theme from the WordPress themes repository. But, free themes have limitations. They have fewer customising options and some disabled features, and we have to purchase a premium plan to enable all the features. Use the theme downloaded from only the WordPress theme repository, as the themes downloaded from other websites may have malware and viruses. Malware-affected themes will degrade your blog, or hackers use that as a tool to hack your blog.

So, you purchase a premium WordPress theme from a premium theme developer. The cost varies from $10 to $1000 based on our desired features. But, in MyThemeShop you can get a theme at a reasonable cost with almost all the features we require. Their themes normally cost $39. I use the Schema theme for this blog.

Plugins Cost: Free to $500

It is possible to customize the WordPress Content Management System by utilizing plugins. For example, RankMath is a plugin for doing SEO settings effortlessly. We can find the plugins we need in the WordPress plugins directory. Although these plugins are free to install, some have pro features, and you have to pay to avail them. 

Many plugin developers offer premium plugins. They charge you on a monthly or yearly basis, either for one plugin or a set of plugins. Some WordPress shops give you a group of plugins or a single plugin for a one-time fee. So, based on your needs, the cost may vary. An SEO plugin from Squirrly offers pricing plans ranging from $0 to $71.99 per month.

Some companies and blogs spend thousands of dollars on WordPress customization and plugins alone. Yet, you can avoid these expenses. For any pro plugin, there is an alternative free plugin available. But in some cases, we can’t avoid purchasing a premium plugin. First, you can start a WordPress blog with free plugins and once started earning some money you can invest some money on premium plugins that make your production work easy. 

Professional Logo Cost: Free to $10

A website logo is useful to project your blog like a brand. You should use a professional-looking logo, which is like an eye-catching tool. You can create your logo using an online logo maker for free. If you are not creative enough to design a logo, you can hire others to create a customized and more professional-looking logo. This will cost you at least $10. But, to reduce the expenses, I recommend the free online tool to create your logo.

Custom Content Cost: Free to $300

Writing blog articles and optimizing them for search engines is an art. You can acquire this skill through learning and practical experiences. If you are a good writer, you can write articles for your blog on your own. If you want premium articles that are optimized for search engines and social networks, consider hiring others to write for you. There are many custom content creation services available and you can buy articles from them. This will cost from $20 to $300.

Fiverr is a platform where freelancers give services to users at very low prices. There you can find high-quality content writers to fit your budget. Some charge you based on words and some charge you on per article basis. Select any top and high-rated freelancer and give the topic or keyword on which you have to write the article. They will provide you with an article that is optimized for search engines. 

Search Engine Optimization Cost: Free to $1000.

Optimizing your blog for search engines is a crucial one as this will drive more traffic to your blog. Some offer SEO services. Some of them offer it for a considerable price and some offer it for a high price. But, if you are doing it by yourself, you can make your blog optimized for search without any cost. I am optimising my blog for SEO based on my experience and insights from popular online tutorials. 

I have come across many SEO service reviews. Some customers say that some service providers helped them to crowd their blogs with huge traffic. If you don’t have time for SEO work, purchase a professional SEO service. You can find freelancers who provide SEO services on websites like Fiverr.

Image Design Costs: $1 to $10 per Image

For each blog post, you have to include some images to illustrate the concepts. If you hire designers for that, it will cost a minimum of $1 per image. 

Other Costs: (Monthly Basics — $300)

As your blog gains popularity, you may encounter additional expenses to consider based on your needs. If you want to send newsletters to your readers, you have to pay for a professional email service to do email marketing, which will cost a minimum of $10 per month.

Placing ads on social websites will increase your blog readers. Advertising on search engines is also helpful to get traffic. Link building and offline marketing also require investment. More or less, you will have to spend $300 per month for these types of expenses.

Summary

Among all the investments required, domain, hosting and professional theme are essential and mandatory in our blog budget. The professional theme is a one-time investment, and we have to pay yearly for the domain name and web hosting. 

So, how much does it cost to start a blog? The answer is a one-time investment of $39 for a perfect WordPress theme, $9.98 for domain purchase and $1 per month for hosting. The domain and hosting renewal price will vary from the second year onwards. BlueHost offers a free domain if you purchase a hosting plan, which costs as low as $1.99. 

Thanks for reading this post, and we will meet in a new post soon.