How much can I expect to pay to build a website myself?
That depends! If you’re using something like Wix or SquareSpace it can be pretty reasonable to get started ($12 – $40 month) if you want to build the site yourself. You’ll have access to some nice templates with basic functionality and customization options.
WordPress websites are more customizable and power over 35% of the web these days. They require technical knowledge and regular maintenance to ensure everything runs smoothly and is safe, fast and secure, which is why a website care plan will be key to your overall success should you choose to hire help. Customization options are endless which is why so many designers and developers prefer WordPress.
Third party developers build apps and plugins to expand the functionality of WordPress. There are thousands of free options as well as paid premium. Whatever you decide to use, the below chart can help you get a ballpark idea of the costs involved to DIY.
Build Your own website.
| What You’ll Need | Website Set Up Costs |
|---|---|
| Purchase Domain | Cloudflare Domains – $10+ yearly |
| Website Hosting | $5 – $500/monthly |
| Plugins, Apps, Integrations | $0 – $250/yearly for each |
| Website Template or Theme | Free – $249/yearly |
| E-Commerce | $0 – $100 per plugin/yearly |
| SEO & Marketing | $0+/mth |
| Professional Help (optional) | $55 – $200 hourly |
Overall, it can be very inexpensive to build a website yourself but what is your time worth? If you’re just starting out and need a basic site, you can expect to pay around $250 upfront and monthly costs of about $50 to maintain it. SEO and marketing your website is an ongoing time cost which depends on the campaigns you’re using or who you hire.
If you hire a designer or developer however you can expect to invest at least $3500 for the initial site build and design, and ongoing costs for maintenance support available around $1500 yearly.
Hiring A Professional Designer in 2023.
Whether you’re looking to build a new website or refresh your current one, you’re probably wondering – how much does web design cost in 2023? That also depends!
As mentioned before, the cost to professionally design and develop a website varies greatly! You can expect to pay anywhere between $3,500 to more than $75,000 depending on the needs of the business and how custom the work needs to be.
Here’s a sample breakdown of the costs for one year for a WordPress website built by us. This is by no means a complete list as your project will be custom. If your project is more involved and has more than 5 pages, it will cost more.
After the one-year mark, ongoing costs will change based on need.
Costs to hire a designer/developer.
| Components | Cost |
|---|---|
| Branding & Logo | $500+ |
| Set Up Domain on Server, Install WordPress, Redirects from Previous Host if Needed | $100+ |
| Design & Development | $3600+ |
| SEO Content Creation | $200/page (5 pages) |
| WordPress Dashboard Tutorial | $150 (1.5 hours) |
| Hourly Rates | $50-$200/hr |
| Total Cost for One Year | $7350+ ( – hourly work) |
The above costs will vary depending on the complexity of your website project. If you need an e-commerce website, the costs will be significantly higher. Our website care plans cover the cost of our stock premium plugins needed for more advanced functions. Learn more about our care plans and how you can benefit from working with us.
Website maintenance cost.
Once your website is live and ready to serve your customers you’ll need to consider running costs to ensure it loads in under 2 seconds or better, is free from malware, secure and up to date.
There is no better way to stay on top of it than hiring an agency to do the heavy lifting.
Website maintenance costs vary depending on the architecture and purpose of your website. The cost ranges anywhere from $100 to many thousands per month if you have an e-commerce site with hundreds or thousands of products. In this case, the website host needs to be able to handle the traffic and backups on a daily if not hourly basis.
This can be very expensive but well worth it.
Our website care plan costs.
Our website care plans start at $119 a month. We also offer addons to customize your plan according to your business needs. Some examples of addons are performance enhancements, SEO content creation, custom email signatures, technical SEO and more. You can add or subtract addons as needed aside from our SEO addons, which require at least six months to see results.
Monthly Web Design Plans
We also offer monthly web design plans to spread out the cost of your web design projects over 24 months. Your website will go live faster and is yours to keep once the plan has expired. At that point, most clients opt into a care plan to keep their website running at optimal performance.
Still have questions?
If you still have questions about what it costs to build a website in WordPress, we’re here to help!
