The Real Cost of WordPress
Overview
For nearly 20 years, WordPress has been the reigning champion of website builders. It has a reputation for being a cost effective (sometimes free), dynamic, and comprehensive solution. And it can be all of those things… sometimes.
For small businesses that are looking for a basic site that doesn’t require much maintenance or budget, WordPress can be an excellent solution. For anything bigger than a mom and pop shop, WordPress is not quite as straightforward.
WordPress is typically cheaper than building a custom website from scratch (which can be $10,000+), but it’s important to know the true long-term cost of a solution before dumping all your eggs into its basket. And the truth is, there are loads of hidden costs to WordPress– both in terms of money, time, and resources.
So before you jump into a WordPress solution (or if you’re already using one), here are some things to consider.
Planning a WordPress Site
WordPress is often thought of as a build-it-yourself platform. But, if you’re looking to build a site with more than just basic capabilities, you’ll need to bring both a developer and designer into the equation. To fully take advantage of the development and design tools WordPress offers, you’ll need professionals who quite literally speak the language.
If you’re looking to build your first website, we’ll assume that you don’t have an in-house designer or developer. You’ll have to consider the pros and cons of working with an agency versus a freelancer. In the US, the average hourly rate of a freelance graphic designer is $45/hour1 while the average hourly rate of a freelance WordPress developer is about $70/hour2. Agencies charge at least double. This doesn’t include the cost of time and resources you’ll have to invest in finding, interviewing, and hiring for these two roles.
Another popular option is outsourcing work to countries like India, where labor is often cheaper. The issues you could face in that scenario might be obvious – at such a discounted rate, the skill level is often lower, deliverables don’t always meet expectations, and there can be a communication disconnect and frustration.
Expect that building a high-quality website from the ground up, to meet all of your company’s specifications, will take at least three months3. That’s approximately a month and a half of design work and a month and a half of development work. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was www.rome.gov.
Building a Business Website
Once you decide to invest in a new website, you’ll soon realize just how much goes into building a secure and fast site with great usability.
Here are the major elements you’ll need to address in your site build:
- A page builder
- Forms with data collection & storage
- Content Optimization abilities for SEO
- Security & firewall protection
- Backups
- Speed & caching
- Integrations with marketing/sales platforms
- Hosting & SSL certificate
- Ecommerce capabilities (if relevant)
Each one of these elements requires a different plugin or external solution. Again, that means spending a significant amount of time researching the pros and cons of various options. These options typically offer a free version of the tool. But they’re no dummies. The key features of the tool – the features you want most – are usually part of the next package up. Free versions are nice because they’re, well, free. But free usually comes at the cost of not being able to access the latest updates or being able to contact customer service.
You’ll find yourself going freemium to premium in the blink of an eye.
WordPress Themes
If you outsource the project and hire a designer and developer, you’ll almost certainly encounter WordPress themes. Your designer might design a custom site but developers often use pre-made themes as their base. Without using a theme, building a custom site could cost over $10,000.
Choosing and implementing a theme often happens behind the scenes, which means the developer might not consult you on their choice. This can lead to problems down the road. If the developer didn’t fully understand the needs of your site, the theme might not end up being a good fit. Plus, using a pre-made theme means their build won’t necessarily match your designs perfectly.
A theme includes templates and stylesheets for pages so your site has a consistent look. While themes can cost between $10 – $1000 per year, you can find very high-quality themes between $50 – $200. Often, themes will include a discounted price for the first year and then increase their price after. In order to make sure your site runs smoothly, you’ll have to repurchase the license each year to get updates.
If a developer purchased the theme on their own, repurchasing the license each year can be challenging. On top of that, if they made significant changes to the theme, updating the theme will also be difficult.
Expect Costs: $50 -$100 per year
WordPress Plugins
One huge benefit to using WordPress is their never-ending library of plugins. The flip side is that once you’re using multiple plugins, it can get pricey and confusing. Plugins rarely do just one thing – you’ll likely have plugins with overlapping functions. When this happens, they can conflict with each other and cause digital confusion.
When calculating plugin prices, note whether the plugin is offering a discounted price for the first year of service. Often, the rate will be slashed to half for the first year but it will automatically renew at the higher rate each year after.
We’ve done research on the costs of some of the most popular plugins for each category. For the following charts, we’ve included the non-discounted rate for each plugin’s yearly cost. We’ve chosen to include the rate for the “recommended”, “best value”, or “most popular” version of the plugin, as indicated by each plugin’s website.
BACKUPS
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| Updraft Plus | Yes | $195 |
| Backup Buddy | No | $80 |
| VaultPress | No | $240 |
| Jetpack | Yes | $99 |
Expect Costs: $80 – $240 per year
SPEED/CACHING
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| WPRocket | No | $49 |
| WP Super Cache | Yes | — |
| W3 Total Cache | Yes | $99 |
Expect Costs: Free – $100 per year
PAGE BUILDER
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| Beaver Builder | Yes | $199 |
| Divi | No | $89 |
| Elementor | Yes | $199 |
Expect Costs: $89 – $199 per year
FORMS
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| Contact Form 7 | Yes | — |
| WPForms | No | $399 |
| Optin Monster | No | $564 |
| Formidable Forms | Yes | $299 |
| Ninja Forms | No | $199 |
Expect Costs: Free – $564 per year
SEO
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| Yoast | Yes | $89 |
| All In One SEO Pack | Yes | $139 |
| WordPress SEO Plugin – Rank Math | Yes | — |
Expect Costs: Free – $139 per year
SECURITY
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| WordFence | Yes | $99 |
| Sucuri | No | $299 |
| All In One WP Security & Firewall | Yes | — |
Expect Costs: Free – $299 per year
WORDPRESS HOSTING
| Free version? | Recommended Paid Version p/year | |
| WP Engine | No | $2,900 |
| BlueHost | No | $180 |
| Siteground | No | $240 |
| GoDaddy | No | $204 |
Expect Costs: $180 – $2,900 per year
Cost Summary Checkpoint
| Base Cost | Recommended Paid Version | |
| Theme | $50 | $100 |
| Backups | $80 | $240 |
| Caching | – | $100 |
| Page Builder | $89 | $199 |
| Forms | – | $564 |
| SEO | – | $139 |
| Security | – | $299 |
| Hosting | $180 | $2,900 |
| Total | $399 | $4,541 |
Keep in mind, there’s a wide range of potential costs depending on how many plugins you use, how many of them a free, and how many you upgrade to premium.
Maintaining a WordPress Site
Once you’ve chosen designers, developers, and plugins, you’ll have to make a plan for maintaining your website so it looks as good on day 1,000 as it did on day 1.
You’ll have constant upkeep to keep offers, products, content, and other elements up to date. To execute hourly, daily, or monthly changes, you’ll need to have a graphic designer and developer on retainer (between $600 – $3,600/year for basic work.) If you opt out of a retainer and just pay per project, you’ll have to factor in those costs and also that your ideal candidate may not be available when you need them.
Beyond updating the content on your site, you’ll also have to make sure that all of the tools you’re using are updated.
Security
Take website security seriously – threats from hacking grow each year. WordPress updates itself quarterly and it typically includes a security update.
Plugins and themes update less regularly. Each one updates on its own schedule, and sometimes sporadically. With a handful of plugins, that means you’ll need to constantly be checking for and implementing updates. It’s important to do this because those updates include crucial security updates.
Orphaned Plugin and Themes
A plugin or theme becomes “orphaned” when the original creator no longer maintains the code of the project. This means there will be no more updates or fixes to that particular plugin or theme.
This creates a security threat for your website – hackers constantly evaluate code for security holes to exploit. This is especially true for popular themes and plugins. Switching from an orphaned plugin or theme to a new one can be expensive and time consuming.
Design Updates
User behavior, markets, and your messaging are constantly changing and evolving. Your website needs to be nimble enough to change right alongside them. That includes everything from a simple text change to a major design overhaul.
For example, if your company started running advertisements, you would need new landing pages. You can do this through a page builder (if you already have one) or by onboarding a 3rd party platform. But don’t forget about making sure the design is cohesive with your website. For that you might need a designer and developer to implement the changes.
The key to a digital presence is being reactive and timely – especially on your website. We’ve learned from COVID-19 that websites need to be able to be updated in the blink of an eye. If making these changes is too complicated, time consuming, or expensive, they get overlooked. It matters because it’s a missed opportunity for your business.
The True Cost of WordPress
Based on the estimates we outlined above, here is the potential cost for building and maintaining a WordPress site:
| Base Cost | Premium | |
| Theme | $50 | $100 |
| Plugins | $349 | $4,441 |
| Maintenance | $600 | $3,600 |
| Totals | $999 | $8,141 |
As we’ve mentioned, there’s a very wide range of costs for the different parts of a complete WordPress solution. WordPress itself is free, but as a growing business, you’ll likely need to incorporate paid solutions. Each business has its own unique needs and will end up with its own unique cost for a WordPress site.
Evaluating Your Options
WordPress isn’t all bad but it’s crucial to have the full picture of what you’re signing up for before you decide how to launch your site. There are so many factors involved in this decision. No matter the platform you go with, make sure you’re asking the right questions and considering long term costs, even if they’re discounted at first.
To help estimate your unique WordPress costs, download and fill out this Cost Estimator Template.