Thinking about creating your own website, but worried that the cost of creating a website could be higher than your budget? In other words, how much does it cost to create a website? Well, there are different types of websites, and the cost of creating those websites varies quite a bit too. That means that there are a number of prices, and you can simply choose a price you agree with and start from there.
If you hire a web developer, you pay an hourly wage – the more complicated the requirements for your website become, the higher the bung. However, if you prefer to build your website with a CMS (Content Management System) alone, the cost, to put it bluntly, is minimal.
Let us give you a little taste of the costs involved with both options.
How Much Does It Cost To Make A Website?
Hiring a Developer
Finding a real web design company or a freelancer is actually not that difficult. The literal concern for most business people or those who have been looking for website design is almost always – you guessed it – cost. A web developer is a good choice if you’re running out of time and have a reasonable budget, and you never want to get your hands dirty with some CSS/HTML code or even CMS installments.
Based on the information we have gathered so far, the following is an analysis of the average cost of creating a website at different levels:
Basic Website: $900 to $2000
How much does it cost to create a website with basic functions? A standard website with brochures for small businesses, where you can report on your product and services and which includes a “contact” page where your customers can reach you. The website generally does not run on a CMS, which makes it somewhat difficult to manage or update.
Blogs can even fall into this category. Although they are not stable, the time required to create a blog is comparatively short, as any additional resources required to run it are also minimal.
Small Business with CMS Integration: $3500 to $10000
A small to medium-sized corporate website needs a CMS to function properly. However, the costs are higher, although much more work can be involved, e.g. custom design elements, social media functions, e-commerce integration, etc. Most corporate sites would fall into this category.
Advanced Package: $15000 to $100000
Anyone who creates a website within this cost range is likely to expect an individually coded web system (also known as a “web application”) with many effective features. Such a project involves several hours of development, which must involve two or more developers working together. Developing your own social networking application that can compete with an application such as Facebook could cost you this much.
Building a Website Using WordPress
WordPress is as useful even for a beginner as it is for a progressive web developer. If you don’t have programming skills and prefer not to try to know how a typical website works so you can program and create your own website, then WordPress is a possible solution. Just to differentiate, let’s take a look at the kind of website that this software can create well and the kind that it would not:
WordPress is ideal for:
1. Newspaper/Magazine sites
2. Blogs, both personal and business
3. City directories and classified ad sites
4. Standard-intermediate forums
5. Small to medium ecommerce store-windows
6. Small niche community sites
7. Corporate and portfolio sites
WordPress is not ideal for:
1. Large ecommerce sites
2. Advanced or dedicated forums
3. Portals
4. Large social networks
However, WordPress can run successfully with the above 4 systems to a certain degree, but the usability may be somewhat limited. But don’t take anything away from it, because there is a high probability that the website you want to create falls into the first category and can certainly be integrated into the CMS.
So your next question will probably be: “How much does it cost to create a website with WordPress”.
Well, first of all: WordPress is open source and free, just like its twins Joomla and Drupal. You don’t need a course to know how to work with WordPress, so development costs NOTHING. All you need is a basic knowledge of how to install WordPress on your server and how to install themes, plugins, and content. But the good themes, as well as plugins cost some money. And of course, there is a domain name and hosting to compensate.
- Domain name: $10 to $15 per year
- Hosting: $50 to $100 per year for a shared hosting
- Paid theme (optional): $50
- A premium plugin (optional): $20
And that’s all. If you think about it again, the cost will be just under $200, which generally means hosting costs plus a few extras. Remember, the same hosting prices apply when you hire a web developer. So the price of creating your own WordPress website is, well, next to nothing.
What skills do I require to create my own WordPress site?
Maybe your basic concern, after you know how inexpensive it is to create a website this way, is whether you can actually hack it. Forget these questions, because anyone who can use an internet browser can create his own website with a CMS; especially WordPress. The same may not be true for Drupal, Magento, Joomla or any other known open source CMS, but WordPress simply shines through usability.
The whole process starts with a 3-step installation on your domain from your cPanel account (after buying a hosting). You then have access to your admin backend where you can add your plugins, themes, and content. The task is not really scary as it seems – all credits goes to a visceral dashboard interface – but if you ever get lost, there is always the authentic “WordPress.org” forum to seek help.
That’s it, folks. I hope you’ve learned how much it costs to create a website!
