Great question – it depends. Websites are a little bit like cars. If you were to ask how much a car costs the answer would be – it depends, somewhere between $1k and $100k.
Let’s break down the cost into simple categories:
Domain name
Domain name is like your license plate and registration. You have to pay it every year to be able to get on the road. Vanity plates, like catchy Domain Names, are more expensive. A simple domain costs about $20 a year. There is an additional charge for the privacy protection that every website owner should have.
Hosting
Hosting fee is a service you pay for to a company for running your site on their servers. There are lots of great options for WordPress Hosting. The most popular include BlueHost, GoDaddy, WPEngine etc. Plans usually start about $10 a month. Think of this as a required paid parking.
Website Development
You can build a WordPress site yourself or seek the help of a WordPress developer. This decision depends on your interest and willingness to learn WordPress, your budget and how much free time you have at your disposal.
If you decide to hire someone, the price will depend on the size of your site, the features and services you want to offer on the website and how elaborate graphic design you are looking for. A basic 5 page site with no additional features would take 4h to set up. A more complex website can cost tens of thousands of dollars. This is the difference between a beater car and a cadillac.
Plugins, themes
Depending on the complexity of your site you might need to install paid plugins or a paid theme. These costs varied greatly for $20 to over $100 dollars a year. The licenses usually renew yearly.
Repair
Occasionally your site might break and you would need to seek help from a developer to resolve the issue.
Maintenance
It is important to have your site reviewed and updated on a regular basis. This cost is equivalent to changing the oil. For smaller sites once a quarter, larger sites once a month. The review usually takes 1-2 hours.
Hired help
The cost of hiring a developer varies greatly depending on the developers area of expertise and their location. An offshore contractor would likely charge you about $35/h for basic content and design updates. A local development agency with more technical skills costs about $100/h.
Summary
The startup cost for the most basic website with WPHelp360 is about $220.
You should set up at least $150 a year for your domain and hosting charges and $300 for maintenance and updates. That is a basic total yearly expense of $450. Equivalent of a weekly Starbucks outing. Or, looking from a different perspective, if your website generates at least $40 worth business every month, you are making profit.