WordPress as in the software that runs the site is free and open source. You can download it freely on wordpress.org but to host it somewhere a server and point the internet to it require a hosting space and a domain name which costs money.
There are free web hosting services which provide small amount of hosting space for free but they usually come with low end configuration and are not good enough to host any website which has more than few hits each day. If you are just starting out then you can try them out but if you want to host your business or company website then we suggest you at least start with a Shared Hosting company.
Hosting – $1 – $15 per month
There are many web-hosting provides selling Shared Hosting account which starts anywhere from $1 per month to $15 per month and if you sign up for a yearly plan then you can get a bit of discount as well.
Hostgator, Bluehost, Siteground, iPage, etc are some popular shared hosting providers in the business.
Domain Name – $12 per year
Apart from the hosting server you also need a domain name. Domain name’s are address you type in the browser’s address bar to visit any website for example. Yourbusiness.com, etc. These domains costs around $12 per year and can be bought from sites like Godaddy.com Namecheap.com, Name.com, etc. You have to pay the yearly fee for the domain name. They don’t come with monthly plan.
Once you have hosting and domain ready, you can go ahead and install WordPress, choose a free theme from wordpress.org and start building your website.
So, the total cost to build your WordPress site would be somewhere around $7-8 per month on average.
Besides, that once you have a build a website, you would want to add more tools and services in it which will increase the basic monthly expense.
Hat Tip: Always see if there is an Open Source alternative of any services and tool you want to use in your site. In most cases the Open Source alternatives are much better to use has no upfront cost attached to them.
