It’s all about expenditure and revenue. Before starting any business, we all must do cost analyses and feasibility. So, let’s start together and analyze how much does it costs to start a blog.
It will be easier if you have a computer, good pixel camera, smartphone, or mobile, as it would reduce your cost.
Though these are one-time investments and even necessities in today’s world, not only for blogging websites but also for any other related business.
The cost of computers and smartphones depends on your choice and your budget.
It would range approximately between $200-$2000, and even more, depending on your requirement, i.e., what feature you want to have and whatnot.
If you purchase a desktop or laptop from Amazon, you could find even less than $200, or you can even take it for rent at a minimal cost.
How Much Does it Cost to Run a Blog?
Blogging could be as lucrative as you want, as fun as you pleased, and as satisfying as you want in your life.
But before you make blogging a serious affair, you must know the cost of setting up a blogging website.
You don’t need to invest in blogging from the first day. You need to invest wisely day by day as your blogging business grows.
First, emphasize the most critical things or tools over the lesser ones.
Remember, the lesser one is also essential for your blogging business. It’s just that it can wait for a while.
Before explaining in detail, let you know the types of bloggers and the initial cost of investing.
So, I am starting with the very minimum and would approach further accordingly.
Types of Bloggers
There are three types of bloggers:
- Hobby Bloggers,
- Side Bloggers, and
- Full-time Bloggers.
Hobby Bloggers
Hobby bloggers write in various disciplines and share their knowledge.
They neither care much about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) nor invest heavily in different tools to enhance the blogging website.
Hobby Bloggers blog for fun, but many become serious bloggers later.
Side Blogger
Side bloggers are those who do blogging side-by-side with their job. They do not take as much risk as leaving their job and starting blogging as a profession.
Full-Time Blogger
Full-time bloggers are those who do blogging as a full-time business. They earn from their blogging business and are termed a serious blogger.
It all depends upon your requirement and passion. If you are new to blogging, you might have a tight budget, and as you earn, you could invest more in your blogging business.
First, I am starting with the essential cost of blogging, which is the minimum requirement for starting a website.
Later, I will move to the essential add-ons or plug-ins required to update or enrich your blog and blogging website.
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog (Breaking Down the Costs)
Before moving to the core blogging essentials, the first and foremost cost initially required is the Hardware cost, i.e., the desktop or laptop and smartphone, if you do not have them.
- Hardware Cost
- Domain Name
- Web Hosting
- Word Press Themes- Free
- Essential WordPress Plugins
- Email Marketing Tool Cost
- Security Cost
- Miscellaneous Cost
The above point is what every blogger needs, whether you are a hobby blogger, a side- blogger, or a full-time blogger. Let’s take this into detail and start analyzing the initial blogging cost.
I. Hardware Cost
If you want to start your blogging website and share meaningful and quality content with your readers, the only means is your desktop, laptop, or even smartphone with good internet connectivity.
Hardware costs could range from $200- $2000.
Usually, the hardware cost depends upon your configuration requirements.
However, it’s hard to believe that aspiring bloggers don’t have a desktop or laptop and internet connectivity in today’s world.
Still, sometimes we need to upgrade or buy a new computer, so cost is involved.
If you are blogging for fun, you need not spend more. Any average configuration model of a computer would work well for you.
But if you think blogging is your business, you need a highly configured computer or laptop to handle all your blogging website requirements.
Remember, it is worth spending if you want to earn from blogging.
Hobby Bloggers
- The Hobby blogger has to spend on the desktop, which will cost around $170-180 from Amazon.
- If Hobby Blogger has a desktop or laptop, the hardware cost would be NIL.
Side-Bloggers
- The Side- Bloggers who do blogging side-by-side of their job have to upgrade their simple laptops and have high configuration and functionality installed in their laptops.
- Further, they need to spend on a smartphone with suitable camera pixels to capture pictures and record their videos.
- So, their hardware expenditure would be around $500-$1500.
Full-time Bloggers
- Full-Time bloggers are those who are very serious about their blogging business.
- They need a good configuration laptop, high-speed internet connectivity, and a smartphone with excellent camera pixels.
- Additionally, they required a good-quality microphone for their blogging business.
- A full-time blogger must make videos regularly, do podcasting, and do many other related things.
- Thus, the hardware they bear would cost them around $2000 or even more.
| Hobby Blogger(<$200) | Side-Blogger ($500-$1500) | Full-Time Blogger (>2000) |
| Desktop Cost=$0-$200 | Laptop Cost +Smart phone cost+ Microphone cost =$500-$1500 | Laptop cost+ Smartphone/DSLR Camera cost +Microphone cost=>$2000 |
II. Domain Name Cost
The domain name is your website address that helps readers to find your website. It will cost around $0 to $ 20.
I am saying “$0” because, when you take website hosting, the domain name may be free with that hosting for some time.
Whether you are Hobby Blogger, Side- Blogger, or a Full-Time Blogger, you must take a domain name.
There are many platforms where you could easily take it for minimum cost. Like-
- GoDaddy (between $5 to $10/year) generally charges around $10 for .com extensions. Its price varies for different Domain TLDs.
- Name Cheap (8.98/year)- Name Cheap charges 8.98/year for .com extension. And for renewing .com, you have to pay $13.98.
- Google Domain ($12/year)- Google Domain charges $ 12 for .com. For premium TDL, you have to pay more, like for-.academy, which charges $30, .center it charges $20, .reviews it charges $20 and so on.
- HostGator ($12.95/year)- HostGator charges $12.95 per year for TLD .com, .net, .org. It also has some premium extensions and charges applicable accordingly.
After the domain name, you must take website hosting, i.e., a server where your website would be accessible worldwide.
Before going to the hosting details in the next point, remember that many hosting platforms provide a free domain name; that’s why the cost of the domain, in that case, would be $ 0.
III. Web Hosting Cost
Web Hosting is the server where you place your blogging website, accessible to everyone. More than 40% of the website you see on the internet uses WordPress programs.
Before hosting, you should take WordPress.org, the free content management system for your blogging. Read our blog on the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
Many platforms provide hosting with free domain names.
More curious to know about web hosting, must-read blogs are
1. The best monthly web hosting
2. The best cheap web hosting
3. How to choose web hosting providers
4. Free Website Hosting Services
GoDaddy charges $8.99/month for an economic plan for 1 website and gives a free domain for 1 year when you purchase domain extensions like biz, club, UK, com, net, org, co, info, solutions, etc.
One of the best platforms for website hosting. Even if you are a hobby blogger, it’s easy to afford. The basic plan of Bluehost charges $2.95/month for website hosting.
Disclosure:
Please note that some links include affiliate links that have no additional cost to you; I‘ll earn a little commission out of it, which helps me create quality and well-researched content completely free for my readers. I recommend only those products which personally I feel are helpful for my reader’s blogging journey.
Another name that you could hear is the Name Cheap.
It is also one of the inexpensive hostings. It will cost you around $1.88/month and free domain extension for- .fun, .host, .online, .site, .press, .store, .space, .pw, .tech, .website, .agency, .center, .digital, .live and .studio for their stellar plan.
Similarly, you can see domain extensions for stellar plus ($2.98/month) and stellar business ($4.98/ month).
HostGator is also easy to afford. It charges $2.75/Month for shared hosting and gives the domain free.
Whether you are Hobby Blogger, Side-Blogger, or Full-time Blogger, you must invest in Bluehost for your website hosting. It is the best and most reputed one.
IV. Word Press Themes Cost
WordPress (.org) is a free and open content management system. There are many free and paid Word Press themes available.
If you are a Hobby blogger, you can use free Word Press Themes like Ocean WP, Astra, Store Front, and Neve, to name some free themes.
As per my experience, investing in the paid version of the Word Press Themes would be better if you are a side blogger or Full-time blogger.
Our website Mssaro.com uses Astra Pro Themes.
Astra has an excellent free version too. Astra’s performance is awe-inspiring; it has a lot of customization options and proper training documents to enhance your knowledge.
So that you can enhance and improve your website’s look and feel. As a hobby blogger, you could easily take advantage of the Astra Free version, with many essential features you could use and implement in your blogging website. You can download Astra themes from here.
But if you are a side-blogger or a full-time blogger, you must invest in the Astra pro version ($49/ year).
You could see one more paid word press theme though it is a bit costly- Elegant Word press themes ($89/ year).
| Hobby Blogger | Side-Blogger | Full-Time Blogger |
| Astra Free Themes $0 | Astra pro ($49) | Astra Pro ($49) or Elegant ($89) |
V. Essential Word Press Plug-Ins Cost (in WordPress)
You should take and use many WordPress plug-ins as a blogger as per your requirements.
As a Hobby Blogger, you should not worry about plug-ins. There are many essential tools that you should incorporate into your blog, like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Instagram Feed.
So, for Hobby Bloggers, there will be no cost concerning plug-ins.
The cost differs for Side-bloggers and Full-Time Bloggers as they are serious about earning from their blogs. The essential tools or plug-ins required to enhance your website visibility are as follows.
1. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the best tools to make your content SEO-friendly.
The free version of Yoast SEO helps enhance your ranking in search engines and automatically takes care of your website’s technical SEO.
The most popular version of Yoast SEO premium plug-in will cost you $99/ year.
2. Akismet
Akismet is spam protection for Word press.
Spam hurts website credibility, and manually filtering spam is time-consuming.
Akismet, a popular plan, will cost you $8.33/year; taking the plan every month will cost you $ 10/month. The detailed pricing of Akismet is as below.
3. Easy Table of Content
It is a user-friendly plugin that automatically generates and inserts the table of contents into your blogs.
It is open-source software, which means it is a free WordPress plugin.
4. Short Pixel
Short Pixel automatically reduces the size of the images you regularly post on your blog.
Thus, ease in website loading. It optimizes images and PDFs.
5. WP Form
The Word Press plugin allows bloggers to include any form on their website.
VI. Email Marketing Tool Cost ($0-$49)
By Email marketing, you could earn lots of traffic and make your blog profitable.
It is how you directly connect with your genuine readers who have subscribed to your blogging website.
You could easily convey to them your blogs and updates related to your blogging and about some new things you are launching shortly.
A Hobby Blogger could go for Mail Chimp; it’s free up to 2000 contacts.
And as soon as you realize you are heading toward a full-time blogger, go for the paid email marketing tool. The best available is AWeber or Convert Kit or Get Response.
As a side- blogger or full-time blogger, you should go for the best email marketing tool- AWeber or Convert Kit or Get Response.
| Get Response Cost/ Subscribers | AWeber Cost/ Subscribers | Convert Kit Cost/ Subscribers |
| $15/ 0-1000 | $1/ 0-500 | $29/ 0-1000 |
| $25/ 1001-2500 | $10/ 501-2500 | $49/1000-3000 |
| $45/ 2501-5000 | $30/2501-5000 | $79/3000-5000 |
| $65/ 5001-10000 | $50/5001-10000 | $119/ Up to 10000 |
VII. Security Cost
As we are in blogging business, we must secure our blogs.
So, we have to take care of the same. If you take your website hosting from Bluehost, you are fortunate to have one level of inbuilt security.
If you want additional security, it would be better to go with Wordfence ($99/ year) or, even better, Cloudflare ($200/Month)
Cloudflare pricing
VIII. Miscellaneous Cost
Though, I have given an overview of the cost involved in the blogging business.
Still, many miscellaneous costs are involved, like costs incurred for website taxation, if you want to register your website logo, then trademark charges, if you want to add your blog videos on youtube, then video editor tools like Movavi charges, and many more.
As your blogging business grows, your investment will grow, and simultaneously your earnings will also grow.
How Important is WordPress for your Blogging Business to run
WordPress is highly important for businesses due to its numerous benefits and capabilities.
It’s easy to use, and it gives you the power to create a professional website, appr. 810 million of websites are using WordPress worldwide in 2024.
Here are some reasons why WordPress is important for businesses:
- Versatility: You can used WordPress to create various types of websites, not just blogs. WordPress is a powerful tool and makes it easy to publish text, images, videos and audio on the web. WordPress can help you if you are creating online business site, e-commerce site or any other business site.
- Cost-effective: WordPress is free. And it’s one of my favourite features of this content management system. WordPress is an open-source platform. This means that you can get started without worrying about any upfront costs.
- Customizability: WordPress suggest number of themes and plugins which help you in creating customize website for your business you can choose as per your product, brand and functionality requirements.
- SEO-friendly: WordPress is SEO friendly it designed by keeping in mind of search engine optimization. WordPress have built-in feature which can help you to optimized your business.
- Community and Support: WordPress online community is large and active they have number of knowledgeable people in community who are ready to answer any question related to WordPress, they provide updates, resource so that platform remain safe and up to date.
- Scalability: WordPress scalability means preparing your website from unexpected traffic spikes, WordPress can help in growth and growing needs of the business.it may be by adding new feature, increasing product line and increasing in traffic.
Overall, WordPress offers businesses a flexible, customizable, cost-effective, and scalable platform for building and maintaining their online presence.
Top Benefits of WordPress
Conclusion
From this blog, you will know the initial cost incurred by Hobby bloggers, Side-Bloggers, and Full-time Bloggers.
As a Hobby blogger, your investment will be less than that of the side bloggers.
And side-blogger’s investment will be less as compared to full-time bloggers.
Summary- How Much Does it Cost to Launch a Blogging Website
| Cost | Hobby Blogger | Side- Blogger | Full-Time Blogger |
| Hardware Cost | Desktop Cost* ($0) | Upgradation of Laptop+ Smart Phone $500 | Upgradation of Laptop+ Smart Phone+ Microphone Cost $500-$2000 |
| Domain Name | $ 0-$10 | $0-$10 | $0-$10 |
| Web Hosting | $2.95 | $5.45 | $5.45 |
| WordPress Themes | $0 | $49 | $49 |
Note: *If you already have a desktop or laptop, otherwise the cost would be around <$200.
Please write to us in the comment section for any queries or valuable feedback. We will be happy to hear from you.
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(FAQ) Frequently Asked Questions on How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog
A- Blogging costs depend on bloggers’ types- hobby, side, and full-time bloggers.
Hobby bloggers incurred costs <$200.
Side blogger has to incur costs around $500- $ 2000.
Full-time blogger incurred cost >$2000
A Web Hosting is a server where you place your blogging website, accessible to everyone. That means the hosting company will host your website, which a reader can access by typing your domain name in the browser, like mssaro.com
