How Much Does Wordpress Really Cost?
January 26th, 2009 | by Conrad Walton |Wordpress is free.
I saw an article recently listing 10 free web site building tools. Most of them take a while to figure out. They won’t all let you do what you want to do. None were expandable to your own site if you ever wanted to take the next step, from “free” to “owning your own”.
The biggest cost is time.
In my experience with Wordpress, and I’m coming at this from a developer point of view, it’s much easier and intuitive to learn to use Wordpress than with any other platform out there. When I build a site for a client using Wordpress, it’s much easier to train them and get them up to speed on Wordpress than other systems that I’ve tried.
Let’s look at the cost it would take to put a wordpress site on your own server and run it for a year. Domain name is $10. Don’t pay more than that for a domain name. Hosting packages can be had for less than $80 a year. Call the whole thing $100 for a year of hosting your own site.
If you use a good host, they would have an auto install version of Wordpress. Click, click, bang. It’s set up. Play with a theme. Spend too much time looking on line for a theme. Download, install. Play with plug ins. Download, install. Write a few posts. Create a few pages. Change the layout a bit. Call it 8 hours total, from start to having your own blog on line, working, with your own theme and content. You have added the plug-ins that you wanted, the theme that you wanted, the layout, the content, the menu. All of it is exactly what you want.
The cost in time is really because you have TOO MANY options. If you can be satisfied with what comes out of the box, then a Wordpress site can be set up in 20 minutes.
Compare that to another free host. Set up is quick and easy. Pick a theme. There are 20. Write a post. Change the layout? No. Can’t do that. Put the menu on the other side? No. Can’t do that. You want to post video? No. Can’t do that either. Podcast? Special functionality? Nope. None of that.
You’ve spent the same 8 hours trying to do stuff and not being able to that you would have on Wordpress. It’s $100 cheaper and maybe that’s the difference for you. It doesn’t look quite like you want it to and it doesn’t have quite the right functionality. It’s harder to use and takes longer to post than Wordpress. If it takes 3 minutes longer and you make 20 posts, that’s an hour. How many posts in a year?
This reminds me of the difference between Windows and a Mac. The Mac costs a bit more to start, but lasts twice a long, lets you work twice as fast, and makes it easier to do anything you want. Which is a better deal? How much is your time worth? How much money do you have?
It’s all up to you, but if you have $100 to spend on a web site for a year, spend it and build a Wordpress site. You’ll thank me at the end of the year.
Tags: beginner, cheap, development, free, small business web, starter, web development, web hosting, web site, webhost, Wordpress
Fair Winds and Calm Seas,
Deborah Leon
www.mermaidspurseseaglass.com
I stumbled this way, and you offer some insightful info, thanks, just what I needed. I’m a digital artist and definitely not foreign to code but I haven’t the foggiest idea on creating my own website. I’ve wanted to build one for some time, not sure even how to go about it but I’ll eventually figure it out.
can’t believe you deleted my comment?
Great article, it reminded me of one I wrote a while back called Can You Put Up a Web Site for Less Than $100?. I’ll definitely be pointing people to this piece. Thanks. Chris
@Genevieve – It took me a while to approve your comment. I didn’t delete it. As a token of my appreciation for your comment, I linked to your new site in a later post. Thanks!
@Chris – It looks like you and I have similar interests. I’ll be checking out your site.
Mr. Walton,
It is true, what you say. I have tried Drupal, Joomla, and a couple of “Site Builder” scripts, but by far the easiest and most powerful, single point platform for web development is WordPress.
I started over at WordPress.com, but I found their security measures too limiting. I signed up with Bluehost.com ($71.00 a year with domain registration and unlimited space and bandwidth — highly recommended), and I fired up six different WordPress blogs.
I would, however recommend fiddling with WordPress-MU if you’re thinking of hosting several blogs on multiple subdomains. I wish I had tried it beforehand. I may still migrate to WordPress-MU, but the learning curve is a little steeper.
All in all, I would have to agree with you. WordPress is powerful, flexible, expandable, and a cinch to use once you figure out its quirks.
Consider yourself linked.
Scott E. Lee’s last blog post..FLASH: Vicki Schneider has dropped out of the Mayoral Race
@ Scott – Thanks for the kind words. I haven’t looked at WP-MU yet, but perhaps I shall.
What are you running for over at http://vote.scottelee.com/ ? Local politics is always fun. I also own and run http://www.elsegundo.net
Sorry it took me so long to respond, I had a meltdown over at my site. A “friend” of mine thought he was playing with my local copy of my blog, when in fact he was hot online through an FTP.
He wiped my local directories AND the server directories. I lost EVERYTHING. Luckily, there’s a WP plugin WP-DBManager that can be configured to email a copy of the MySQL DB in a .gz file. Saved my life! I’m in the process of rebuilding at the moment.
But to answer your question, I am running regular WP 2.7.1 (Update just came out today) on seven subdomains. Seven almost identical installs. I would have used the WP-MU, but I still don’t know it well enough to go live with it. It looks awesome though.
As for plugins, I run the usual: Akismet, Expanding Text, Extended Options, Google XML Sitemaps, Smart Youtube, Statpress, WordPress.com Stats, WP-Ban, WP-DBManager, and WP-UserOnline. Those are the always active ones. I also have the Maintenance Mode plugin on hot standby for those times I want to tinker with the theme. Oh, my fave theme right now is googlechrome. Clean, easy to tinker with, and it’s really quite good right out of the box.
Scott E. Lee’s last blog post..Oh yes, we’re back … sort of
Several of us recommend WordPress to build ALL business websites, not just those people are thinking of using as blogs (though I DO recommend blogging from each of them). I have 47 URLs but only TWO real web addresses… the others are “parked” on the top two and I use subdirectories for the others, each with a different installation of WordPress. That way I don’t have to worry about ONE database handling everything, or themes that aren’t compatible, or WMU, etc. Takes a bit longer to backup each site because of the redundant WP code, but when I want to spin off one of my sites, all the code is self-sufficient. But long-live WordPress… great product and Google loves it too!
Best,
Charles Seymour Jr
http://twitter.com/UltimateWAHDads
Success-Marketing Work At Home’s last blog post..Marketing Lessons From American Idol РAdam Lambert vs Kris Allen
Dude, it’s hard to take you seriously about web design when your text rolls over your background image.
Normally, I’d say Each to his own, but in this case, it makes for a seriously annoying read.
Just because you *can* do it doesn’t mean you *should.*
Please reconsider.
Ouch! You are exactly right. I got carried away with what I could do and not what I should do, which I’ve been arguing with other designers about for literally years.
I changed it to a solid background for now. I’ve been thinking about a redesign, but have been busy with clients. Maybe now is the time.
Thank you for pointing out my obvious hypocrisy and stupidity. I hang my head.
I am totally new to this. I have just purchased a domain name. Is my next steps to find a host, get a wordpress account, then download a theme? Will that get me going or am I missing something?
Your help is highly appreciated!