In this era of digitalization, every entrepreneur now knows the importance of having a website for their business. But how to get that website developed and how much would be the cost to develop a WordPress website are usually two of the biggest questions needed to be answered.
There are numerous free and pay to use CMSs available. However, WordPress is one of the most popular and widely used Content Management System (CMS), which is loved by most web development companies. WordPress can be used to create outstanding websites for all kinds of businesses, irrespective of their scale of operations. As per the statistics, around 63.5% of all the total websites that have been built using a CMS, are built using WordPress, which is 37.4% of all the websites available over the internet
Although WordPress is a free-to-use platform, yet if you go for custom WordPress development, there are some implicit costs, which you will have to bear. WordPress also has its separate plugin known as WooCommerce to create scalable and robust e-commerce websites.
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What is WordPress?
WordPress is free to use, open-source CMS written in PHP. It comes with several intriguing templates and plugins to help developers create attractive and fully functional websites with ease. It is an easy-to-use platform for even those who don’t have professional knowledge of coding. If we go by the words of a top WordPress development company, it is one of the easiest and most compelling blogging and website CMS in existence today. If you are a start-up, you can build a small-scale website and scale it up as your business flourishes.
Types of Websites you can build using WordPress
WordPress is that one universal CMS, which can be used to develop any website you want for your business.
Here are a few examples of the types of websites, which you can create using this CMS.
1. Blogs
Out of 5 blogs available over the internet, 3 are created on WordPress. This is one of the easiest and most preferred CMS to create blogs, for both personal and professional use.
For those who are not aware of what blogs are, a blog is a website or rather an online platform where one can share thoughts, pictures, travel experiences, food, shopping, and a lot more.
2. E-commerce Website
If you are looking for an eCommerce website development solution, that too, without much trouble, WordPress is one of the best CMS available. You can easily add thousands of products to your website, integrate payment and shipping options, and a lot more. WordPress has a separate plugin called WooCommerce that allows you to extend the functionality of your website.
3. Business Website
Whether you are a start-up or an already established business, having a website built on WordPress won’t disappoint you. WordPress has a wide collection of free-to-use themes and templates, which you can use to mark your online presence and attract users. You can also customize your website per your business requirements or get custom WordPress development services of a top-rated web development company for advanced customization.
4. Membership Website
There are a few websites, which ask their users to log in. So, these websites are known as membership websites as the content can only be viewed by the members or those who have login IDs and passwords. WordPress is great at handling membership websites and has some amazing plugins for better performance.
5. Portfolio
If you are an artist or a creative person and want to show your work online with a portfolio, WordPress lets you create them quite easily. So, if you own an event management company or if you are a photographer, displaying your work over WordPress is a great option.
6. E-learning Website
The E-learning industry is booming these days, especially when everyone is at home. This pandemic brought a revolutionary transformation in the traditional schooling system, and now most schools, colleges, and universities are conducting online classes. Studying online is a new trend. Though there are already many websites available, which allow students and teachers to come together on an online platform and study, still, the demand for eLearning website development is never-ending. WordPress has some special plugins like WordPress LMS that offer amazing benefits to your websites. These plugins and advanced features might increase the WordPress website cost of development.
Why Choose WordPress for Your Project?
WordPress offers endless possibilities when it comes to website customization. You can hire WordPress developers for your project, let them know all your requirements, and just wait for the results. With advanced plugins and interactive themes, WordPress developers can do wonders for your website.
To make things more clearer, we have listed some of the benefits of getting your website developed using WordPress.
Easy to use
Creating and managing your website on WordPress is easy. A person who does not knows coding can also manage WordPress websites quite easily, with a little bit of practice.
Free-to-use
WordPress.org is free to download and use. All you need to use is your hosting and domain name, and you are good to go.
Versatility
You can easily create almost anything and everything using WordPress, from a blog to a large e-commerce store, there is no end to its possibilities.
Large community
WordPress is an open-source platform that isn’t owned by a single company or entity. There is a large active community of developers and users, who work hard and contribute a lot towards making this CMS all way better.
Easy to write codes
As discussed earlier, this CMS is really easy to use, and anyone can develop their website using WordPress. A person needs not to be proficient in coding to build a website. While WordPress utilizes a variety of coding languages, there’s no need to know any of them to use WordPress.
Plugins
As per a top-rated WordPress development company, one of the main reasons for WordPress being so popular is the availability of extensive plugins. Some of the most popular WordPress plugins are Yoast (for SEO), WooCommerce (for e-commerce), and WordPress LMS. One can easily download these plugins from the WordPress.org plugin directory.
Themes
WordPress has a large collection of attractive and creative themes, which can be customized quite easily. You can use these themes to create an engaging design and layout for your website. Using pre-defined themes and templates, one can easily create a website with simple drag and drop options, without working too much around the code.
Security
Websites built on WordPress are highly safe and secure. Also, hiring WordPress developers to create your website can eliminate the chances of errors.
With these benefits, WordPress also comes with some notable features. Here are just a few of the most significant features of WordPress:
- SEO-friendly
- Responsive Designs
- Mobile-Friendly
- Built-in Media Library
- Interactive User Interface
- Built-in Blog
- Block Editor
After discussing about WordPress and the benefits of using this CMS, let’s discuss how much does WordPress website cost and other factors of WordPress web development.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
Some people often get confused with WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org. If we talk about WordPress.org, it is from where you can download the WordPress software and install it in the system to use it. Here you will need to have your domain name and hosting to create a website. Whereas, if we talk about WordPress.com, it is the hosted version of WordPress. Over here, all you need to do is to create your WordPress account and start making your website. You need to purchase a separate web hosting or a domain name for your website.
Cost Affecting Factors to Build a Custom WordPress Website
We have already touched this point above that although WordPress is a free platform to use, creating a customized website may cost you some money. To make things clear we have broken this WordPress website development cost into various factors:
- Domain Name
- Web Hosting
- SSL Certificates
- Themes
- Plugins
Let’s begin with discussing each of them in detail
1. Domain Name
Getting a domain name for your website usually costs between $10 to $30 every year. A domain is nothing but a URL of your website that the users will search for your website. In simple words, it is the name by which you want people to search your website. For example, facebook.com, WordPress.com, etc. are the domains. There are various sites from where you can purchase your domains like GoDaddy, and Bigrock.co, Namecheap, and many more.
WordPress also offers free domain names, but if you want people to trust your business and take it seriously, you must consider buying your domain name, it is something that represents the intention and purpose of your business. You must ensure the safety of your personal information while purchasing the domain name. There are a few sites that record your personal information, which can be bad for your business. So always try purchasing it from a trusted site.
2. Web Hosting
After you are done with your domain name, you must buy web hosting for your website. A web hosting is a server where your website lies, in simple words, it is home to your website. The price of web hosting depends on the type of hosting you take. It may cost you approx. between $30 to $900 per year.
There are three types of web hosting:
- Shared hosting
- Dedicated hosting
- VPS hosting
You can also buy hosting services from WordPress itself, but this will cost you a tad bit more than the others. If you have a new website with less traffic, you may go for shared hosting as this will cost you less. Once your website starts getting a lot of traffic, you may change your web hosting from a shared one to dedicated, although this will cost you more, but will be able to handle all that website traffic easily, as more traffic will slow down your website’s speed by putting pressure on the server.
VPS hosting is one of the most common types of hosting, which businesses usually prefer. VPS hosting stands for Virtual Private Server and is more secure and stable than shared hosting but less than the dedicated one. This is good for websites with medium web traffic.
3. SSL Certificates
SSL certificates are important to keep the websites secure. They digitally bind a cryptographic key to all your details and keep it safe. Also, users trust websites with SSL certificates more in comparison with the ones that don’t have any such SSL certificates. Having an SSL certificate may cost you around $50 to $200 per year.
4. Themes
This is where most of the money goes while creating a website. Although there are several free templates and themes available that do not require any payment. However, if you are looking for custom WordPress development, the cost for these themes may go as high as around $50,000.
You must choose the theme that matches all your website’s requirements. For example, if you are planning to create an e-commerce website, you may choose WooCommerce themes that are available in WordPress. If you are a beginner, you may opt for these free themes but for websites with high traffic, it is suggested to always go for customized templates, as free themes may have some compatibility issues or may not be mobile responsive.
5. Plugins
Plugins and extensions are really helpful in expanding the functionality of your website. Although there are a few free plugins available in WordPress, the premium ones comes with a cost. Depending upon your requirement these plugins may cost you somewhere around $426 – $1,587.
How Much Does it Cost to Build A Custom WordPress Website?
With all these above-mentioned factors, the development time taken by a web development company on your project plays an important role. So, by considering all these factors, the total cost to develop a WordPress website will be around $1000 to $50,000. However, this amount is totally dependent on your project requirements and the features, plugins, and themes which you have included in your website.
Conclusion
WordPress is one of the primarily used CMS to create all kinds of websites, for all sorts of businesses. Some of the most successful businesses are using websites that have been developed using this outstanding CMS. Websites developed using this WordPress are highly secure and scalable.
Using a plethora of themes and plugins available, one can easily create the website of their dreams. If you want, you can build a no-cost website by using the features available for free, but if you are planning to have a customized website that syncs with all your business needs, then you will have to pay a little extra.
