How Much does it Cost to have a Professional Blog? Free or Self-Hosted

One of the most frequent questions people asked me is: “how much does it cost to start a blog?“

To be a blogger, one must have a blog: which means having a website. 

By updating the website with blog posts, it becomes a blog. So, the first question should be how much does it cost to run a website for a blog purpose?

From free to a couple of hundreds of dollars, you will know how much you need to start your own website. Plus, depending on your ultimate goal for your blog, the price can vary.

Also, I will tell you how much my blog cost when I started it.

What type of blog do you want to create?

This should be the first question you need to ask yourself. As the answer will change the future cost for your blog.

There are two main types of blog possible:

1. Amateur blog: your blog is on a free platform, you’re limiting your investments as maybe you’re not sure if you want to blog or not. You use it as a diary more than an online business activity.
2. Professional blog: you wish to make a living from blogging. You are going to create a real business around it, using your content to promote your own products or even sell your services.

To make it clear, if you want to stay at the amateur level, blogging can be free.

But, if you want to step up and act as professional bloggers, like any business, you’ll have to invest a bit. I belong to the second group, and you?

N°1 The Amateur’s Choice: Creating your Blog for Free

Yes, having a blog can be free.

Costing you zero dollar (or P 0). I am now living in the Philippines so I also used Philippine Peso.

For that you need to sign up and create your blog on a free blogging platform such as WordPress.com, Blogger.com or Wix.com (the most popular ones).

There you can access several tools to publish your content. 

You’ll also be able to select free themes to personalize the design of your website. As a result, you can start without investing anything.

However, nothing comes free. The biggest inconvenient of a free blog is that you won’t have full control of your website.

The blog you created isn’t yours and at any time, a free blogging platform can delete your website if you’re not complying with their terms.

More than that, how limited those platforms can be, will very soon frustrate you.

Why is a free blogging platform only for amateurs?

Many features that professional bloggers use cannot be found on a free blogging platform. 

Here are the main limitations of using those:

1. The name of your blog: your blog will have a default name including the one of your platform such as: “www.mynewblog.blogspot.com” for Blogger, or” www.mynewblog.wordpress.com” for WordPress. We agree that it is not very professional. You’d like to have only the name you’ve chosen for your blog appearing.
2. The design of your blog: the personalization of your blog will be limited. First, the choice of themes is few. Plus, those existing themes, freely offered by those platforms, often give you poor flexibility. So, it will often be hard to change any of their layouts.
3. The features of your blog: the features available on a free blogging platform are often not customized. Which means that if it fits with your needs, good thing. Else, if your needs are more advanced, a free blogging platform won’t suit you.
4. Storage Space: for sure, if you want to illustrate your blog post, have a nice design, you’ll have to upload pictures on your website. This will be an issue if you have a photography or travel blog. For those and many others, you have to upload tons of images on your website. And free blogging platforms offer limited storage: 3GB on WordPress.com. You’ll be soon exceeding its space.
5. Monetization: even if Blogger.com authorizes you to insert Google Adsense to monetize your blog, WordPress.com doesn’t not permit Adsense. If you want to earn money from ads, forget it there.

Many other cons exist that I’m not listing: such as poor or no integrations with other services (Google Analytics, Autoresponders…), no plugins, add-on can be very expensive, limited personal branding, limited traffic (bandwidth), slow loading possible, etc.

Or just the fact that the company has the right to read and access any of your content.

If you’re really serious about blogging, you’ll have moments where free blogging platforms’ limitations will be frustrating.

Note that a free blogging platform can actually end up more expensive because of their paying add-on features than if you had started with a professional hosting right from the beginning.

The intermediary solution for free blogging platform

What some bloggers do to hide the fact that they’re using a free platform, is purchasing their own domain.

So that the default name does not appear: you won’t have the “www.yoursite.blogspot.com”. As it will be your own name displaying, most people won’t notice that you’re using a free platform. 

Which is why it is an intermediary solution.

This allows you to work on your personal branding at least.

And that only costs you the price of your domain name, usually around $10, if it is not taken.

So, if you’re serious about blogging as an activity, I don’t recommend using a free blogging platform. And go for a professional blog with a self-hosted website.

N°2 The Professional Blog: Stepping up in your Online Activity

Now, we are talking.

If you want to have more freedom in terms of customization of your blog, you’ll certainly start using WordPress.org and signing up with a hosting service.

First, don’t be confused with WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

1. WordPress.com is the free blogging platform I was talking about above, which is good to use for hobby bloggers.
2. WordPress.org is called the “the real WordPress”. You just need a domain name and a web hosting. As a result, you’ll have what we call a self-hosted WordPress website.

That’s what all professional bloggers, living from their website, use. And that’s what I use.

Because we have full control of our website, we’re free to do anything and customize it as much as we want.

How to start then?

Get the hosting service first (mandatory)

To use WordPress.org, you need a hosting service. It will be your first investment, and certainly the biggest one at the beginning.

The price varies per Web Hosting, it can be very expensive per month, depending on your needs and depending on the hosting you choose.

The most famous ones are Bluehost, WPengine, Godaddy, or Siteground. After researching a bit, I decided to use Bluehost as many other bloggers.

I am not going to explain too much about why I chose Bluehost, but writing below the main reasons that pushed me to use their service for my blogs:

• The price is one of the cheapest for what they offer. The basic package which is more than enough when you start is only around $3.95/ month.
• The storage space and the bandwidth of the package are enough for my needs (50GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth, meaning the flow of people who can navigate on my site).
• Integrates WordPress right away when you sign up. After purchasing my plan, they directly helped me to set up my WordPress website.
• There is 24/7 customer support. This is really the best. Especially, when you start, you might encounter technical issues that they’ll solve. It has saved me many times already.
• They’re just used and recommended by many professional bloggers. As you can see on my guide.

I offer a 17-page free guide, when signing up, where you can just follow the steps (with screenshots) on how to set up your blog step by step.

By the way, the link to Bluehost is an affiliated one, I would not recommend you something I am not using. I have three websites running with it and I am still with them. Transparently, I chose them because at that time, it was the most affordable professional hosting. 

Going back to the cost of your blog, the first investment you’ll do is to purchase your plan with a Web Hosting.

There are several offers. Depending on how long you commit, the price will vary. The basic package of $2.95/month, (P150), offer for 36 months engagement is enough and that’s what I chose. You can click here to get it. (I was serious about blogging, so the 3 years commitment was fine with me).

[The figures below have been checked in 2019, their pricing or offers might have changed]

I quickly checked Godaddy but for the same price, the offer was less valuable. Maybe you could use the ultimate plan at around $7.95/month / PHP 389 (on sale offer, else it’s $21/month / PHP 1089). It’s the only offer where I saw a SSL certificate given, as their basic plans do not include it.

For Wix, the $12.50/month offer called ultimate, looks decent for online entrepreneurs and freelancers. The $4.5 is too basic.

Anyway, you can look by yourself at the different hosting services, but if you want to invest low and have great value, the basic plan of Bluehost is enough to work with.

As you can see below, when purchasing the plan, you have to pay the full amount right away so it is $142.20 (around PHP 7K).

Are you seeing the “Let’s Encrypt SSL”?

Something you should check as well is if your hosting service offers you a free SSL certificate. On Bluehost, it goes with the plan. Yes, thinking of it, it’s not totally free as you’re purchasing the plan…

In fact, a SSL helps your website begin and look secure for your visitors. That’s why I have the little lock next to my URL on the search bar.

Something you might want to have to make your website look professional.

You might think of, what about my domain name, (the name of your website)? 

If you don’t have one, you just have to type the one you want when signing up and if it can be used. They will use it to create your website, it goes with the hosting price, so no problem here.

If you’ve purchased your hosting plan, congrats, you made your first and biggest step into professional blogging.

Below, I’ll summarize how much I spent when I did it:

In my cart:

• Hosting service (mandatory) / USD 142 (PHP 7K)

Find the theme of your blog

Once you’ve chosen your hosting service and that your WordPress is set up. The first thing you’ll probably do is to design your website.

To do so, you’ll go over the different themes on WordPress. You can easily find free themes. But quickly, you’d like to have your own visual identity.

As a result, you’ll probably purchase your own theme. The price varies around USD 20 to 60 (PHP 1000 to 3000) to purchase your own theme.

For this blog, I use a theme called Noteblog (USD 30), and for my travel one: www.2frenchinmanila.com, Ashe pro (USD 29).

Then, I would actually recommend you more Ashe Pro. As their theme is regularly updated. It tells a lot about their desire to be better long term. I remember contacting the Ashe pro support for an issue, and they solved it quite fast.

Purchasing a theme is optional, they are free themes that might suit your needs.

In the cart:

• Hosting service (mandatory) / USD 142 (PHP 7K)
• Theme (optional) / USD 30 (PHP 1.5K)

Add plugins and extra features

As you know a plugin on WordPress will help you add a specific feature.

For example, if you want to have a floating bar with social share buttons like me, you have to add a plugin on your website.

With WordPress, it is very easy to do. Just go on the plugins section on the left menu and click on “add new”.

Then, the plugins I recommend to install at the beginning are:

• Yoast SEO (for your SEO, easy to guess);
• Social sharing plugin, which will allow you to easily share your content on social media;
• A backup plugin to make sure you have a backup of your website
• And some plugins such as Anti-spam, Autoptimize, WordFence Security…

Most of the plugins that you need for your website can be used freely.

In fact, they are often freemiums: they are basically free but if you want extra options, you’ll need to purchase the pro version.

So, the only plugin I upgraded to the pro version is Social Warfare: I wanted the floating bar. It costs me around USD 25 and it is a one-time payment. The free version is quite enough to be honest.

In the cart:

• Hosting service (mandatory) / USD 142 (PHP 7K)
• Theme (optional) / USD 30 (PHP 1.5K)
• Social media plugin (optional) / USD 25 (PHP 1.2K)

The Final Price for A Professional Blog

Overall, it cost me USD 197 (around PHP 10K) to launch my website. I know it’s quite an investment, but it is worth it, if you’re willing to be a true blogger.

To be honest, it’s not that expensive compared to any other business you can start. Imagine how much you need to even start a small restaurant.

Instead of going on your next trip, maybe you can save that money and start your own professional blog.

I think I could have avoided the last price for the social media plugin. And if you get a free theme, for less. With 4 dollars per month (P 200) you can run your professional website.

Where else you might spend in the future?

You might spend money promoting your blog, maybe on FB ads to promote your visibility. I still prefer working on my SEO rather than paid ads: it is free and brings great traffic.

Somewhere else would be: email marketing. A basic service that you need to have for your blog right from the beginning, is an autoresponder.

It will help you capture emails and send your newsletter. A lot of beginners (and even advanced) bloggers do not implement that and prefer focusing on social media.

As a result, they regret it when they see that Facebook updates its algorithms, that are lowering their reach for instance. 

With emails, you reach 100% of your audience. Everyone receives it. That’s why if you don’t have an autoresponder yet, it’s time to put it in your blog. Most of them are free below 2 000 subscribers, especially the one I use: Mailchimp.

If you need exterior help, it can cost you some money. If you are really bad in design or need help for your SEO or anything else, you’ll have to hire a freelance and their cost can hugely impact your budget.

As for me, I’ve done everything from scratch as WordPress is very easy to use.

Now, on the internet, it’s easy to find free content answering your problems. Especially that WordPress is widely used so there are a lot of bloggers giving their advice.

How much a blog costs isn’t the real question

Answering what your goal for your blog is, will define how much you have to spend for your blog.

If it’s just a hobby or something amateur, it’s best for you to keep your money for something else. As free blogging platforms could be enough and you don’t have any need to improve your blog as you’re not serious about it.

On the other hand, for those who want to go from amateur to professional blogging, yes, they will have to spend a bit.

Today, many think that you can start a blog and develop it without investing. However, they would think it is impossible to create a company without investing anything. .

You can reason the same way with the web.

So, don’t be fooled by those who tell you that they earn from blogging without investing nor personally, nor financially.

Besides, people are ok spending $3 (PHP 150) per day in a Starbucks coffee but not investing $3 per month on their website.

If you really considered blogging as an activity you’ll pursue seriously, you should not hesitate into investing a bit.

To set up your own blog with Bluehost and using WordPress, you can download my guide. And if you have any questions, just comment below, I’ll answer.