WORDPRESS COSTS · PRICES READ 4 NOVEMBER 2026
How much does WordPress cost to run a small business website?
WordPress is free software; the website isn't. Here is every running cost, from hosting and the domain to a theme, plugins, backups, security and someone to keep it updated, each read on the company's own page, with the renewal price beside every sale price and WordPress.com counted separately.
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The short answer
WordPress itself is free, but running a small business website on it isn't: about $108–$144 a year at the bare minimum once the hosting sale price ends, about $485–$531 a year with a premium theme and paid SEO, forms and backup plugins, and about $830–$3,312 a year if a managed host and a maintenance service look after it for you. WordPress.com, which sells the hosting and the WordPress software as one plan, costs $48–$300 a year for a business site on annual billing, plus the domain from year two; its page prints no renewal price.
Every price on this page was read in US dollars on the company's own page on 4 November 2026, before tax. Totals are our arithmetic on those prices, shown under each table.
Two things move the number more than anything else. The first is the hosting renewal: the cheap monthly price in the ad needs three or four years paid at once, and the plan then renews at 2.5 to 5.5 times that. The second is who does the upkeep. WordPress releases updates many times a year, plugins and themes update on their own schedules, and the server's PHP version needs moving every few years. Either that's your time, or it's a maintenance bill.
The costs, one line each
- WordPress.com: $48–$300 a year for a business site on annual billing (Personal $4 to Business $25 a month), plugins included on every paid plan; its page prints no renewal price, and the domain is extra from year two.
- Hosting: advertised at $1.99–$3.99 a month for 3–4 years paid up front, then $7.99–$10.99 a month. Managed WordPress hosting is $350–$420 a year billed yearly (WP Engine's first year is discounted to $336).
- Domain: about $11.81 a year for a .com, usually free the first year with hosting.
- Theme and plugins: optional, but a premium theme and paid SEO, forms and backup plugins add $377–$387 a year at renewal prices.
- Maintenance: $39–$240 a month if you pay someone to keep it updated, backed up and checked.
- Your time: updates, PHP versions and backups are the owner's job unless someone is paid to do them.
WORDPRESS.COM
WordPress.com: the hosted version, one plan
WordPress.com sells hosting and the WordPress software as one plan, so there's no separate hosting bill. These are its four paid plans as its pricing page prints them.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress.com Personal | $4 a month billed yearly ($48 a year) | $9 a month billed monthly |
| WordPress.com Premium | $8 a month billed yearly ($96 a year) | $18 a month billed monthly |
| WordPress.com Business | $25 a month billed yearly ($300 a year) | $40 a month billed monthly |
| WordPress.com Commerce | $45 a month billed yearly ($540 a year) | $70 a month billed monthly |
Paid annual plans include a custom domain free for the first year; monthly plans don't. WordPress.com's support pages say plugins can be installed on every paid plan, and that the free plan has no custom domain and no plugins. The "$2.75" you may see quoted for Personal is its per-month price on a 3-year plan. Prices can change with the currency of the country you're in.
WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress?
They run the same WordPress software, and they're billed in completely different ways. WordPress.com (its pricing page) is one plan: the hosting, the software and the security certificate together, $48–$300 a year for a business site on annual billing, with the domain extra from year two (its page prints no renewal price). Self-hosted WordPress, the free download from WordPress.org, is a kit: you pay a host, a domain registrar and whichever theme and plugin makers you choose, separately, and you (or someone you pay) keep it all updated.
Most of the cost questions owners ask are about the self-hosted kind, because that's where the bills multiply. The rest of this page prices it item by item.
HOSTING
How much does WordPress hosting cost?
Shared WordPress hosting is the cheap kind: your site shares a server with others. Managed WordPress hosting is faster and the host looks after more of WordPress for you. The renewal column is the one to budget on.
| Host and plan | Advertised price | What it renews at |
|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Premium (shared WordPress hosting) | $1.99 a month on 48 months paid up front ($95.52 today) | $10.99 a month, about $132 a year |
| Bluehost Starter (shared WordPress hosting) | $3.99 a month on 36 months paid up front ($143.64 today) | $9.99 a month, about $120 a year |
| DreamHost Launch (shared WordPress hosting) | $1.99 a month on 48 months paid up front ($95.52 today) | $7.99 a month, about $96 a year |
| WP Engine Essential (managed WordPress hosting) | $336 the first year, billed yearly (shown as $28 a month, with a first-year discount for new customers) | $420 a year without the first-year discount |
| Kinsta Single 35k (managed WordPress hosting) | $350 a year billed yearly (shown as $30 a month), or $35 a month billed monthly | no separate renewal price on the page; $350 a year |
The up-front figure is the advertised monthly price × the months it needs (Hostinger prints its $95.52; DreamHost charges "the full term plus taxes" at checkout; Bluehost's $143.64 is our arithmetic). Backups, as the plan cards list them: Hostinger and Bluehost weekly, DreamHost daily. Yearly figures are monthly × 12.
Why the hosting bill jumps
A shared host's headline price is a term, not a monthly price. Hostinger's $1.99 a month is $95.52 paid today for 48 months, and the plan then renews at $10.99 a month (Hostinger). Bluehost's $3.99 needs 36 months and renews at $9.99 (Bluehost); DreamHost's $1.99 covers the first four years and renews at $7.99 (DreamHost).
So the honest yearly figure for shared hosting is the renewal one: about $96–$132 a year. If you're already on a hosting plan, your renewal date and price are in the host's billing page; that's the number to compare against anything else. The same plans, four hosts side by side, are in our small business hosting guide.
Compare before you renew
Or see your website on a plan that includes the upkeep
Add what you do, your town and your business name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line in about 30 seconds. Build, edit and preview free; you pay only when you publish. Already on WordPress? Bring the site across below.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
THE EXTRAS
The domain, theme and plugins: what each costs
None of these is required: WordPress has free themes, and free versions of most popular plugins. These are the paid versions a small business site often ends up with, priced by name, so you can check them against your own renewals.
| What it is | Example and price |
|---|---|
| Domain name (.com) | Porkbun: $11.81 a year, the same at renewal. All three shared hosts above include the first year free; after that it renews at the registrar's own price |
| Premium theme | GeneratePress One (1 site): $99 a year |
| Premium theme | Divi (unlimited sites): $89 a year, or $249 once |
| SEO plugin | Yoast SEO Premium: $118.80 a year, before tax |
| Forms plugin | WPForms Basic (1 site): $49.50 the first year, then $99 a year ("all renewals are at full price") |
| Backup plugin | UpdraftPlus Premium Personal (2 sites): $70 a year |
| Security and malware cleanup | Sucuri Basic Platform (1 site): $229 a year, malware cleanup included |
| Security certificate (the padlock) | Free on all three shared hosts above (Hostinger, Bluehost, DreamHost) |
Prices as each company's own page prints them, in US dollars, before tax. Theme and plugin licences renew yearly unless a lifetime price is shown; a lapsed licence usually stops the updates and support.
MAINTENANCE SERVICES
What WordPress maintenance services cost
A maintenance service (also sold as a care plan) is paying someone to apply the updates, keep backups, watch for problems and fix them. These are published plans for a single site.
| Service and plan | Price | What its page says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| GoWP Pro | $39 a month, $468 a year | automatic updates with visual checks, daily backups kept 90 days, daily security scans and cleanup, helpdesk support |
| WP Buffs Maintain | $89 a month, $1,068 a year | weekly updates, backups four times a day, uptime monitoring, 24/7 emergency support |
| WP Buffs Perform | $239 a month, $2,868 a year | the above plus unlimited edits, speed work and complete malware removal |
| Codeable Basic | $240 a month, $2,880 a year | a developer-run maintenance plan (Codeable also notes that cheaper $30–$50 a month plans exist elsewhere) |
Yearly figures are monthly × 12. Content changes (a new page, a price change) are included on some plans and billed by the hour or capped on others; check before you buy.
THE YEARLY TOTAL
What WordPress costs a year, all in
Three ways of running a self-hosted WordPress site, and WordPress.com for comparison: a typical year once the hosting sale price has ended, built from the prices above.
| Setup | A year | How we worked it out |
|---|---|---|
| Bare minimum: shared hosting and a domain, you do every update | about $108–$144 a year | $7.99–$10.99 a month renewal × 12, plus the $11.81 domain |
| Plus a premium theme and paid SEO, forms and backup plugins | about $485–$531 a year | the bare minimum plus $377–$387 a year in extras at renewal prices (Divi or GeneratePress, Yoast SEO Premium, WPForms Basic, UpdraftPlus) |
| Looked after: managed hosting and a maintenance service | about $830–$3,312 a year | $350–$420 a year managed hosting, the domain, and $39–$240 a month for maintenance × 12; paid plugins on top |
| WordPress.com, a business site | $48–$300 a year | Personal ($4 a month) to Business ($25 a month), billed yearly; the domain is free the first year and extra after that, and the page prints no renewal price |
Our arithmetic on the prices above, rounded to the dollar; managed hosting at its price from year two. The first year is different: the shared hosting sale price needs $95.52–$143.64 paid up front, and the domain is usually free. Security services such as Sucuri ($229 a year) and any developer work are on top.
The cost owners forget: your time
A self-hosted WordPress site needs looking after, and the looking after is either an hour of yours or a line on someone's invoice. What it involves, from WordPress.org's own pages:
- WordPress updates, often. In the 12 months to 28 October 2026, a site kept on the current version of WordPress got releases on 14 separate days, three of them new major versions: 6.9 on 2 December 2025, 7.0 on 20 May 2026 and 7.1 on 19 August 2026 (WordPress.org releases). Small maintenance and security releases install themselves by default; major versions install themselves on sites created since WordPress 5.6, while older installations keep the previous behaviour unless an administrator turns major updates on (WordPress.org).
- Plugins and themes, one by one. Their automatic updates are off until you switch them on, plugin by plugin and theme by theme, and WordPress.org's advice is to make sure you can roll back to a backup first (WordPress.org). Every paid plugin is also a licence to renew, or its updates stop.
- PHP, every few years. PHP is the software your host runs underneath WordPress. WordPress recommends PHP 8.3 or newer (WordPress.org requirements), and each PHP version gets two years of full support and two of security fixes only; PHP 8.2's security support ends on 31 December 2026 (php.net). Depending on the host, you or the host change the PHP version, and checking that every plugin still works afterwards is yours. When a PHP flaw lands, it's the same split: the PHP flaw hitting WordPress sites in October 2026 is fixed by your host updating PHP, not by you updating WordPress.
- Backups you've tested. WordPress.org's upgrade guide says to back up first and to check the backups are there and usable. A backup you've never restored is a hope, not a plan.
None of this is hard on its own. It's the rhythm that costs: a release every few weeks, each theme and plugin licence renewing on its own date, a PHP move every few years. That rhythm is exactly what the maintenance services above sell, from $39 a month.
YOUR OWN NUMBER
How to work out what your WordPress site costs
Five things to look up in the accounts you already have. Fifteen minutes, and you'll know your real yearly figure.
Find your hosting renewal price
Log in to your host's billing page and look for the renewal date and the price the plan renews at, not the price you first paid. Multiply the monthly figure by 12.
Check the domain renewal
In the same account, or at your domain registrar, find what the domain renews at each year. A free first year often hides it.
List your paid theme and plugins
In WordPress, open Plugins and Appearance, then Themes. For each paid one, find the licence email or account and note its yearly renewal.
Check your PHP version
In WordPress, go to Tools, then Site Health, then Info, then Server. If it's older than the version WordPress recommends, change it in your hosting control panel or ask your host to.
Decide who does the upkeep
If it's you, count the hours honestly. If it's a developer or a care plan, add their monthly fee × 12. Then add everything up.
When WordPress is the right call
WordPress is popular for good reasons, and for some businesses the running cost is worth it:
- Someone on your team already runs it well. If the updates, backups and renewals are handled and the site does its job, the cheapest move is usually to stay.
- You publish a lot. A business that lives on articles, a magazine or a large blog gets a lot from WordPress's publishing tools.
- You need a specific plugin. A membership system, an online course, a complex store: if one plugin does exactly what your business needs and nothing else does, that's a real reason.
- You want the files and the server in your own hands. WordPress is open-source software you can move between hosts, and self-hosting gives you full control of it.
If none of those is you, and the site is a few pages that say what you do, where, and how to get in touch, you're paying the running cost of a publishing platform for a job that doesn't need one.
WordPress costs: common questions
WordPress itself is free, but running a small business website on it isn't: about $108–$144 a year at the bare minimum once the hosting sale price ends, about $485–$531 a year with a premium theme and paid SEO, forms and backup plugins, and about $830–$3,312 a year if a managed host and a maintenance service look after it for you. WordPress.com, which sells the hosting and the WordPress software as one plan, costs $48–$300 a year for a business site on annual billing, plus the domain from year two; its page prints no renewal price. Every figure is read in US dollars on the provider's own page on 4 November 2026.
The software is free to download from WordPress.org; running a website on it isn't. You pay for hosting and a domain at the least, about $108–$144 a year once the hosting sale price ends, plus any premium theme, paid plugins and maintenance you choose.
Shared WordPress hosting is advertised at $1.99–$3.99 a month, but only with three or four years paid up front, and renews at $7.99–$10.99 a month (DreamHost, Bluehost, Hostinger). Managed WordPress hosting is $350–$420 a year billed yearly (Kinsta, WP Engine), with WP Engine's first year discounted to $336. On WordPress.com, hosting is part of the plan.
Published care plans for one site run from $39 a month (GoWP Pro: automatic updates, daily backups, security scans) to $89–$239 a month at WP Buffs and $240 a month for Codeable's developer-run Basic plan, so about $468–$2,880 a year. Check whether content changes are included or billed by the hour.
For a simple business site, often yes once the hosting sale price ends: WordPress.com's Personal plan is $48 a year billed yearly with plugins included, plus the domain's renewal from year two (its page prints no renewal price for the plan itself), against about $108–$144 a year for shared hosting and a domain. Self-hosting is cheapest in the sale years, and gives you more control over the server.
No. WordPress has free themes, and free versions of most popular SEO, forms and backup plugins. The paid versions add features and support; whether they're worth it depends on the site. What catches owners out is the renewal: WPForms, for example, sells its first year at half price and says all renewals are at full price.
Yes, if you publish a lot, need a plugin nothing else offers, or someone on your team already runs it well. For a few-page small business site, the running cost and the upkeep are often more than the job needs, and a website builder that includes hosting and updates in one plan is simpler.
The upkeep. WordPress, its plugins, its theme and the PHP underneath it each update on their own schedule, and on a self-hosted site keeping them current, backed up and working together is your job or a paid service's. The bills are also spread across several companies, each with its own renewal date.
Yes, in a few ways. WordPress.com keeps you on WordPress with the hosting in one plan. A website builder includes hosting and upkeep, and some rebuild your site from its address: Hostinger's AI Website Cloner calls its result "a close starting point, not a pixel-perfect duplicate" (a free trial to start, a paid plan to publish), and Zarla rebuilds your pages, words and photos in a new design, free to see and edit, with Premium needed to publish.
If it's the running you're tired of
If WordPress itself is fine and it's the hosting renewals, the plugin licences and the updates you'd rather not deal with, there are two honest ways out. WordPress.com keeps you on WordPress with hosting in one plan. Or a website builder (Wix, Squarespace, Zarla and others) includes hosting and upkeep in its plan; most mean rebuilding the site, and some rebuild it for you from its address. Hostinger's AI Website Cloner recreates a site "as an editable site you can build on", which its page calls "a close starting point, not a pixel-perfect duplicate", with a free trial to start and a paid plan to publish (Hostinger).
Zarla does that too. Paste your WordPress site's address and it rebuilds your pages, words and photos in a new design in a few minutes, free to see and edit; you pay when you publish, on Premium, with hosting and updates part of the plan. Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built. Your current site stays live until you point your domain at the new one. Bring your WordPress site across.
Where these numbers come from
Every price was read in US dollars on the company's own page on 4 November 2026, before tax; sale prices change often, so check the page before you buy. Totals are our arithmetic on those prices. Our website cost guide quotes WPBeginner's and Codeable's typical published figures for the same WordPress costs; this page prices each item on its own company's page, so its totals differ: they're two honest reads of the same costs, from different sources. Related: website hosting for small businesses.
- WordPress.com — Pricing — read 4 November 2026
- WordPress.com Support — Choose a WordPress.com plan — page dated 30 October 2026, read 4 November 2026
- Hostinger — WordPress Hosting plans (US) — read 4 November 2026
- Bluehost — WordPress Hosting plans (US) — read 4 November 2026
- DreamHost — WordPress Hosting plans (US) — read 4 November 2026
- WP Engine — Plans — read 4 November 2026
- Kinsta — Pricing — read 4 November 2026
- Porkbun — .com domain — read 4 November 2026
- GeneratePress — Premium (GeneratePress One) — read 4 November 2026
- Elegant Themes — Divi pricing — read 4 November 2026
- Yoast — Yoast SEO Premium — read 4 November 2026
- WPForms — Pricing — read 4 November 2026
- UpdraftPlus — Premium pricing — read 4 November 2026
- Sucuri — Website Security Platform plans — read 4 November 2026
- GoWP — Pricing — read 4 November 2026
- WP Buffs — WordPress Care Plans — read 4 November 2026
- Codeable — WordPress Maintenance Pricing for 2026 — page dated 17 March 2026, read 4 November 2026
- WordPress.org — Releases — read 4 November 2026
- WordPress.org — Upgrading WordPress (automatic background updates) — page dated 28 October 2026, read 4 November 2026
- WordPress.org — Plugin and themes auto-updates — page dated 13 January 2023, read 4 November 2026
- WordPress.org — Requirements — page dated 7 May 2026, read 4 November 2026
- PHP — Supported Versions — read 4 November 2026
- Hostinger — AI Website Cloner — read 4 November 2026
See your website with hosting and upkeep in one plan
Describe your business in one line, or paste your WordPress site's address, and Zarla builds the site: pages, words, photos and the Google setup, with hosting and upkeep part of the plan. Free to build and preview; you pay only when you publish.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.