Is WordPress Really Expensive? Not At All, Here’s Why!

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Is WordPress expensive?

No! WordPress is not expensive at all. In fact, WordPress is free, as well as thousands of its free themes and plugins you can find on WordPress.org.

Even hosting a WordPress at WordPress.com is free if you go with WordPress.com’s free blog plan! However, if you decide to self host your WordPress website, then that is not free.

The good news is that even self hosting a WordPress site is also not expensive with Shared Hosting plans starting at a mere $2-$3 per month. Some Web Hosting providers will even include your first year’s domain name registration fee.

Is paying for WordPress worth it?

Absolutely! If you’re serious about your online presence, sooner or later, you’re going to have to pay for WordPress hosting. 

Whether that is on WordPress.com or another web hosting provider. If you’ve started a free WordPress blog on their free hosting plan, then it just makes sense that you upgrade to a paid version for much more control over your website. 

In fact, WordPress.com is the only web host that I know of that does offer not only a free blog but also a free hosting plan. 

So if you are already happy with your free WordPress blog or website, then it just makes sense when you are ready to take your website to the next level, that you just upgrade your plan to one of WordPress.com paid plans.

Actually, if you do decide to go the paid hosting route, it will be much easier for you to upgrade from the free WordPress plan to a paid plan. 

If you choose another hosting provider, you would have to migrate your entire WordPress website including all the files, switching nameservers etc. to the new host. 

As you can see from the pricing, WordPress.com’s plans aren’t much more or less than the majority of web hosting plans out there today. 

In addition, if you are happy with WordPress.com support and service it just makes all that much more sense to stay.

How much is WordPress monthly?

As you can see, WordPress.com’s pricing is quite reasonable. Especially, when compared to other hosting providers. 

If you start out on their free blog plan, you may not want to go through the trouble of switching hosting providers since it may not be worth the cost of migrating your files, switching over your name servers etc. 

But then again, the beauty of WordPress is that the CMS itself is open source. Unlike Wix or Weebly, you could take your free WordPress blog and migrate it over to another hosting provider. 

You can take not only your files, but your theme and all the customizations you made to it, even on a free WordPress blog, over to another host if you decide to migrate. 

This is in contrast to of course Wix or Weebly, where they are not only, not compatible with WordPress, but you can’t even take their themes with you if you do decide to migrate over to another hosting plan.

Can I create a free website with WordPress?

WordPress.com is the only hosting that I know of where you can create a free website with WordPress. When I mean a free website, I mean not only can you get a free theme, but hosting as well. 

You can normally find free themes from any or most hosting providers when you download WordPress onto your server. 

However, you still need to pay for hosting. Whereas, with WordPress.com you get free hosting as well. 

Please note that you will have quite a few limitations with what you can do with a free WordPress website on WordPress.com.

How do I start a free WordPress site?

You simply go to WordPress.com and go to “pricing and plans” and the first option you will see is to create a blog for free. 

Simply click that button and WordPress.com will take you through all the steps you need to start a free WordPress website.

Does WordPress charge monthly or yearly?

WordPress charges monthly for their hosting plans. Although I’m sure you can pay one year in advance. However, you won’t get any special discounts for doing so.

Can you cancel your WordPress subscription?

You can cancel your monthly WordPress hosting subscription for a full refund within 7 days into your monthly billing cycle. 

If you do not cancel within 7 days of your regular monthly billing cycle you will need to pay for that month in full.

Can I earn from a free WordPress blog?

Surprisingly, you can actually earn money with a free WordPress blog.

Although the ways you can monetize it will be more limited than if you are on one of WordPress’s other paid plans like premium, business or ecommerce. 

However, there are still ways to monetize your free WordPress blog. How? 

You can become an affiliate for an affiliate program of your choice. You simply add the affiliate codes from your affiliate program into the correct areas on your WordPress website and you can earn commissions from any purchases through those affiliate links.

You can offer memberships and subscriptions. You can create a subscription or membership function on your free WordPress blog if you like. This will offer your readers access to premium content on your blog for a fee.

You can provide sponsored or pre-written posts. You can create content for various companies’ products and services. Then charge for this in the form of a monetary payment or for freebies.

These are some of the limited ways that you can make money and earn with a free WordPress blog. 

However, as you can also see, your options are a bit limited. 

If you upgrade to one of their paid plans you can also: collect donations, accept PayPal and even put paid advertising directly on your WordPress blog or site.

How much is WordPress hosting outside of WordPress.com?

WordPress hosting outside of WordPress.com can run you anywhere from as little as $1 a month to $50 a month or more. 

It all depends on how much server space you want included with your plan as well as any additional add-ons and features like a VPS, Cloud Hosting, a CDN etc.

How much are WordPress themes?

You can find WordPress themes for as little as, well, free all the way up to several hundred or even thousands of dollars. 

It all depends on what you’re looking for in a WordPress theme, functionality etc. 

Custom themes will always be the most expensive. On average though, you can get a decent WordPress theme including support as well as updates for around $100. 

Many WordPress developers and marketplaces also charge you for a yearly subscription fee. 

This yearly subscription fee usually includes updates as well as access to the developer’s support center or forum for your WordPress theme. 

Support is crucial, especially if you are new to WordPress because you will have many questions. 

And one of the best places to learn not only about your theme, but about WordPress in general, are through the various forums provided by WordPress theme developers.

Personally, I use GeneratePress and I can’t tell you how satisfied I am with my theme as well as their support forums. 

Now only have I learned so much just from reading through all the threads, but whenever I’ve had a question GeneratePress’s staff have always given me a timely answer to my questions. 

My yearly subscription is between $35 and $40 a year and worth every penny.

So what do you think? Is WordPress expensive?

As you can see, WordPress is as expensive or as cheap as you wanted to be. You can get a free WordPress blog which will include free hosting to share your thoughts out to the world. 

You can even monetize that free WordPress blog with some of the monetization methods I had mentioned above.

However, if you are going to take it to the next level, you will need some sort of paid plan to do so. 

But a paid plan whether with WordPress.com or with another hosting provider, will give you not only much more flexibility and freedom, but most importantly control over your WordPress blog or website. 

So in my opinion, WordPress on WordPress.com is no more or less expensive than on any other hosting provider. In fact, in some ways, WordPress.com is even cheaper.

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