How Much Does A Website Cost Per Month?

So how much does a website cost per month? In the United States the monthly price to maintain a website is around $10-$20 dollars a month for the domain registration and cheap web hosting. The bigger cost is the amount of time it takes to build, manage and market a successful website. Below I provide a helpful information guide to discover the true website cost to have an online presence.

Overview

• Domain Cost – $10-$20 / year
• Web Hosting Packages Cost – $10-$70 / month
• SSL Certificate Cost – $10-$300 / year
• Web Developer Cost – $80 / hour

Other considerations – plugins, themes, backups, 3rd party costs such as analytics, marketing automation, bulk email providers, multimedia content, social media posting and of course marketing. Numerous less obvious costs and unexpected fixes & maintenance may be required.

How much does a web site cost to build

The website monthly cost take more into consideration more than just the yearly domain fee and web hosting packages. The cost to build a website will greatly vary depending upon your needs. A small custom design 5-10 informational website should be around $800-$3000. E-commerce and custom programming will be much higher and requires a developer. It’s important to have quality graphics so it may be required to hire a graphic designer if the web designer doesn’t have the required skills.

A basic business website built on Wix (https://www.wix.com/), Weebly (https://www.weebly.com/), Squarespace (https://www.squarespace.com/) or Shopify can be done for cheaper and you can do it yourself if you have the patience and time to learn. WYSIWYG editors within website builders make it easy to design and develop and you don’t need the technical knowledge of HTML, CSS style sheets or expensive HTML editors such as Dreamweaver. This cuts down on the amount you will be spending on maintenance as you don’t have to pay a professional. Websites need to look good on a range of devices, including desktops, laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and smart TVs. This drives up the labor production cost, building and testing time.

What about website maintenance

Monthly ongoing maintenance costs should take into consideration more than the domain registration, hosting, and site build. The true costs and capital expenditure are the maintenance, marketing and search engine optimization. A small business website can expect to pay $500 – $5000 monthly in management and maintenance costs. Monthly website costs will depend upon your competition and how much value you place upon marketing. An E commerce website can expect even higher monthly charge and may have 3rd party shopping cart fees. Marketing and production costs can quickly overrun profit and can quickly overrun the monetary value of the business. Also consider modern UX web design trends and you may need a redesign as trends change.

What is the price of a CMS

There are no monthly fees as long as you pick an open source CMS (content management system) such a WordPress websites and free WordPress themes. The cost is for the developer to build and manage the site. Make sure you’re hiring a seasoned developer you can trust and has prior experience with the CMS such as WordPress. I like WordPress since it’s free and building content on the website is easy.

Web design price list

The amount you pay when you create a website will vary depending upon the graphics desired, amount of content, number of web pages, photos, platform chosen (CMS), and additional coding features such as contact forms. You can contact us to learn about our website building pricing and services.

Website domain average yearly fee

The breakdown costs of a domain name will vary depending upon the extension, registrar and whois privacy options. The average price range is between $8 – $30 for your custom domain name. Which is the best domain name provider tips is written by us.

Does a domain expire and the registrar charge extra fees

It’s important to remember to renew your domain name each year. Failure to renew may lead to more handling charge and it’s possible to actually loose the domain name.

Do you need SSL certificate for your web site

URL’s prefixed with https:// means the website has a SSL certificate installed on the web server and any information passed between your computer browser and website server that data is encrypted. I recommend a SSL certificate and the unit costs are around $10 -$350 per year depending on the encryption level, services desired, warranty and vendor chosen. SSL certificates have become the new norm and are absolutely essential if your website collects any sensitive information or payments. There are free certificates available and no need to pay additional costs if you pick the right domain provider or hosting company.

Web hosting monthly cost

The type of web host required will vary greatly upon the type of website, amount of traffic and size of the website. Cheap hosting plans is around $10 dollars a month and you will be on a shared servers with other websites. A dedicated hosting server for you own website charge around $30 / month. Fully managed website hosting is also available in which a dedicated team will monitor and make any needed adjustments to the server. This can run from $500 and up.

Are there any hidden fees with websites

The web hosting company may charge if you need excessive bandwidth and traffic. This is rare and only an issue if your site goes viral. The web host may offer ad-on’s and are typically not needed for most personal, corporate or organization websites.

Astriden is a Santa Cruz website design company that builds and maintains websites. Discover the best cms for small business website.