How Much Does a WordPress Website Cost in 2026?

A WordPress website costs anywhere from a few dollars a month for a DIY site to several thousand dollars for a custom build. A professionally built small business site usually costs $890 to $3,000 up front, plus roughly $20 to $250 a month for hosting, licences and maintenance. Below you’ll find every cost line, two worked first-year budgets and the questions that keep a quote honest.

What the research says: WordPress runs 39.6% of all websites and 58.3% of sites whose CMS is known, so developers, hosting and plugins are easy to find and compare. (Source: W3Techs.)

WordPress website cost at a glance

Type of site	Typical up-front cost	Typical running cost
DIY site on WordPress.com	$0 (your time)	$4 to $45 a month, billed yearly
Small business site (up to 5 pages), built by a team	From $890	Hosting plus optional care from $49 a month
Custom-designed business site (up to 12 pages)	From $1,690	Hosting plus care from $49 to $199 a month
Larger site with bookings, memberships or languages (up to 25 pages)	From $2,990	Better hosting plus care and licences
WooCommerce online store	From $1,490	Hosting, payment fees and extensions
Custom feature or plugin on an existing site	From $490, or $35 an hour	Usually none beyond care

What you pay for when you build on WordPress

WordPress itself is free and open source. You pay for five things around it: the domain, hosting, design and development, premium themes and plugins, and someone to keep it updated. Each one can be cheap or expensive depending on your choices, which is why quotes vary so much.

1. Hosting

Hosting is usually the biggest running cost, and introductory prices rarely last. SiteGround’s WordPress plans start at $3.99 a month for the first year, then renew at $17.99 to $44.99 a month, prepaid yearly and before VAT (SiteGround). Managed WordPress hosting from Kinsta starts at $35 a month, or $350 a year (Kinsta). Always budget with the renewal price, not the first-year offer.

2. Design and development

This is the one-time cost of planning, designing and building the site. It depends on how many pages and templates you need, how custom the design is and which features you add. At Attors, a 5-page site starts at $890, a 12-page custom design at $1,690 and larger sites with bookings or memberships at $2,990. Extra pages cost $90 each and content writing $49 per page, so you can see exactly how scope changes the price.

3. Themes and plugins

Many excellent themes and plugins are free. Premium tools are usually billed yearly: Elementor Pro, for example, starts from $60 a year (Elementor). A typical business site needs only a few paid plugins, such as forms, SEO or backups. A custom block theme avoids page-builder licences altogether, which lowers long-term costs and usually makes the site faster.

4. Maintenance and care

WordPress needs regular updates, backups and security checks. You can do this yourself, or pay for a care plan. Our WordPress care plans cost $49, $99 or $199 a month per site, depending on support speed, edit time and whether malware cleanup is included.

5. Fixes and new features

Over time you’ll want new features or small changes. These are billed by the hour or as a fixed project. You can hire WordPress developers from our team at $35 an hour, booked in blocks of 5 hours, or agree a fixed price, such as $490 for a custom feature.

Two worked examples: first-year cost

Seeing the full first year makes it much easier to compare options. Both examples use published prices and include hosting at its renewal rate.

Cost line	Example A: 10-page service business site	Example B: DIY on WordPress.com
Build	$1,690 (custom design, up to 12 pages)	$0 (your own time)
Hosting, 12 months	About $216 (SiteGround StartUp at its $17.99 renewal)	$96 (Premium plan at $8 a month, billed yearly)
Premium plugins	$0 to $100 (custom blocks reduce the need)	Included in the plan
Care plan, 12 months	$588 (Essential at $49 a month)	Your own time
Approximate first-year total	$2,494 to $2,594	About $96 plus your time

Example A costs more, but you get a custom design, professional setup, tested updates and someone to call when something breaks. Example B is fine for a hobby or a very simple site, but you carry the design, SEO and maintenance work yourself.

DIY, freelancer or agency: which costs less?

Option	Up-front cost	Best for	Watch out for
DIY (WordPress.com or self-hosted)	Lowest	Simple sites, tight budgets	Your time, design limits, no one to call
Freelancer	Low to medium	One small, well-defined job	Availability and long-term support
Agency or team	Medium	Business sites that must bring in leads	Make sure the quote is itemised and fixed

If you’re weighing up providers, our guide on how to choose a web development company lists the questions to ask before you sign.

What makes a WordPress site cost more?

1. More pages and templates. Each unique layout takes design and build time.
2. Custom design. A design made for your brand costs more than a styled template, but it fits your content and customers better.
3. Features. Bookings, memberships, online payments and multiple languages all add setup and testing.
4. Integrations. Connecting a CRM, payment system or booking tool adds development work.
5. Content. Writing, photography and moving content from an old site take time.
6. Migration. Moving an existing site needs a URL map and redirects to protect your rankings.

How to keep your WordPress budget under control

1. List the pages and features you need now, and the ones that can wait for phase two.
2. Add 12 months of hosting at the renewal price, not the introductory price.
3. Count yearly licences for any premium themes or plugins.
4. Decide who will update and back up the site, and budget for it.
5. Ask every provider for a written, itemised quote so you can compare like for like.
6. Check how payments are staged. At Attors, projects under $3,000 are paid 50% upfront and 50% at launch.

From our projects: Third-party costs such as hosting, domains and premium plugins are paid directly by the client, and we advise on each one before you commit. That keeps the build price clean and the accounts in your name. See our WordPress development packages for what each plan includes.

Get a fixed price for your WordPress site

Every site is different, but your budget should never be a guess. Tell us about your project and we reply within one business day with questions or a written quote.