Blogging Expenses: How Much Do You Need To Start

Starting a blog is not a hard thing to do today. We have many tools for that. But what about blogging expenses? How much do you need to start a blog?

Well, here I am to answer that question in depth. Because we have different tools, the cost of starting a blog can differ.

I will show you my favorite way to start a blog. What platform to choose, where to host websites, and much more.

Blog Price Can Be Different

To start blogging you don’t need much. It’s a very easy thing to do. You need to choose a platform to build a blog with, buy a domain, and then host it somewhere to share it with the world.

And starting blogging expenses may be very different based on which platform or product you choose. You can start a blog with only $20 or you may need more than $200.

Also Read: How To Start Blogging

But I have found the middle ground. It’s not cheap but not expensive either. It has many benefits and is great for future growth.

First, you need to choose the blogging platform and the best one is WordPress. It’s free, it’s made for blogging, and is very easy to learn and build websites by yourself. So, if you want to start a blog you must choose WordPress.

Next, you need to buy a domain and you have to buy a good domain at a good price. There are various places where you can buy a domain at a good price and I will recommend the best place to buy a domain.

And lastly, you need to buy hosting to host your website and make it live. There are tons of hosting platforms that have various features and offer different prices. You can buy a cheap hosting with bad or average performance, or an expensive one with very good performance. But some awesome hosting platforms have extremely good performance and offer affordable prices.

But you have to understand that there are mandatory blogging expenses like domain and hosting. However, there could be other, additional expenses that are not mandatory but you may need them at some point.

So, let’s start the tutorial and find out what we need to spend to start a blog and what we may need to start or expand our website.

Mandatory Blogging Expenses

As I mentioned above, some expenses that are a must. Without them, you can’t create a website or a blog. And these must-have expenses are domain and hosting. WordPress is free, so you don’t have any expenses in blogging platform.

Domain is a name of your website such as myblog.com, and hosting is a place where you store your website and files. So, it will be available for the world to see. And here you can spend as much as $500 because there are tons of hosting platforms with different prices and features.

But here I am to recommend to you the best places to buy a domain and hosting. It’s great for beginners, it’s affordable, if your blog becomes big, scalability is not a problem, has great performance, and has many other benefits.

How Much Domains Cost

First of all, you need a domain. When you buy a domain you pay for one year. After one year, you need to renew it. So, you need to find a good domain as cheap as you can. And there are various places where you can buy domains at different prices.

Also, you have to consider the domain extensions. There are many extensions of domains and prices are different. Always try to buy TLD (Top Level Domain) domains. A domain extension is what comes after the dot.

For example, popular TLD domain extensions are:

• com
• net
• org

There are other domain extensions but it’s better to buy a top-level domain although other domain extensions may be cheaper.

And the best place to find domains very cheap is Namecheap. It’s the most popular domain registrar in the world. And you can find TLD domains as low as $5.

But the regular price of a TLD is about $10 and it’s a great price. You pay it for one year and your domain will be yours.

Of course you can find other extensions cheaper but it’s recommended to use a TLD domain.

How Much Hosting Cost

The second and perhaps the most important blogging expense is hosting. And because there are so many hosting providers, sometimes it’s hard to choose the right one.

Hosting is very important because your website’s speed and performance are dependent on that. Also, for ranking, Google, and SEO, speed is one of the most important aspects. So, always try to buy a good domain.

But if you want a fast hosting with good features, you have to pay more. Of course, you can buy cheap hosting and it can be enough as a starting point. But as your blog becomes popular and traffic grows, you will need better hosting.

So, it’s better to choose a good hosting platform at the start to avoid problems in the future. But better hosting costs more and you may don’t want to spend a lot of money. Because at the beginning you won’t have an income. And it’s not good to have too many expenses.

And that’s because why I am here. I know a great hosting that has awesome performance and a very affordable price. And it’s Cloudways. My favorite hosting is not only for WordPress, but in general.

Cloudways offer a cloud hosting with amazing speed and performance. It includes free SSL and many great features too. And it costs only $10 per month. Good thing is that you don’t need to pay for one year in advance like in many other hosting platforms.

You use it and at the end of the month, it deducts the fee from your account. You can connect your credit card or just fill the fund from your account. It’s very convenient.

Although $10 may be expensive for you because there is hosting for $2 per month, Cloudways is the best option. You get VPS hosting with dedicated resources. Your website will be very fast.

Also, when your blog starts growing and you get more traffic, upgrading the hosting resources are very easy. Also, you can downgrade your resources if you want. It’s very flexible.

If you start with some cheap hosting, in the future you will need a better one. If your host doesn’t have good plans, you have to migrate it to another hosting and it’s not a good process. So, it’s better to choose a good hosting from the start.

This is what your blogging expenses for a year will really be.

Tool	Expense Type	Price
Domain	Mandatory	$10
Hosting	Mandatory	$120
Total		$130

Additional Blogging Expenses

So, you don’t need anything else to start a blog. You buy a domain, hosting, install WordPress, which is totally free, and build a blog. There are many free themes, templates, or plugins to do that.

But there might be various additional products you may need. It’s not mandatory to start a blog. However, you may need them not from the start but as you grow.

Let’s discuss what these additional expenses might be and if you really need them to start and grow your blog.

WordPress Themes & Plugins

One of the additional expenses you might have is WordPress themes and plugins. Although there are many good free themes and plugins, you might need premium ones. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use free themes or plugins.

The only reason you may need premium theme is when you don’t want to build a blog by yourself. Because premium themes come with templates, you just install them and have a ready website.

Same with plugins. Premium plugins offer more features. But you may never need them. So, before you buy a plugin, see if you really need its features. If not, use free ones.

But I highly recommend building websites by yourself and use free plugins and themes. There are tons of great free themes that come with free templates you can install and use.

And you can also find amazing free plugins that do their job perfectly. And free features will be enough for most websites.

Just make sure to use high-quality WordPress products. Find the best themes or plugins and see if they offer free versions and use them. Don’t trust unknown brands. They might break your website.

So, if you still choose to use premium themes and plugins, prices can be different. In general, themes can cost you about $50. Some themes offer one time fee and some are subscription-based. The same goes for plugins. You can find subscription-based plugins or pay once.

Also, extra costs depends on how many premium plugins you use. You need just one theme but you may need several plugins. So expenses can grow.

Various Tools

Other than WordPress themes and plugins, you will need other tools. Especially when your blog grows and your blogging expenses will grow as well. But it’s not mandatory for starters.

These are tools like writing tools, SEO tools, or other tools that may come in handy in blogging. And there are many different tools with different prices.

Let’s discuss some of them.

SEO Tools

One of the most important tools you will need is some kind of SEO tool. This is not crucial for beginners but you will need it in the future. Before that you can use Search Console or Ahrefs free tool.

Because SEO is so critical for blog success, you must use one of the tools for SEO. Yes, blogging expenses will grow, but it will benefit your blog.

These tools have many features and you can analyze your website for different things such as keywords, traffic, SEO issues, competitor analysis, and much more. So, while you grow, you will see the importance of SEO.

Although there are various good tools for SEO, I recommend Ahrefs or Semrush. They are a bit expensive but do their job perfectly. Also, you can use less expensive tools if you don’t need advanced features.

In general, SEO tools can cost you from $200 to $1000 per year.

Email Marketing Tools

Another additional blogging expenses you might have is a marketing tools. There are various tools for marketing and one of the most popular is an email marketing. This is when you collect emails of your visitors to send them emails and offer different products or something similar.

Although these email marketing tools offer free plans, they may not be enough for you. Because they have some limitations as every free product has. So, if you want to use their power, you need a premium plan.

There are several good marketing tools with different prices. I recommend to use MailChimp, Sendinblue, or MailerLite. They are really great tools and also have WordPress plugins for better user experience and convenience.

On average, depending on the features, email marketing tools may expand your blogging expenses by $120 to $300.

Writing Tools

And another blogging expense you will definitely have is writing tools. If you are a blogger, it’s crucial to write good articles. And here you will need writing helpers and tools. These tools might be grammar correction, phrase suggestion, AI helper, etc.

Like other tools, some writing tools have free versions and are good for beginners. But there will be times when you will need a premium one. So, it might expand your blogging expenses.

One of these writing tools is Grammarly, which is an extension and corrects your text. Has a free plan but premium offers much more awesome features.

Another great tool is Jarvis. It’s an AI tool that can write articles for you. Literaly. You just tell it what you want it to write and it writes it. Of course it will make some mistakes, but you can use it as a helper. Create several title versions for your articles, different paragraphs, etc.

Also, there are many great free tools for writers. You can use Google Docs or Sheets. Or Wordtune, which works like Grammarly but with additional features. And it’s free.

Depending on what you use, writing tools might expand your blogging expenses from $100 to $1000 per year.

So, your blogging expenses may be very different. It might cost you as low as $30 per year or as high as $3000. But to start, you don’t need much.

The average additional blogging expenses for a year according to my recommendation.

Tools	Expense Type	Price
Theme	Additional	$50
Plugins	Additional	$300
SEO Tools	Additional	$600
Marketing Tools	Additional	$250
Writing Tools	Additional	$400
Total		$1600

Of course, you don’t have to use all the additional tools, but some of them are crucial for a successful blog. But not for beginners. It’s recommended for more advanced blogs that generate more traffic.

Conclusion

If you want to start a blog and don’t know how much money you need for it, hope my recommendation will help you. The starting blogging expenses are very low. You only need a domain and hosting. But as you grow, you will need more tools, and expenses will grow.

Start with Cloudways hosting which is only $10 per month and see for yourself how great hosting it is. As your blog grows and generates more traffic, you can upgrade your hosting in one click.