How Much Does a WordPress Website Cost for a Small Business in 2026?
WordPress powers 43% of all websites on the internet. It's the most popular content management system by a wide margin, and for good reason. It's flexible, has a massive ecosystem of plugins and themes, and the software itself is free.
But here's where business owners get tripped up: WordPress being free doesn't mean a WordPress website is free. A business-ready WordPress site comes with real costs, and if you don't understand where your money goes, you'll either overspend on things you don't need or underspend on things you do.
This guide breaks down every cost associated with building and maintaining a WordPress website for a small business. No vague ranges. Specific numbers so you can budget accurately.
If you're still weighing whether WordPress is the right platform at all, our comparison of WordPress vs custom development can help you decide.
WordPress Itself Is Free — But Here's What You Actually Pay For
WordPress.org is open-source software. You can download it for $0. That's the part that's free.
What's not free is everything you need to actually run that software as a functioning business website:
- Hosting — a server to run WordPress on
- Domain name — your web address (yourbusiness.com)
- Theme — the design template that controls how your site looks
- Plugins — add-on functionality like contact forms, SEO tools, and security
- Design and development — customizing the theme and building pages
- Content — the actual words and images on your site
- Ongoing maintenance — keeping everything updated and secure
Think of WordPress like a free car engine. You still need the chassis, tires, paint, fuel, and a mechanic. The engine is powerful, but it doesn't drive itself.
Let's walk through each cost.
Hosting Costs: $5-$50/Month
Your WordPress site needs to live on a server somewhere. Hosting is that server.
Shared Hosting: $5-$15/Month
This is the cheapest option. Your site shares a server with hundreds of other websites. Companies like Bluehost, SiteGround, and Hostinger offer shared plans.
Good for: Brand new businesses with low traffic, sites that are essentially online brochures.
The catch: Performance suffers when server neighbors get traffic spikes. Shared hosting is fine to start, but you'll feel the limitations once you're getting consistent traffic.
Managed WordPress Hosting: $25-$50/Month
Services like WP Engine, Kinsta, and Flywheel handle the technical side of WordPress hosting. They manage updates, backups, caching, and security at the server level.
Good for: Businesses that depend on their website for leads and sales. Any business doing more than 1,000 visits per month should seriously consider managed hosting.
What you get: Faster load times, automatic backups, staging environments for testing changes, and dedicated WordPress support staff.
VPS Hosting: $20-$80/Month
A Virtual Private Server gives you dedicated resources without sharing with other sites. Companies like DigitalOcean and Vultr offer VPS plans, but you'll need technical knowledge to manage them.
Good for: Businesses with developers on staff or those with specific performance requirements.
Our recommendation for most small businesses: Start with a quality shared host like SiteGround ($15/month). Move to managed hosting ($30-40/month) once your site is generating leads consistently. The performance difference is noticeable and directly affects conversion rates.
Domain Name: $10-$20/Year
Your domain name is your web address. This is one of the simpler costs.
- Standard .com domain: $10-$15/year through registrars like Namecheap, Cloudflare, or Google Domains
- Country-specific domains (.co.uk, .ca): $10-$25/year
- Premium domains (short, dictionary words): $500-$50,000+ (most businesses don't need these)
Get the .com if you can. It's still the most trusted extension for businesses. If your exact name isn't available, consider adding your city or a descriptor rather than switching to a .net or .io.
One important note: register your domain separately from your hosting. If you ever switch hosts, you want to own your domain independently. Namecheap and Cloudflare Registrar are solid choices.
Theme Costs: Free to $200
A WordPress theme controls the visual design and layout of your site. This is a one-time cost (or free).
Free Themes: $0
WordPress has thousands of free themes in its directory. Some are genuinely good. Starter themes like Astra, Kadence, and GeneratePress have free versions that work well for basic sites.
The limitation: Free themes offer limited customization. You'll spend more time fighting the theme to get the look you want, and the result often still looks templated.
Premium Themes: $50-$200 One-Time
Themes from marketplaces like ThemeForest, or directly from developers like Elegant Themes (Divi) or StudioPress (Genesis), offer more design options, better code quality, and dedicated support.
Popular premium options:
- Divi by Elegant Themes: $89/year or $249 lifetime
- Astra Pro: $59/year
- GeneratePress Premium: $59/year
- Kadence Pro: $149/year
Our take: A premium theme in the $50-100 range is usually worth the investment. You get better design flexibility, faster support, and regular updates. But the theme is only the starting point. You still need to customize it.
Custom Theme Development: $2,000+
A theme built from scratch specifically for your business. This is where your site looks and functions exactly the way you need, rather than working within someone else's template.
Most small businesses don't need a fully custom theme. A premium theme with professional customization gets you 90% of the way there at a fraction of the cost.
Essential Plugin Costs: $0-$500/Year
Plugins add functionality to WordPress. Some are free, some are premium, and some use a freemium model where the basic version is free but advanced features cost money.
Here's what most business sites need:
Security: $0-$300/Year
- Wordfence: Free version is solid. Premium is $119/year for real-time firewall rules and malware scanning.
- Sucuri: $199-$299/year. Includes a web application firewall and malware cleanup.
- iThemes Security Pro: $99/year.
Minimum recommendation: Use Wordfence free at minimum. If your site handles sensitive data or generates significant revenue, upgrade to a premium security plugin.
SEO: $0-$100/Year
- Yoast SEO: Free version handles the basics well. Premium is $99/year for redirect management and extra content analysis.
- RankMath: Generous free version. Pro is $59/year.
Our recommendation: RankMath free is genuinely excellent for most small business sites. You can always upgrade later.
Forms: $0-$250/Year
- WPForms Lite: Free, but limited.
- WPForms Pro: $199/year for advanced features.
- Gravity Forms: $59-$259/year depending on the license.
- Contact Form 7: Free and functional, if basic.
Backup: $0-$70/Year
- UpdraftPlus: Free version backs up to cloud storage. Premium is $70/year for more scheduling options and remote storage.
- BlogVault: $89/year with real-time backups.
If your host includes automatic backups (most managed hosts do), you may not need a separate backup plugin. But having an independent backup is good practice.
Performance: $0-$60/Year
- WP Rocket: $59/year. The most user-friendly caching plugin.
- LiteSpeed Cache: Free if your host runs LiteSpeed servers.
- W3 Total Cache: Free, but complex to configure.
Total Plugin Budget
A realistic annual plugin budget for a small business WordPress site:
| Plugin Category | Budget Option | Mid-Range | Full Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security | $0 (Wordfence free) | $99 | $199 |
| SEO | $0 (RankMath free) | $59 | $99 |
| Forms | $0 (CF7) | $59 | $199 |
| Backup | $0 (UpdraftPlus free) | $70 | $89 |
| Performance | $0 (LiteSpeed) | $59 | $59 |
| Annual Total | $0 | $346 | $645 |
You can run a perfectly functional business site on free plugins. But the premium versions save time and add polish.
Professional WordPress Design Cost: $2,000-$10,000+
This is where the biggest variation in WordPress costs occurs, and where your budget decisions have the most impact on results.
DIY with Premium Theme: $500-$1,000 Total
You buy a premium theme, install it, customize it yourself using the built-in options, and write your own content. Your costs are hosting + domain + theme + a few plugins.
What you get: A functional website that looks like a customized template. It works, but it won't be optimized for conversions, and it'll take you 80-150 hours of learning and building time.
Good for: Businesses on a very tight budget who have time to invest. Read about the tradeoffs in our how much does a website cost guide.
Freelancer Customization: $2,000-$5,000
A freelance WordPress developer takes a premium theme and customizes it to match your brand. They'll set up your pages, configure plugins, optimize performance, and often help with basic content structure.
What you get: A professional-looking site tailored to your brand, built by someone who knows what they're doing. Typically delivered in 2-4 weeks.
Good for: Most small businesses. This is the sweet spot of cost-to-quality ratio.
Agency Custom WordPress: $5,000-$15,000
An agency handles the full process: strategy, custom design mockups, development, content guidance, SEO optimization, and testing. The theme may be premium with heavy customization or built from scratch.
What you get: A website designed specifically around your business goals and customer journey. Conversion-optimized pages, professional copywriting guidance, and a polished final product.
Good for: Businesses where the website is the primary driver of leads and revenue. If you're spending money on marketing to drive traffic to your site, the site itself needs to convert that traffic.
Enterprise or Complex WordPress: $15,000+
Custom theme development, complex plugin integrations, e-commerce functionality, membership systems, or multi-site setups. This is for businesses with specific technical requirements.
Content Creation Costs
This is the cost most people forget to budget for, and it can derail a project.
- Professional copywriting: $500-$2,000 for 5-10 pages. Good copy is the difference between a website that generates leads and one that collects dust.
- Photography: $300-$1,000 for a professional photo session of your team, workspace, or products. Stock photos are an option, but custom photography builds trust.
- Stock photography: $100-$300 for a set of quality stock images if custom photography isn't feasible.
If you plan to write content yourself, budget time instead of money. Expect 20-40 hours to write and refine copy for a full business website. Good content isn't something you knock out in an afternoon.
Ongoing Maintenance Costs: $50-$300/Month
A WordPress site isn't a "build it and forget it" asset. It requires regular attention.
What Maintenance Includes
- WordPress core updates: Released regularly for security and features
- Plugin updates: Monthly or more frequently
- Theme updates: As released by the developer
- Security monitoring: Watching for vulnerabilities and attacks
- Backup verification: Making sure backups actually work
- Uptime monitoring: Knowing when your site goes down
- Performance optimization: Keeping load times fast as content grows
- Content updates: Adding new pages, updating information, publishing blog posts
Maintenance Cost Options
DIY maintenance: $0 in cost, but 2-4 hours per month of your time. You need to know what you're doing, or a bad update can break your site.
Maintenance plan from a freelancer or agency: $50-$300/month depending on what's included. Most small businesses should budget $75-$150/month for a basic maintenance plan that covers updates, backups, security, and minor content changes.
The hidden costs of a cheap website often include neglecting maintenance until something breaks. A hacked WordPress site can cost $500-$3,000+ to clean up, far more than a year of preventative maintenance.
DIY WordPress vs Hiring a Developer
Here's a realistic comparison:
| Factor | DIY WordPress | Hire a Professional |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront Cost | $200-$1,000 | $2,000-$10,000 |
| Time Investment | 80-150 hours | 5-10 hours (your time for input) |
| Design Quality | Template-level | Custom, professional |
| SEO Optimization | Basic (if you learn it) | Built-in from the start |
| Conversion Rate | Lower (untested layout) | Higher (experience-driven design) |
| Ongoing Cost | 2-4 hours/month self-managing | $75-$150/month managed |
| Opportunity Cost | High (time away from your business) | Low |
The real question: what is your time worth? If you bill $100/hour and spend 100 hours building your own WordPress site, that's $10,000 in opportunity cost. Hiring someone for $3,000-$5,000 would have been cheaper.
But if you're just starting out and cash is tighter than time, DIY can work. Just go in with realistic expectations about what you'll get. For a deeper look at platform options, see our guide on Wix vs Squarespace vs custom.
The Total: What a WordPress Website Really Costs in 2026
| Tier | Upfront Cost | Monthly/Annual Ongoing | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget DIY | $200-$500 | $15-$30/month | Side projects, minimal web presence |
| Serious DIY | $500-$1,500 | $30-$60/month | Solopreneurs with time to invest |
| Professional Freelancer | $2,000-$5,000 | $75-$200/month | Most small businesses |
| Agency Custom | $5,000-$15,000 | $150-$300/month | Growth-focused businesses |
| Enterprise | $15,000-$50,000+ | $300-$1,000+/month | Complex requirements |
For most small businesses, the sweet spot is $3,000-$7,000 upfront and $100-$200/month ongoing. That gets you a professionally designed WordPress site with proper SEO, security, and ongoing maintenance.
Is WordPress Worth It Compared to Wix or Squarespace?
WordPress makes sense when you need flexibility, scalability, and full ownership of your site. You own the code, you own the content, and you can move to any host at any time.
Wix and Squarespace make sense when you need something simple, fast, and don't want to manage the technical side. But you're renting, not owning, and you're limited to what the platform allows.
Choose WordPress if:
- Your website is central to your business growth
- You want full control over design and functionality
- You plan to add features over time (e-commerce, membership, integrations)
- SEO and organic traffic are important to your strategy
- You want to own your platform, not rent it
Choose a website builder if:
- You need a simple online presence quickly
- Budget is under $1,000 total
- You don't plan to heavily customize or scale
- You're comfortable being locked into a platform
For the full breakdown, read our comparison of Wix vs Squarespace vs custom builds.
What to Do Next
If you're ready to move forward with a WordPress website, here's where to start:
- Define your budget using the tiers above
- List what you need — pages, features, integrations
- Decide DIY vs professional based on your time and budget
- Get quotes from 2-3 developers or agencies if hiring
And if you're still figuring out whether you need a website at all, start with our guide on how much a website costs overall for a broader perspective beyond WordPress.
The best WordPress investment is one that matches your business goals. Don't overpay for features you'll never use, and don't underpay on things that directly affect whether your site generates revenue.