Are you thinking about starting a blog and wonder how much it will cost?
We always get asked by our friends and family – ‘How much does it cost to start a blog?’ It seems like everyone that has considered starting a blog wants to know how much they need to spend to get started. In this article we will explain what costs are associated with starting a blog and give you a way to start a blog for the lowest possible cost.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. This means that we may earn a commission, at no cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase after clicking through the link. Please understand that we have experienced all of these companies, and we recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions that we receive if you decide to buy something through our links. Please do not spend any money on these products unless you feel you need them or that they will help you achieve your goals.
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Every Monday at the market open, Jeff sends you his weekly Bullseye Trade.
2022 has been AMAZING for these Bullseye Trades!
(+50% to 300% per week in my experience)
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Side note: If you are thinking about starting a blog, check out our step-by-step tutorial that helps you to start a profitable blog at the lowest possible price! If you purchase hosting (required if you want to start a profitable blog) through our Bluehost link, you will also get a free website domain name (worth about $15!). Your domain name is the website address that people type into the URL bar on their browser to visit your website.
How Much Does It Cost To Start A Blog ?
Starting a blog is really NOT expensive. When we first started Unconventional Prosperity, we spent almost nothing to get started. We spent less than $100 in the first year and that was on the essentials – blog hosting and getting a domain name.
You can do the same! You can start a blog for less than $100 that will make you some great income if you can put in the time and work.
Years ago, we made the mistake of starting a completely ‘free’ website – but unfortunately, there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’!
That first website cost us nothing to start – but it also never made us any money either!
LEARN HOW TO WIN 90% OF YOU TRADES IN 90 SECONDS!
>>CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE! <<
Bullseye Trades: Best Alerts Service
Every Monday at the market open, Jeff sends you his weekly Bullseye Trade.
2022 has been AMAZING for these Bullseye Trades!
(+50% to 300% per week in my experience)
Website Hosting ($3 or less per month)
The main cost associated with starting a website is the cost of hosting the site. So what exactly is ‘hosting’ ? The word ‘host’ brings to mind parasites and creepy things – maybe its just me!
Website hosting is simply where all the required files for your website live. Every website needs to be hosted on a server somewhere in the world. Many companies specialize in providing website hosting services for a small fee.
Self-hosting A Website: When you setup a website and pay one of these hosting companies, it is called ‘self-hosting’ your website. This term is a little misleading because you are not actually hosting the site yourself, at home or on your own server.
However, the term ‘self-hosting’ is used in blogging circles to mean that your hosting is provided by an independent third-party. The idea is that the hosting company provides expert services in keeping your website online and backs up all your files for you. One of the most respected and lowest-cost hosting services in the industry is Bluehost. We also wrote a review of our experiences with Bluehost that you may find helpful.
Free Website: Some free blogging platforms will allow you to set up a website without paying for any hosting. It is free to sign up for an account and get a domain name (e.g. www.example.com) to set up your website. You can start a free blog with companies like Blogger.com or WordPress.com. If you want to blog for fun and don’t really care about monetizing your blog, then a free blog might work well for you.
Why You Should Pay For Hosting
Our top tip is to go the self-hosted route when starting a blog. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog because the site will appear more professional. This will help you tremendously when you start to monetize your blog.
Our blogging income only began when we started to self-host with Bluehost on the WordPress platform. Why? Here are the main reasons:
- Self-hosting allows you to make money from placing advertisements on your websites pages. Free websites do not allow this. We make a few hundred dollars a month just from ads on this site.
- Self-hosting allows you to use powerful Plugins that can add massive functionality and control to your website.
- Control – with a self-hosted site, you OWN the site and you have the control over it. Free sites that don’t charge you, actually own your content! This is not a good position to be in.
These are just some of the reasons why you should pay for hosting.
So how can you get the cheapest possible hosting for your blog?
What these prices include: 1 free domain, hosting and free WordPress.org installation.
Total cost for 1 year: $65.40 ($5.45 for 12 months)
Total cost for 2 years: $118.80 ($4.95 for 24 months)
Total cost for 3 years: $142.20 ($3.95 for 36 months, discount is larger if you commit for a longer time period)
Get Bluehost at the lowest possible rates by clicking here!
So you can see that the cheapest way to start hosting a blog is to commit to a 3 year hosting plan. The 1 year hosting plan is only $65.4 which is very cheap, given how much a blog can make!
LEARN HOW TO WIN 90% OF YOU TRADES IN 90 SECONDS!
>>CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE! <<
Bullseye Trades: Best Alerts Service
Every Monday at the market open, Jeff sends you his weekly Bullseye Trade.
2022 has been AMAZING for these Bullseye Trades!
(+50% to 300% per week in my experience)
Other Expenses
If you are on a tight budget – all you need to pay for is hosting. However, you can always outsource a few things to make your life easier. We do everything ourselves though, making the overhead to run this blog almost zero.
As your blog grows, you might decide to spend more though to make your life easier and to generate growth. The only other expense we have for our blog is social media automation tools for Pinterest. These tools only cost us $20 per month and they drive so much traffic from Pinterest, that the return on this investment is huge.
Of course, you could choose to pay a content writer, editor or pay for fancy themes etc., but these are definitely not required to start making money from your new blog.
You may also want to invest some money on a few online courses to help you learn how to make more money from your blog. We have purchased many blogging courses over the last year or so (you can read our reviews of these courses here) and they have all been amazing investments in our blog.
One of the best courses we read last year is called Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing. This course was written by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, who makes up to $250,000 per month blogging! She teaches you how to make more money from you blog by affiliate marketing. The course cost $197, but we make thousands of dollars every month now as a direct result of implementing the teachings into our blogs.
Conclusions – How Much Does It Cost To Start A Blog?
Hopefully this article has made it clear to you that it is possible to start a blog with less than $100 and with a lot of hard work, you can make a really nice side income (or even full-time income) from it.
Good luck starting a blog!
Russell and Maleah
Related posts:
How To Start A Blog – Free step-by-step tutorial
