How Much Does It Cost To Start a Blog [2020]

So, you’re also looking for how much does it cost to start a blog.

This question comes in every beginner blogger mind because they want to know about the initial cost.

When I was also thinking about starting a blog, the first question that comes in my mind was the same you’re looking for. (How much money?)

Because money is the first and foremost thing you’ll need to start a blog.

If you want to purchase a domain and hosting you’ll need money if you want to purchase a paid theme or paid tools you’ll need money.

You’ve probably seen in many blogs, they provide a big list of cost to start a blog.

But, don’t worry, here I will provide you with the best way to start a blog with minimum cost.

First of all, I will tell you about how much money I have spent in my first month of blogging.

So, the things I’ve purchased are:

1. Laptop
2. Domain
3. Hosting

Laptop

If you already have a laptop you can skip this part.

Try to purchase a good laptop because it’s a one-time investment. Once you’ve purchased a laptop you’ll not need to purchase it again for 2-3 years.

It took me 15 days to purchase a laptop because I was looking for a laptop that is under my requirement and budget.

The cost of my laptop is only $506 or Rs37,990. And I got the best laptop under this price. Because if you’re looking for an i5 processor laptop, the prizes go to 45,000-50,000.

So, here is the description of my laptop

• Model Name – Asus Vivibook 15 X543UA-DM582T
• Intel Core i5 processor
• 8 GB RAM
• 1 TB HDD
• Pre-installed genuine windows 10 OS
• 15.6 inch full HD LED display
• Weight – 1.9 kg

So if you’ve got a low budget like me, you can purchase this laptop or you can simply purchase any other laptop that fulfils your requirement.

I am sharing this laptop review here to help you because I’ve also faced too many difficulties while looking for a good laptop.

And I know you guys are also definitely facing this type of problems.

Domain

Choosing a domain name is not an easy task because many times we think about a domain and we found that this name is not available.

The same thing happened to me, I’ve decided to name my website as Growdigital.

But when I searched for this name at Lean Domain Search I found that this name is not available.

Then I decided to purchase a domain name (Huppdigital) from Namecheap.

The pricing of Namecheap is less than as compared to other domain providers.

The cost of my domain name Huppdigital.com was $8.88 that is roughly equivalent to Rs660.

TIP: At the beginning, try to purchase things that have a low price and good performance. But don’t go for the cheapest one because their performance is very bad and they can increase the loading time of your website.

Hosting

I’ve purchased my hosting also from Namecheap because believe me you will not get too much traffic at the beginning.

So you can go with a hosting that is low in price and have moderate performance.

Namecheap also provides 24*7 customer service and live chat support. If you’ve any issues you can fix them instantly.

In the beginning, I was not sure about the service of Namecheap so I started with a basic and monthly plan.

But if you purchase a yearly plan you’ll get a 50% discount on all the plans.

So, in my case, the pricing of the stellar plan on a monthly basis was $2.88 that is equivalent to Rs216.

Total Cost

• Laptop – $506 (Rs37,990)
• Domain – $8.88 (Rs660)
• Hosting – $2.88 (Rs216)

Total – $517.76 or Rs 38,660.

If you already have a laptop, then

• Domain – $8.88 (Rs660)
• Hosting – $2.88 (Rs216)

Total price – $11.76 or Rs876

So, this is all it cost to start a blog.

This is all about my experience but there are also many other ways available to start a blog.

You can purchase your domain and host from some other providers.

So, let’s get deep into the cost of blogging.

The first and foremost thing you’ll need is domain and hosting.

The Essential Blogging Costs

As I have already mentioned that the Domain and Hosting are the top priority and you’ve to purchase it.

• Domain Name
• Hosting 
• Content 

Domain Name

The domain is the name of your website that’s why it is the most important part of blogging.

There are many domain providers available on the internet and you’ll find domain names in different formats.

For example: .com, .net, .in, .xyz, .shop, .org etc…

And depending on their format the prizes vary. If you purchase a (.xyz) domain the cost of that domain will be very low.

But if you purchase a (.com) or (.in) domain or any other top-level domain the pricing will be high.

Generally, you can purchase a top-level domain at $8-$12/year from any domain providers.

The websites from where you can purchase domain:

1. GoDaddy
2. Namecheap
3. Hostinger
4. Hostgator
5. Bluehost
6. A2Hosting
7. Bigrock and many more…

Hosting

Hosting is a thing that makes your website accessible to the World Wide Web.

There are many varieties of hosting that are available to purchase. Depending on your need you can purchase different types of hosting.

If you’re a beginner I will suggest you go with a basic plan because at the beginning your website will not get too much traffic so a basic plan is also a good choice for you.

Later when your website starts to get the traffic, upgrade it for a business plan.

The prizes of hosting vary from $2-$20/Month based on your requirement.

But many hosting providers give a 50% discount on purchasing a plan for one year.

So if you want to continue your blogging journey for a long time then go with a yearly plan.

This is the pricing of Namecheap, and if you purchase hosting for one year you’ll get a domain name for free. 

And here is the pricing of A2hosting, this hosting is best known for its high speed.

This hosting helps you to increase the speed of your WordPress Site.

There are also many other hosting providers are available, I have given a list of domain and hosting providers above. Go through those websites and choose a hosting that matches with your requirement.

Content Writing

If you want to write the content of your website by yourself you can skip this part.

“Content is the King”

                    ∼Bill Gates

Content is the most important part of blogging if your content is not good you can’t rank on top pages of Google.

For that, you can hire some content writers for your blog.

You can get these writers on different freelancer website such as Fiverr. They take at least $10-$15 for 1000 words article.

This is the minimum cost, some writers take up to $40 for a 1000 word article.

You can go to Fiverr and check for the writers that can write content for you, under your budget.

But, I will suggest you to try to write content by yourself because it can save your money as well as improve your writing skills.

The Optional Blogging Costs

Paid Themes

There are millions of free and paid themes available in WordPress. You can choose one of them for your blog.

You can start with a free version of the theme, but the problem is you can’t customize a free theme properly.

Sometimes, you can’t even create a static page of your website using a free theme.

So, if you want to customize your website properly then purchase a paid theme. The paid theme comes with many benefits, there are many options available for customization.

If you want to purchase a premium theme, you can start with GeneratePress (premium) theme. Purchase it once and use it in unlimited websites.

The cost of this theme is $49.95. If in any case, you don’t like this theme you can get you cashback within 30 days.

By using a paid theme you can make your website more attractive. Visitors like to stay longer in an attractive site.

If you want to add some leads like e-books, free course, and forums. You will be able to create a static page for your leads.

Paid Plugins

If you want to increase the performance of your website with less effort, you’ll need to use good plugins.

Plugins are the best and most important feature of WordPress, you can complete most of your task by just installing a plugin.

Here I will tell you about the pricing of some of the most important plugins.

1. Yoast SEO 

This WordPress SEO plugin helps you with your search engine optimization. Yoast SEO is the favourite WordPress SEO plugin for millions of users.

This plugin is available in both a free and paid version. But the free version doesn’t provide too many features.

If you use a paid version of this plugin you’ll need to worry about your SEO performance. Yoast SEO will do it for you.

Now, let’s talk about pricing of the Yoast SEO premium.

You’ll have to pay $89USD to purchase a premium plan for this plugin. You can use this plugin for one site.

The price of this plugin is high, but it also gives too many features.

• You can find high performing keywords right in Yoast SEO.
• Tell Google exactly what your page is about by adding schema.org data in the right way.
• You’ll get the suggestion for links to other pages on your website.
• Faster indexing.
• Faster, safer, and better experience.

2. ShortPixel

ShortPixel optimizes the images of your website automatically without affecting the quality of your images.

It increases the SEO ranking of your website by optimizing images on your website.

Also, this plugin automatically converts PNG to JPG if that will result in smaller images.

You can optimize up to 100 images/month for free by using this plugin. But if you use more images on your website, you can purchase its premium plan.

The pricing of this plugin are as follows:

This is the monthly plan.

Also, you can purchase one-time plans, you can get 10,000 images for just $9.99.

There are also many other plugins available in WordPress, you can purchase some of them according to your requirement.

This two plugins ( Yoast SEO & ShortPixel) are the most important plugins for your website because these plugins increase the SEO ranking, website speed, and performance of your website.

SEO & Keyword Planner Tools

If you want to rank on the top pages of Google, you’ll need an SEO tool to maintain the performance of your website.

There are many SEO tools available on the internet but tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Ubersuggest are the most useful tools.

These SEO tools are used by millions of people.

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool that people use to get higher Google rankings.

You can use Ahrefs to do keyword research and to find content ideas.

Many people use Ahrefs to analyze website’s link profile, keyword rankings, and SEO health.

The pricing of Ahrefs depends on the plan you choose, it also depends on monthly and yearly billing.

2. SEMrush

Semrush is a popular SEO tool used by millions of people to do keyword research, track the keyword strategy used by their competitor, to rum an SEO audit of their blog, looks for backlink opportunity and much more.

Features of Semrush:

• Keyword research.
• On-Page SEO.
• Social media management.
• Link Building.
• Optimize your site for local searches and get more local customer.
• Track daily changes of your target keyword.
• Competitor’s SEO analysis and much more.

The monthly plan of Semrush is started from $99.95. 

3. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is one of the most popular SEO tools among bloggers, marketers, and SEO professionals.

Ubersuggest is All-In-One tool that makes SEO easy.

(Click Here) to get information about the features and pricing of Ubersuggest.

Ubersuggest tool is created by Neil Patel, he is an entrepreneur and online marketing expert.

The pricing of Ubersuggest is as follows:

The pricing of Ubersuggest is much less than as compared to other SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush.

Ubersuggest is 90% cheaper than many other SEO tools.

So, if you don’t want to invest too much money in SEO tools, you can start your blogging journey with Ubersuggest.

Email Marketing Services

Email marketing is the most important part of blogging. It helps you to make regular customers for your website.

With the help of email marketing, you can E-mail all of your visitors when you publish a new post on your blog. It helps you to gain traffic on your blog. 

Email marketing is very helpful in making regular visitors to your website.

If you really want to invest in your blog, I will recommend you to invest in email marketing tools because it is very important to take your blog to next level.

1. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is one of the fastest-growing email marketing services in the world. It is extremely easy to use and incredibly powerful.

Convertkit provides a free course to help you build a thriving online business.

Convertkit offers a free plan which allows you to manage up to 1,000 subscribers. After that, you have to purchase a premium plan for Convertkit.

Convertkit offers a 14-day free trial, and their pricing starts from $29/month.

2. GetResponse

GetResponse is another most popular email marketing service providers in the world. It is extremely easy to use and simplifies email marketing for beginners.

GetResponse comes with landing pages, conversion funnels, and marketing automation.

With the help of GetResponse, you can grow your audience, engage with customers, and boost online sales.

GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial, and their basic plan starts at $15/month.

They have basic, plus, professional, and max plan. You can choose any of them according to your requirement.

3. Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers a forever free email marketing service plan that’s why Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing service provider in the world.

You can easily integrate Mailchimp with WordPress with the help of a plugin Mailmunch.

Mailchimp offers a forever free plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for up to 2,000 subscribers. 

The paid plan starts from $10.40/month for up to 50,000 subscribers.

So, these are some optional costs that you can invest in your blog to increase your SEO ranking and overall performance of your site.

TIP: Out of this cost, Email marketing is the most important part. So I will recommend you to invest in email marketing in the beginning.

And at the time when you start to earn money from blogging, then invest it in SEO tools and some of the paid themes and plugins.

Why You Should Avoid Free Blogging Software

You can start blogging with free blogging software. But there are many limitations in the free plan.

When you use free platforms, technically you’re not the owner of your site.

Your website URL looks like huppdigital.wordpress.com (for WordPress) and huppdigital.blogspot.com (for Blogger), that does not look good.

Disadvantages:

• You don’t have 100% control on your website, you can only use some of the features. 
• Your site can go offline at any time and it’s a big problem for you. Your whole work and effort will be lost because you didn’t get backups in free platforms.
• You will not be able to customize your blog properly due to which the visitors will leave your website instantly.
• You can’t use all the useful plugins on your site.
• Believe me, with a free platform you can’t rank on search engine result pages.
• Also, it is very difficult to get Adsense approval for a website that is hosted on a free platform.

So, try to use purchase a hosting and domain for your website and become the owner of your website.

Because with the free platform you can’t earn money from blogging.

Hope, by reading this post, you’ll come to know about the cost of blogging and you’ve got your answer to the question How much does it cost to start a blog.

Ankur Gohite

Hey Friend!
I am Ankur Gohite, the founder of Huppdigital. A blog that provides authentic information regarding blogging, SEO, affiliate marketing, and how to make money online.

huppdigital.com