How Much Does It Cost to Start A Blog?

How Much Does It Cost To Start A Blog?

***This article may contain affiliate links. See my disclaimer for more details.***

You want to start a blog-great!

I started building my blog in October 2018 and launched January 1^st, 2019.

It’s been an adventure of highs and lows and overall, an extremely rewarding experience for me.

I’m so glad I pulled the trigger on this dream of mine.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog and ready to put the work in, I say go for it!

But unless you’re blogging for leisure or as a hobby, you have to invest a little up front in order to create a profitable website.

If you’re like me, you probably don’t have extra money lying around to sink into something that may or may not ever take off.

I completely understand, because I was there, too.

Doubts and fears about putting money into a potential blog plagued me for months before I took the plunge.

But, just like any other business, some money is required up front to get your blog launched if you want it to become successful.

Read on to learn why this is, and find out how much it really costs to start a blog.

Hosting

Can you sign up for WordPress or other hosting providers for free?

Absolutely.

Can you monetize your website and generate revenue from free hosting?

Not so much.

If you want to create a money-making business with your blog, you have to throw down for site hosting.

The capabilities of free hosting are very limited and do not allow for monetization or customization of your website.

For this reason, I do not recommend free site hosting if you want to create a revenue-generating online business.

You cannot monetize your site with affiliate marketing, ads, or sell digital products and site design and customization is extremely limited.

Hosting is what tripped me up initially when I was researching how to start a blog. It’s the reason why I shelved the whole idea for several months. I was very leery about website hosting providers and how legit they actually were.

BlueHost

After hours spent reading reviews of various providers and almost signing up for a few different hosts based on others’ recommendations, I was finally convinced by Create & Go that BlueHost was the way to go.

I signed up for a 3-year plan with BlueHost at $2.65/month.

You can sign up for hosting on a monthly or yearly basis, without committing to three years, but you won’t get nearly as great of a discount.

I know it seems daunting to commit to a plan for three years and pay the full amount up front-especially when you’re first starting out and have no clue what you’re even doing yet.

However-I invite you to look at this from a different angle:

Are you serious about starting a profitable blog?

Do you believe that you can and will be a success?

Then commit to the three years.

I was very hesitant to sign up with BlueHost because the reviews were so mixed.

What if it sucked and I wasted my money?

But I realized pretty much all the reviews for other popular hosting sites were also mixed, and I decided to take a leap of faith.

And I can say that after nearly two years with them, I’ve had no issues thus far.

They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you try it and don’t like it, ask them for a full refund.

You also get your domain name for free when you sign up with them, free SSL certificate, and 1-click WordPress installation.

Total Spent: $95.40

Theme

At this point, you’re probably thinking what I was thinking when I first got started with my blog:

“I just spent $100 on hosting-I have to spend more on a theme, too?!”

Yes.

Let me explain.

Similar to site hosting, there are plenty of free themes galore via WordPress.

However, also similar to free hosting, you cannot monetize your website with affiliate marketing, ads, or digital products.

The ability to customize your site is extremely limited and you’re playing by the free paid theme’s rules, not your own.

All this to say, if you want to turn your website into a revenue-generating business, you need to invest in a paid theme.

I currently use Divi from Elegant Themes as it is one of the most recommended themes, especially for new bloggers. It is a drag-and-drop customizer that requires no coding knowledge.

Elegant Themes offers two payment plans:

$89/year
$249/lifetime

I went with the yearly plan-there’s no telling when I may want to eventually switch themes in the future, so I don’t want to shell out for the lifetime plan at this point.

With your plan, you have access to all of Elegant Themes’ themes, not just Divi.

Elegant Themes offers a money-back guarantee within 30 days of your purchase. If you’re not happy with your purchase, contact them for a full refund.

Pro Tip: I googled “Elegant Themes Divi discount code” before I signed up with them, and found a discount code for 20% off. That knocked my price down to $71.82. The codes change frequently, so I don’t have the code I used to give to you now, but if you Google it, chances are you’ll find one. I just googled it now and found one for 25% off!

Total spent: $71.82

Email Marketing

One of many important takeaways I learned from researching blogging is this phrase:

“The money is in the list!”

What does that mean?

It means you need to get started with email marketing as soon as you launch your blog.

Why?

If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking, “I’m not going to have any followers yet, so what’s the point?”

The key word is “yet.”

You will have followers, and you need to be ready to collect subscribers with opt-in forms created via an email marketing service.

And just like with web hosting and web themes, if you want to make any money, you have to shell out some money first.

This is because you cannot monetize at all with a free email marketing service.

Free vs. Paid Email Marketing

Affiliate marketing or linking to sales pages is a big no-no with popular free email marketing providers such as MailChimp.

And you need to start collecting subscribers asap because they are going to be your audience when you start suggesting affiliate products or introducing your digital products down the road (should you choose to create them).

As the saying goes, “the money is in the list!”

Get it?

If you cannot afford an extra expense, at least get started with MailChimp. It’s better to start collecting subscribers now and then migrate over to a paid service when you can afford it.

But if you’re ready to go all in, ConvertKit is my email marketing service of choice.

I love ConvertKit because it’s straightforward, requires no technical knowledge, and has an easy learning curve. They have a great support section that explains clearly how to use all the features of their website, as well as free webinars.

It is $29/month BUT you get your first month free when you sign up here.

You do not have to provide your credit card to sign up for the free trial and they will not charge you until you enter your credit card at the end of your trial, should you wish to continue on with them.

While you cannot link to Amazon Affiliates products via email (that goes for any service provider, as this is a rule of Amazon Affiliates), you can link to other affiliate products (just be sure to abide by all rules of each affiliate product you’re an ambassador for) and also any digital products or e-courses you produce.

Total spent: $29/month

Plug-Ins

Thankfully, most plug-ins you need to get started are absolutely free.

There is one particular plug-in you need that is very important:

Social Warfare

You know those share buttons you see after reading an article or watching a video on YouTube?

That’s what Social Warfare provides.

Why is it important to have sharing buttons on your website?

Because when people share your articles, it’s free promotion and traffic!

But more on that later.

Social Warfare is $29/year.

Depending on when you buy, they may be offering a sale.

When I purchased this plug-in, a week later they were having a Veteran’s Day sale! I missed out on a discount.

Total spent: $29/year

Social Media Marketing

If you’ve done your research or read some of my other articles, you already know the best way to get free traffic as a blogger-especially when you’re new and flying under the radar-is through Pinterest.

Nothing beats free traffic on Pinterest.

But who has time to manually pin their blog content all day long?

That’s where Tailwind comes in.

Tailwind is a 3^rd party social media content scheduler.

I waited a few months into blogging before purchasing a plan with Tailwind.

Initially, you only have so many blog posts to pin, and it’s not that time-consuming.

But as I built up my library of content and developed a pinning strategy, I knew I had to get a social media scheduler.

Tailwind is actually the only 3^rd party social media scheduler approved by Pinterest.

Pinterest has gone so far as to shut down social media schedulers-such as Board Booster-that they didn’t approve of.

The nice thing about Tailwind is they offer a free trial, including up to 100 free pins or 30 Instagram posts.

But once you start scheduling 15-20x a day, that 100 pin allowance goes fast.

Tailwind Plans

Tailwind has a variety of plans and packages, but the two to get started with are:

$15/month
$119/year

I went with the yearly plan, which equates to $10/month.

With this plan, you are allowed unlimited Pinterest pin or Instagram post scheduling for one account and are allowed up to five Tailwind Tribes.

You’re also allowed to see your pin and board statistics, so you can see which ones are performing best. There are other features included as well.

They have more advanced plans which unlock more features, but one of the two plans listed above are the best ones to get started with.

While I do not consider Tailwind to be a day-one blogging expense, I highly recommend it once you get going with a pin strategy.

Paying $10/month for Tailwind to schedule unlimited Pinterest pins beats shelling out the wazoo for Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Total spent: $119/year

For more on getting free traffic with Pinterest and how Tailwind works, check out:

Extras

Courses

Aside from the products listed above, here are some other blogging-related items I invested in that have helped set me up for success:

Launch Your Blog Biz

This course is a step-by-step walk-through to building and launching your blog. It is the blueprint I followed to get my blog built and launched.

The four-week checklist included is an invaluable tool that will keep you on track to launch your blog within a month if you follow it.

This course also teaches you how to get started with monetizing your blog, including Amazon Affiliates and ads. You’ll also learn how to create email sales funnels (which you need a paid email service provider in order to do).

It also teaches the basics of blog traffic. You can’t get sales if you don’t have traffic to your blog, but at the same time, you can’t get sales from said traffic if your site isn’t monetized from the get-go.

I highly recommend Launch Your Blog Biz if you’re lost on starting your blog.

Pinterest Traffic Avalanche

This course is excellent and my favorite of the Create and Go courses I’ve took thus far (I have one more to take, called Six Figure Blogger).

You’ll learn how to get started with Pinterest and how to develop a pinning strategy, which is important to driving traffic to your blog.

The ninja secrets were my favorite part of Pinterest Traffic Avalanche!

Here’s a screen shot of my actual traffic stats after implementing the strategies taught in this course:

(Actual statistics from my blog)

Other Products

Legal Pages Bundle (PDF templates)

A lot of newbie bloggers don’t realize this, but you are required by law to have the following on your website:

privacy policy
terms & conditions
disclosure

You are not in compliance with the law if you do not have all three of these on your website.

This makes you susceptible to lawsuits.

I know you’re probably thinking, “But I’m a brand-new blogger and a blip on the radar-why would anyone want to sue me?”

Maybe your blog is just a blip on the radar-but only for now!

If you go to any successful blogger’s page, they have these three pages set up.

But short of hiring a lawyer (who has time or money for that?!), how do you create said pages?

I have zero expertise of legal jargon, so I got the Legal Pages Bundle made by Amira Law.

The bundle is comprised of three templates-one for each of the pages-and you just plug in your information where directed.

I had my pages up in less than 10 minutes.

Before You Go

If you want to create a successful business blogging, you need to invest some money up front.

The trick is to learn what products are smart to invest in.

There are a lot of blogging products and courses on the market, but many of them are overpriced and don’t give you the knowledge or results they claim they will.

Blogging is like any other business-there is some money to be spent up front in order to become a success.

The good news is, many of the products you’re investing in only require payment once a year. Some only require payment at date of purchase.

Until I’m ready to take the last Create and Go course-Six Figure Blogger-I won’t need to invest any more money into my blog for awhile.

Everything listed above is all you need to get started. Anything else can come after you’ve made a bit of income and have the extra money to put back into your blog, should you need or want to.

I hope you enjoyed this article and found it informative.

This is all written from my personal experience and I know how daunting the process of building and launching a blog can be.

Where are you in the process of getting your blog launched?

I love hearing from you, so leave me a note in the comments below.

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