How much does a WordPress website cost in 2026?

The WordPress software costs nothing. A working WordPress website does. You pay for hosting and a domain at minimum, and most business sites also pay for a premium theme or page builder, a few premium plugins, design and development time, and ongoing maintenance.

As of October 2026, the core running costs of a small self-hosted site can start at a few dollars a month during a promotional hosting term, while a busy store on managed hosting with several premium extensions can run into hundreds of dollars a month before any development work. The biggest variable is almost always labor: whether you build and maintain the site yourself or pay someone to.

This guide breaks down each cost line using prices taken from vendor pages on 1 October 2026, then combines them into illustrative budgets. Prices change often, so treat every figure as a dated snapshot and check the vendor link before you buy.

The cost lines at a glance

Hosting costs

Hosting is the one recurring cost no WordPress site avoids. Entry prices from vendor pages on 1 October 2026:

Two things matter more than the headline price. First, the renewal rate: a $2.99 plan that renews at $17.99 costs six times as much from year two. Second, what's included. Managed plans usually bundle backups, staging, caching, a CDN and expert support, which you might otherwise pay for separately. We compare the categories in WordPress hosting types, and our guide to managed WordPress hosting covers what to look for.

For online stores, WooCommerce's own pricing page estimates hosting at "$25 to $350/month for most stores."

The WordPress.com alternative

If you'd rather not manage hosting at all, WordPress.com bundles hosting, maintenance and the software into one plan. Prices from wordpress.com/pricing as of October 2026:

Annual and multi-year plans include a free domain for the first year; monthly plans do not. Since April 2026 every paid plan can install plugins. See WordPress.com plans explained for the details.

Domain name

A custom domain is a yearly fee. The price depends on the extension (.com, .co, .law and so on) and the registrar, and many registrars discount the first year, so compare the renewal price rather than the introductory one. Some hosts and WordPress.com annual plans include the domain free for the first year. Check whether registration privacy is included before paying extra for it.

Themes and page builders

You can build a professional site with a free theme. The default Twenty Twenty-Five theme and thousands of others (about 8,700 in the WordPress.org directory) cost nothing. Premium themes and builders add design options, templates and support. Sample prices as of October 2026, from each vendor's pricing page:

• GeneratePress: GP Premium $59/yr (up to 500 sites).
• Astra: Astra Pro $99 the first year, renewing at $149/yr; lifetime $279.
• Divi: $89/yr for unlimited sites, or $249 lifetime.
• Kadence: Essentials $99/yr per site.
• Elementor: paid plans "starting from $49/year" for one site; the free plugin is also widely used.

Before you pay, check whether a free block theme already does what you need. Our roundup of themes for small business websites can help you shortlist.

Plugins

Most sites run on free plugins plus a handful of paid ones. There are 70,000+ free plugins in the WordPress.org directory. Typical paid categories, with first-party prices as of October 2026:

Free versions of many of these exist and are enough for plenty of sites. A paid license mainly buys extra features plus updates and support for the subscription term (WooCommerce marketplace subscriptions, for example, cover updates and support). Check each vendor's terms for what happens when a license expires, because a plugin that stops receiving updates becomes a security risk over time. We dig into this in plugin support and maintenance costs.

Design and development

This is the line that varies most. Building it yourself costs your time. Hiring a freelancer or agency for a custom design, custom features, content migration or a WooCommerce store costs a project fee that depends on scope, number of templates, integrations and who does the work. We don't quote a single "average," because one rarely helps: a five-page brochure site and a custom store are different projects.

For realistic ranges by complexity, see the true cost of website development in 2026.

Maintenance and security

WordPress needs ongoing care: core, plugin and theme updates, backups, uptime monitoring and security checks. By default, existing self-hosted installs only auto-update minor and security releases; plugin and theme auto-updates are opt-in. Patchstack found 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 91% of them in plugins, so skipping updates is not free either. A hacked site brings its own cleanup costs on top.

You can do maintenance yourself, rely on what a managed host includes, or pay for a maintenance plan. Our breakdown of what a maintenance package should cost covers the options.

Illustrative yearly budgets

These are illustrative examples only, built from the October 2026 vendor prices above. They exclude the domain, taxes and any design, development or maintenance labor, and they assume yearly billing. Your real costs will differ.

Payment processing is extra for any store. WooPayments, for example, charges 2.9% + $0.30 per US domestic card transaction, according to WooCommerce's fee schedule.

How to keep WordPress costs down

• Compare renewal prices, not promotional ones, and calculate the cost over three years.
• Start with core features and free plugins. The block editor, patterns and a good free theme cover many small sites.
• Audit plugin subscriptions yearly. Cancel licenses you no longer use, and remove those plugins entirely.
• Avoid overlapping tools. One backup tool and one caching tool are enough; managed hosts often include both.
• Budget for maintenance from day one. An unmaintained site tends to get expensive later.

Conclusion

WordPress is free, but a website built on it has real running costs: hosting, a domain, any premium add-ons and, above all, the time it takes to build and look after it. Use vendor renewal prices, not launch discounts, to plan, and budget for maintenance from the start. If you'd like a quote for building or maintaining a WordPress site, eSEOspace offers WordPress development and maintenance. More guides are in our WordPress hub.

Frequently asked questions