by WordPress, the most popular content management system, should not really be viewed as a free application if you’re an entrepreneur willing to drive some serious revenue with this valuable business tool. A casual content producer or a blogger with creative inclinations can jolly well sign up for WordPress and run his website for free. However, if you’re willing to cash in on its potential to maximize business gains, then you have no option but to avail only the premium services. The basic or free services are characterized by serious restrictions of use whereby the users aren’t able to install crucial plug-ins ideal for businesses and entrepreneurs.
As a legitimate business solution, WordPress needs you to look beyond the immediate expenses related to purchase price and regular maintenance. As soon as you have got the premium WordPress account up and running, know for a fact that there’re a few “hidden” fees that have already sneaked in. Developers fees, Domain registration, security forces, Premium Theme are some of the real costs associated with WordPress Management. It’s not that difficult to assess the total costs either. Your business goals and the way you implement your strategies to realize those goals would actually determine the kind of paid services that you’re availing.
Hosting
There’s a gamut of hosting plans available on WordPress that can cost you from something as low as a few to as huge as thousand dollars a month. It’s the multi-server clusters that would cost you such a fortune! A basic level of shared hosting plan is ideal for beginners. It is free but if you have your own domain, you might have to shell out around $18-25 each year.
A regular managed hosting service can cost you something around $50 each month. The self-hosting feature enables you to host your WordPress account yourself. However, there would be a team of experts guiding you on areas of hosting, about which you have no knowledge at all. You would still be on a shared hosting platform but are ensured of a much better security support than that of a generic hosting provider.
Themes
Themes are a crucial part of your website development plans. The kind of themes you choose for your business can dramatically change the look of your website. It’s important to employ suitable themes for your website so as to portray a business- like theme (that is, if you’re looking at maximizing commercial gains). Free, premium, and custom are the three basic choices of themes available on WordPress. If you decide to go with a premium theme you have to use WodPress.com only premium themes that might cost you around $70.
Conclusion
Whatever has been provided above in terms of figures is only a rough estimate of what it actually takes to explore the commercial potential of WordPress. You should add your own personal and professional time besides these figures. Your business requirements would also be a crucial determinant of the costs.
