How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog? (2024 Update)

How much does it cost to start a blog in 2024?

First of all, there is no limit when it comes to blog investment.

If you want to turn your blog into a profitable business someday, the question of blog starting cost comes about in every new blogger’s mind.

If you’re just thinking about starting a blog for free – it’s still possible to do, but that’s not a quite good idea if you’re planning to do something profitable this year.

Put simply, free things always have kind of limitations, and it might lead to ending your blog writing with nothing.

So, if you believe you can blog with the right strategies, then your investments will be returned multiple times and you’ll be able to do something profitable with your writing.

And in this guide, I will share the minimum amount you need to spend to start a professional blog that you can proudly share with all internet users.

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How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog in 2024?

Depending on the type of blog you want to start, your blog cost will be around $35.40 to $100 and it will be your minimum expense for the first year.

The truth is there is no huge audience that will come to read your blog when you publish it for the very first time. You have to promote it with the right strategies to achieve your goals.

All you need to do is clearly understand what you’ve to pay for.

So, there are some other essential things that you will have to pay for (such as a domain name and a hosting space).

And the other extra elements’ costs will depend on your specific requirements.

In a nutshell, you can start with a little investment and you can pay for extra elements to improve your blog as your blog grows.

That will help you to slowly build a business as a full-time Blogger, someday.

Let’s find out what are the essentials and recommended extras to spend money on if you were starting a new blog from scratch today.

Web Hosting Costs (WordPress with Bluehost) – $35.40

When you’re going to start a blog, the very first thing to consider is your blogging platform and web hosting plan right for you.

If you ever want to take blogging seriously, it’s always better to choose the most popular blogging platform to stand out.

To make everything much easier to move forward with both web host and blogging platform, you can start with a combination of Bluehost as your hosting provider and WordPress as your blogging platform/content management system (CMS).

Bluehost hosting new

WordPress is a free content management system (CMS) to use for managing the content on your new blog, so the only thing you’ll need to pay for is web hosting.

For a new blog, you only need to purchase the Basic plan, which costs you $2.95/month for the first year.

Package Information

If you need package extras such as Cordguard Basic for daily backups on your hosting plan, your cost will be varied and there are a few other plans to choose from at Bluehost. All of their plans will be billed annually and renewed at regular prices.

If you’re looking for another web hosting provider, I suggest you take a look at our list of the best hosting providers or month-to-month web hosting package providers where you can start with a low budget.

Domain Name Cost – $0

If you want to get your website on the web, or a little space online to call your works, you’ll need to register a domain name. A domain name is another small expense that every blogger has to pay.

Domain Name Cost

Thankfully, if you choose Bluehost as your hosting service provider, you’ll get a free domain name (SSL certificate included) for the first year. It’s around $10/year to renew. So when you’re starting a blog, your domain name cost will be $0 (only for selected domains) if you choose Bluehost.

If you don’t want to use Bluehost, then here are some other options to purchase a domain name:

  1. Domain.com – Best and most popular domain registrar, and you can get cheap domain names for $11.99 [.com].
  2. Namecheap – Cheapest provider all the time for both domain name registration and web hosting. You need to pay around $5.98 for .com domain names for your first year.
  3. NameSilo – Popular domain hosting provider that has been around since 2009. You need to pay around $13.95 for .com domain names for your first-year registration.

However, When you’re purchasing your hosting and domain from two different providers you can stick them together and it may require some work to get things done.

WordPress Theme Costs – $0

WordPress comes with tons of free and easy-to-use blog themes, so you don’t need to pay for a premium theme if you’re not planning to customize your blog with more user-friendly features.

That means if you’re a new blogger you can start your blog with a free theme such as Astra WordPress theme, and you can pay for premium features as your blog grows.

Astra Theme

The Astra theme PRO addon costs you $59/year and you can also choose premium themes from marketplaces like ThemeForest.

In addition, you can use WordPress page builders like Elementor page builder to make your blog more attractive with drag-and-drop page-building tools. It will cost you $49.

WordPress Plugins Costs – $0

WordPress Plugins can add more functionality to your WordPress blog. There are thousands of free and premium plugins available to choose from inside WordPress.

These plugins can allow you to do an unlimited number of things with your blog. For example, if you want to sell your own product along with your WordPress blog, the WooCommerce plugin will help you to do that.

However, most plugins come with a free version so if you need access to their premium features, then you have to pay for it.

if you want to start by installing all of the top 10 WordPress plugins so I recommend reading my guide about how to start a blog to get started from scratch.

Logo Cost – $3 to $10

A logo can make your blog look more professional and help you to improve your blog’s brand recognition. When you’re looking for an easy and quick way to create a blog logo, you can go through two options.

The first one is to get a graphic designer to design a professional logo for your blog. And the second option is to do it yourself.

When you’re starting out it’s always better to go for a DIY option because designing a logo is not easy work so you may need to pay for hiring an expensive designer. You can design a simple, clean, text-based, or icon-based logo using a logo generator like Tailor Brands.

Tailor Brands step 3

With Tailor Brands, you to download a low-resolution version of your logo for free. If you want a high-resolution logo file, you will need to go with one of their premium plans. Usually, it ranges from $3 to $10. The best thing is you can cancel your plan at any time, and your logo will always remain yours.

Email Marketing Costs – $9.99

If you are serious about making money blogging, you will need an email marketing service provider. With this, you will be able to grow your email list, send out newsletters, sell products, and services, and further updates to your email subscribers.

There are a few different ways to get email signups, but one of the easiest ways is embedding a signup form into your current blog posts.

Constant Contact

With a 14-day of free trial on email marketing, Constant Contact comes with user-friendly features so you’ll get all of the tools to manage your email list.

After the trial ends you can continue your subscription plan at $9.99/month and your monthly price will be based on the number of contacts you have.

Social Media Management Costs – $0

Every blogger knows that their blog and social media accounts are essential parts of building an online presence and driving endless blog traffic.

When it comes to managing your social media accounts, you need to consider on right tools to analyze your audience and communicate with them.

Put simply, knowing how to promote your blog on social media will enable you to build a community around it. Then you definitely need to create engaging social media content and manage them to grab the right audience.

You can use online tools like Canva to create social media posts and their content planner to schedule them for all social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for the whole week.

it’s free to use forever.

However, the Canva PRO plan comes with lots of benefits and the content planner also comes with it.

Canva Facebook Posts Maker

Thankfully, Canva, the best online graphic design platform lets you get Canva PRO 30-day free trial to explore everything before paying for them.

Moreover, you can check out my list of social media tools to find out more.

Blog Costs Summary: How Much Does it Really Cost to Start a Blog?

Starting a blog is not huge work anymore, a lot of companies provide plenty of easy-to-use tools to get things done without any prior technical knowledge.

What it costs to start a blog actually depends on what you want to get from it. If you want to make it profitable then you need to spend on the right blogging tools.

The minimum first-year cost to start a blog is $35.40.

This price only includes your domain and web hosting costs with Bluehost. If you’re planning to go with other recommended tools from this article, it may cost you a monthly or yearly price for each.

You can truly get started as a beginner blogger (starting a blog to become a source of passive income someday) for as little as $35.40 for all of your first-year costs.

If you’re just getting your blog today, focus on the following fundamentals to make it more successful in the future:

And the most important thing is never to stop learning about blogging. There are a lot of blogging courses out there on platforms like Udemy, so you can polish your skills with those courses.

All you need to do is keep learning about new things and use that experience to make an income from your blog.

Happy blogging!

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog
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    Minosh Wijayarathne

    A content marketer and storyteller at heart. I have a deep interest in anything related to crafting better content, increasing productivity, and being happy.

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