How much does a blog cost per month? Find out how much it costs to run a small to medium-sized blog. Includes the bare minimum cost for hosting and domain. This post contains affiliate links.
There are plenty of free platforms to write on a blog as a hobby, such as Blogger and WordPress.
But if you are looking to take blogging to the next level, you’re going to need to self-host and pay for a domain.
This way, you will be able to drop the “Wordpress” or “Blogger” from your website address. It takes your blog to another level and tells people you are a professional. It’s also the key to start generating money from your blog.
Of course, there’s no free lunch in life. So, owning a professional blog is going to come with a cost.
The question is: how much does a blog cost per month?
In this post, I will show you exactly how much it costs to run a blog per month. I will start with the bare minimum amount, and then I will tell you what a medium-sized blog could cost after you start reinvesting in your blog.
Let’s dive right in.
How Much Does A Blog Cost Per Month?
Besides the domain, which is the website address, the only monthly cost is web hosting.
There are many hosts to choose from, but I personally recommend and use Bluehost because of their outstanding customer service. They are available 24/7 by chat or phone if I ever have any problems. It’s important to choose a good host that is trustworthy to avoid any downtimes and for your blog’s success.
So, let’s get right to the question: how much does a blog cost per month?
It will cost $8.99 USD or $10.83 CAD per month if you host with Bluehost on a 36-month term (as of June 6, 2021).
Fortunately, I’ve got a special offer for you to lower the cost of hosting.
If you use my recommended host, Bluehost, the cost of hosting will only be $3.95 USD or $4.76 CAD per month (as of June 6, 2021). What’s more, this offer includes a free domain name for the first year.
So, if you take advantage of my special Bluehost offer, it will cost less than $5 per month to run a blog.
Domain Costs
Domain names are important, because it’s essentially your brand identity.
In short, a domain name is the name of your blog or website address.
When choosing a domain name, you want to choose a name that reflects the essence of what your blog is about. A good domain name should describe your blog so well that a potential reader knows what your blog is about without even visiting it.
If I was choosing a blog name again, I would choose something that more clearly represents my blog, such as financial independence or dividend investing. Nevertheless, I decided on reversethecrush.com as a way to brand my blog about the escape from the soul-crushing grind.
Anyways, if you take advantage of my special Bluehost offer, you will get a free domain name for the first year.
After the first year is up, the cost of the domain will depend on the website address you choose.
Based on my experience, domains can cost anywhere from $9.99 to $39.99 per year. Typically, I’ve paid between $19.99 to $39.99 for domains I’ve purchased. I would recommend using Godaddy or Bluehost for a domain.
In some cases, a high demand domain name that someone else already owns can cost thousands.
Other Costs
There are a few other costs to consider if you are considering starting a professional blog.
However, most of these expenses are things people already have, or they are available for free.
For starters, you will need a quality laptop to write posts on and publish articles through the blog platform. Personally, I use an Apple MacBook Air.
Additionally, if you don’t use a photo provider like I do, you can use your smartphone for blog photos. Don’t just steal photos from other people online! I use Canva Pro, which costs $16.99 per month. It provides me with thousands of photos and templates to promote my blog posts.
Otherwise, you could consider paying for a premium blog theme. But there are plenty of excellent blog themes available for free.
Monthly Costs Of A Medium-Sized Blog
After you blog for long enough, your blog might actually start to make money through affiliate links or display ads.
Once you start earning money from your blog, you have a viable small business.
At which point, I would recommend that you reinvest your blog earnings to grow your blog.
So, what are the monthly costs of a medium-sized blog?
With a medium-sized blog, you can expect to pay for web hosting, a photo provider such as Canva Pro, a keyword tool, and social media marketing tools.
In total, a medium-sized blog should expect to spend approximately $60 to $200 per month. That would include web hosting ($10 to $14), Canva Pro ($16.99), a key word tool ($30 to $100), and social media marketing tools such as TailWind ($20) and Hootsuite ($25 to $37).
How Much Does A Blog Cost Per Month – Final Thoughts
In summary, it costs as low as $8.99 USD or $10.83 CAD per month to run a blog (as of June 6, 2021).
If you use my special Bluehost offer, the cost is only $3.95 USD or $4.76 CAD per month. This price also includes a free domain for a year (as of June 6, 2021).
Keep in mind that these prices are subject to change.
Otherwise, all you need is a quality laptop for writing and a smartphone for photos, which are things most people already have.
Once your blog starts bringing in traffic, you can monetize it with display ads or affiliate links.
If you reach that stage, I would recommend that your reinvest the money back into your blog.
At that point, running a medium-sized blog could cost anywhere from $60 to $200 per month.
Of course, it’s perfectly fine to blog for free as a hobby-blogger. After all, a blogger is just an individual that manages and maintains a blog or ongoing chronicle of information on a website.
So, if you want to use it to track your investments or another topic, it’s a fun hobby to do for free as well.
How much do you spend on your blog each month?
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I am not a licensed investment or tax adviser. All opinions are my own. This post may contain advertisements by Monumetric and Google Adsense. This post may also contains internal links, affiliate links to BizBudding, Amazon, Bluehost, and Questrade, links to trusted external sites, and links to RTC social media accounts.
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