How much does website hosting cost?

Site hosting can be as cheap as $3-$8 a month (small, medium to large sites) when signing up for the first year of site hosting. Then $11-$30 a month buying multiple years when renewing after the first year. Sites requiring more web space (higher number of visits, larger allocated space for files and unlimited websites, etc.) are the higher end.

Most small businesses only need 1 website, static or semi-static content (meaning one that is never or periodically updated) and the web space available are at the lower costs.

If you have an interactive site (meaning one where you get presented with different changing info such as one that uses a shopping carts), then you will be paying monthly costs for that system depending on the volume of sales. There are other interactive features (calculations on-the-fly, content changes when visitors responds to prompts) a site needs which may not cost more in hosting but can cost more in set up.

When newly designing or redesigning a site, I go over the features you want and estimate the costs. For some budgets, doing a site in phases often works better, not just for the initial budget but also for the information you can gather after completing the site.

Having a blog on your site, if changed often enough, can also count as interactive, especially if you allow comments but can still fit into the lower end of costs.

Most hosting companies offer different flavors of Content Management Systems but you would still need someone to set it up for you. You certainly can do it yourself, but make sure you have the time to learn and can spare losing some hair.

The Content Management System (CMS) I recommend is Avada overlaying WordPress. Avada has a one-time only license fee (less than $80) and makes editing much easier than in WordPress alone.

I use Avada to custom design your site which gives you a more user-friendly environment to work in.

Do-it-yourself sites (e.g., Squarespace, Wix) usually cost about the same for hosting as listed above. With these sites, you get to chose from their templates (not custom). If you want to change the basic structure in these templates, it is difficult, if not impossible for do-it-yourselfers. Also these hosting sites have proprietary CMS software driving the site and therefore can never be moved to another host or duplicated elsewhere unless you stay in that same CMS.

Avada has amazing flexibility and can make major structural changes easy to do.