For someone who is casually posting articles online, a free WordPress.com account is definitely worthwhile. With the free option, the content producer will only have access to the basic features. On the other hand, if you do not casually post articles online, but run a business instead, WordPress.com is a great option, but there are more features available to you if you were to sign up for a paid account.

Serious Entrepreneurship

As a serious entrepreneur whose ultimate goal is to make a difference on the Internet and in business, the real cost of WordPress.com is not going to be free. You are going to need access to ‘plugins’ and other features if you want to go head to head with your competitors. So what is the real expense in running an entire website using WordPress.com? Let’s take a look right now. First, you still have to try to minimize the full cost of owning a WordPress blog and at the same maximize the possibility of managing your content, especially the kind of content that you use to drive your online business.

Business Development

If you want to utilize and maximize your use of WordPress as a means of building and developing an online business, you cannot view this resource as free, but as a serious avenue to take your business to the target audience in an aggressive and noticeable manner.

Managing Your Website

Obviously, there are costs associated with managing and maintaining your WordPress platform once you sign up for paid service. Some of these costs may include:

• Registering your domain
• Signing up with a web host
• Premium theme
• Plugins
• Storage
• Backups
• Web design
• Content writer
• Marketing

Be sure to evaluate these costs prior to signing up for a paid service. The content writing may be something you can do initially without having to hire a freelance writer. Be sure to have a management strategy in place. Make it a part of your business goal. This will help you to better manage the costs and make the appropriate choices.

Web Hosting

Web hosting on the WordPress platform will cost you about $13 per month as long as you have your own domain. If you don’t own your domain and have to get one from WordPress, then the cost will be $18 per month.

Conclusion

If you were to use the premium themes on WordPress, you could pay a one-time fee of $70. You won’t be able to transfer the theme to another hosting platform, if you decided to do so in the future. If you chose the business plan on WordPress, you would have access to more than 150 premium themes as well as unlimited storage. Overall, you could end up paying $450 per year to utilize the many features of WordPress. This does not include other costs such as web design and marketing. However, WordPress could be your new best friend since with a business plan, you have more options at affordable cost.