The point of this blog post is not to indicate specific costs associated with owning a website. Many of those costs are variable and depend upon how large and complex your website is, how many visitors it regularly gets, and many other factors. Rather, this post should give you a checklist of costs—that you can expect to pay both initially and as the website continues to be live on the internet—that any website owner can anticipate.
As indicated in the title, these costs will fall into two categories: initial and ongoing, and it’ll be obvious to you by reading the explanations which category each fits into.
Domain Name Registration
The domain name of my website is websmithian.com and I have essentially purchased (although “rented” would be a better word) the exclusive rights to that domain name. Therefore, nobody else can create a website and put it up on the internet with that name unless I let my registration lapse.
Domain registration is handled through hundreds of domain registrars; internet-based businesses that have the ability to grant you the authority to acquire an available domain name and to take your money for the privilege. Domain registrars typically charge about $15-20 per year for the registration of a single domain name. Often, this cost might be “bundled” into the cost of ongoing website hosting, which I discuss later in this post.
In addition to the domain name websmithian.com, I also have acquired the registration to websmithian.ca—for another annual fee. I could also have grabbed websmithian.net, websmithian.store, and a host of other domain names if I really wanted to secure my branding in the online world. And if you try to route your browser to websmithian.ca, you’ll find that you’re taken to websmithian.com. That’s because I’ve put an automatic forwarder on the .ca version of the domain name.
If you neglect to pay the annual registration fee for a domain, your website will literally (and immediately) disappear from the internet. At that point, someone else might then register the domain in their name and you will probably be locked out of its use forever. That is why it’s always prudent to ensure one’s domain registration is in order!
At one time, people and businesses like me (website designers and developers) would handle the acquisition and ongoing payments for their clients’ domain names. Bad idea. A lot of goodwill can be developed based on a domain name (or a trade name), so to fully protect the website owner from losing control of it the owner should always be the one registering and paying for it.
Website Hosting
Your website needs a place to reside on the internet. Therefore, some space on a web server is required to hold all of the files that make up the website and to “serve” it to whoever visits it.
In the realm of typical small business and organization websites, website hosting can cost as little as $5 a month, or over $100 each month. Cheap hosting typically doesn’t provide the speed and reliability required for most of my clients’ websites. Hosting that goes offline regularly and/or serves up a website slowly doesn’t provide decent value and just invites frustration. Adequate hosting that’s speedy and reliable costs at least $20/month.
Many web-hosting companies (e.g. GoDaddy) offer a service where hosting costs are bundled together with domain registration. Payments are typically made annually and cover both the ongoing domain registration and website hosting. This arrangement can be a bit difficult to detangle (likely on purpose, to keep you using the same supplier for both services) but is typically worthwhile to separate in order to get better quality hosting.
Website Design and Development
Someone (like me) has to initially design and develop your website. That is, put in place all of the pages that comprise the site, and then fill those pages with nicely-formatted content (words, graphics, video, etc.). Your website might also have other functionality, such as appointment booking, an event calendar, or e-commerce. And keep in mind that, in these days of stiff online competition, a good websmith will also employ best SEO (search engine optimization) practices to ensure that your website is easily found through search engines such as Google and Bing. This unseen work can often amount to one-third the cost of website development and often influences the success or failure of a new site.
So unless you’re going to design and develop your own website, you’ve got to pay somebody to do it for you.
Website Edits, Tutoring/Help, Consultation
No matter how thoroughly your website’s design was initially planned and built, there are the inevitable ongoing edits that are required to keep it relevant, updated, and doing what you want your website to do. Often, this involves the addition of features and functionality that weren’t part of the original design (e.g. event calendar). Regardless, the work of doing these alterations needs to be done and somebody needs to be paid to to them, and that’s typically whoever originally developed the website.
Then there’s the need for client tutoring and help. Occasionally, my clients want to take on some of the website editing tasks themselves and this inevitably requires my initial assistance in providing help and tutoring them, often developing quick tutorial videos or how-to documents.
Finally, there’s the need for client consultation. You’re considering changes or additions to your website and need to discuss their feasibility or even possibility. This also takes the time of someone more knowledgeable than the client.
Software Plugins and Other Components
Your website is not just its content; there are underlying software programs and components that work together to give the website its features and functionality. Because many websites these days go beyond just being “online brochures,” software components are added to provide a higher level of functionality. For example, appointment booking is a common function and whether it was included in the initial website design or added later, it is made possible because of an added software component.
While some of these software components are developed by programmers that do so for altruistic reasons, most are developed by individuals and companies who make their living from designing, developing, evolving, and maintaining add-on website software. So there are typically two costs—acquisition and maintenance—associated with these things that we typically term “plugins.” So, for example, to add an appointment booking plugin might initially cost $200 to acquire and have an ongoing maintenance and support charge of $100 for the second and subsequent years following.
Website Maintenance
Like your smartphone or computer, your website kind of has an operating system; a unique “soup” of software routines, both core and add-ons, that must be regularly updated. When updated, features are added, bugs are fixed, and security holes are patched. Someone, therefore, needs to regularly go into the “back end” of your website in order that all of these components are properly and methodically updated. If left alone, your website will begin to slow down, potentially not function properly, and be an easy target for a whole host of malware and other things that will pierce its lax security, totally ruining your investment.
Although it’s possible for website owners to perform these regular website maintenance routines, someone who knows what they’re doing is infinitely better for the job and will know what to do if the updating of a problematic plugin totally breaks the website.
Summary
Like the purchase of any expensive and complex thing (e.g. vehicle, computer, house), there are the initial costs of acquiring the asset, and the ongoing costs associated with maintaining and enhancing it that are often unknown or overlooked.
Here’s a quick summary list of all that apply to having a website:
- Domain Name Registration: Typically an annual cost to keep a domain name in your possession and control.
- Website Hosting: A monthly cost to house your website on a web server.
- Website Design and Development: The initial one-time cost to make your website. The estimated cost is based on the number of hours it’ll take to do the work, based on an initially agreed-to scope.
- Website Edits, Tutoring/Help, Consultation: Ongoing costs associated with editing website content, adding features and functionality, etc., both directly and indirectly through help, tutoring, and consultation. These are typically billed on an hourly basis.
- Software Plugins and Other Components: Both an initial and ongoing cost to ensure that the plugin is compatible with the latest version of the website platform (typically WordPress), as well as the addition of features and functionality, and the plugging of any security holes in the code. Often, the initial cost of acquiring a plugin and the yearly maintenance costs are the same; occasionally the ongoing cost is less.
- Website Maintenance: The occasional visit to both the front- and back-end of the website by someone who is technically adept, ensuring that everything is functioning properly and that plugins and core files are up-to-date and compatible. This is typically charged (by me, anyway) based on the actual time it took to do the work.
Account Access
Of course all of my clients are obtaining their own domain registration services and many have already secured website hosting when they’ve come to me for the website design and development work. Regardless of whether my client opts for my website hosting or another provider, your website developer (me) needs total access to your domain registration and website hosting accounts. That’s because there is some work do be done within the configuration of those account settings that most mere mortals are incapable of doing, let alone understanding.
So plan to provide your account credentials (username, email, password) for both your domain registrar and your website hosting to your web developer. Some providers (e.g. GoDaddy, EasyDNS) allow you to create “partner credentials” to give to people like me so that we can go into your account and do the work we need to do without using your credentials.
