How much does a website cost?

I am often asked "How much does a website cost?". Well, this is not a straight-forward question to answer. There are many solutions to "creating" web-content but the running costs of the site is what the real question should be.

Vendors such as GoDaddy advertise "free" websites and cheap domain registrations but you really need to look deeper into what they are offering. A domain registration is really an insignificant cost with respect to the running costs, this is why companies such as Automattic (wordpress.com) offer a free domain for a year when you join them.

GoDaddy Pricing

Below is the cost of the packages that GoDaddy were offering in October 2023:

The packages do come with an SSL certificate but you will probably need to use their "website builder" and that could be an issue for you if you, like me, are adverse to Content Management Systems and want to design and build a website from scratch and to arrange for hosting of that site.