WordPress runs a very large share of the web and it is free to download. That is completely true and it is also the most misleading fact in this whole category, because nobody has ever been handed a working business website by downloading WordPress.
What free actually means
WordPress is free the way an engine is free. It is a real, powerful, endlessly flexible piece of software, and if you or somebody you trust knows it well, you can build almost anything with it and you should.
What it is not is a website. Downloading it gets you software with no home, no design, no words and no contact form. Everything that turns it into a business website is a separate decision, and most of those decisions cost money every month.
The bill nobody quotes you
These are the pieces a normal local business site ends up needing. Ranges rather than prices, because they vary enormously by who you buy from.
| Piece | Typical cost | Can you skip it? |
|---|---|---|
| The software | $0 | It is the whole point |
| Hosting | $5 to $30/mo | No |
| Domain | $20 to $40/yr | No |
| A theme worth using | $0 to $100 once | Free ones exist and mostly look it |
| Page builder plugin | $0 to $100/yr | Only if you enjoy raw editing |
| Forms, backups, security, SEO plugins | $0 to $200/yr | Free tiers exist, with limits |
| Somebody to set it up | $500 to $3,000 once | Only if you do it yourself |
| Somebody to maintain it | $50 to $200/mo | This is the one people skip |
Add the unavoidable lines only and a self-run WordPress site is realistically $10 to $40 a month before anybody has written a word of your services page. That is genuinely cheap. It is just not free, and the gap between those two ideas is where a lot of half finished websites live.
The part that catches people out
Every builder has the problem where nobody updates your prices in March. WordPress has that one too, plus a second one the hosted builders do not have: it is your software to keep patched.
- Updates are yours. Core, theme and every plugin, forever. Skip them and you are running known holes. Apply them carelessly and something breaks, usually the contact form and usually silently.
- Security is yours. WordPress is the most attacked platform on the web precisely because it is the most used. A neglected install is a real target, not a theoretical one.
- Backups are yours. Until the day you need one, at which point they are extremely yours.
- Plugins fight. Two plugins that each work fine can break a page together, and nothing tells you except a customer who could not send the form.
The way this usually ends is not dramatic. Somebody builds a decent WordPress site, it works, and then two years pass. The developer moved on. Nothing has been updated. The contact form quietly stopped delivering nine months ago and nobody noticed, because a form that fails does not tell anyone.
Who this is not for
If you know WordPress, or you have somebody who does and who will still be around in a year, use it. It is more flexible than we are and cheaper to run.
If you need something genuinely custom, a members area, an unusual booking flow, a store with real inventory, that is a developer's job and it is worth paying for.
We are the right answer for a local service business that needs a good website which stays true, and does not want to become a part time system administrator to get one.
WordPress is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the WordPress Foundation or Automattic. The WordPress software itself is free and open source; the costs above are typical market ranges for hosting, themes, plugins and maintenance bought separately, not prices charged by WordPress. We keep this page current. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
About the prices on this page. Figures quoted for freelancers, studios, agencies and website builders describe what those companies charge. They are not LeedAgent prices and should not be attributed to LeedAgent.