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The minimum cost of blogging with WordPress.com hosting

  1. arifsali
    Member

    Just thought I showcase - as a side comment - the minimum recurring yearly cost of blogging with WordPress.com, as it stands today.

    http://en.wordpress.com/products/

    Domain $12.00
    Design $30.00
    Storage $20.00
    Video $60.00
    Ad-free $30.00

    $152 + the one-time cost of premium theme.

    Obviously not everyone may want to get everything in the list above, but people would typically expect (1) domain names, (2) storage/bandwidth and (3) design flexibility.

    So how does it compare to external hosting? Is WordPress (.com or .org) the most expensive blogging platform out there in general?

    The blog I need help with is webwanderings.wordpress.com.

  2. ardpete
    Member

    Probably but unless you're setting up a blog where you'll be benefitting from by (I.E. 1000s of views per day) there's not much point in having it.

  3. arifsali
    Member

    That's a good point, but I am not necessarily looking at it from a personal benefit point of view. I am looking at it from the point of view of an average Internet user who is just looking at setting up a blog or website.

    The minimum set of functionality provided by the "free" WordPress.com blog is very limited and does not provide enough flexibility. For example, an average user would expect flexibility with design and ability to upload files. Both of these aspects are limited here. The free themes and free storage space are plenty but they are limited. The only advantage I see now is with bandwidth and availability, but again, an average user probably wouldn't care about bandwidth availability anyway.

  4. raincoaster
    Member

    The minimum is ZERO. Honestly, who uses those bells and whistles other than for-profit businesses?

    Subdomains of WP.com even have more SEO than unique domain names.

  5. timethief
    Member

    I detest advertising on blogs and I'm actually beginning to think that an Ad-Off upgrade is required for both of my blogs.

  6. teamoyeniyi
    Member

    @Raincoaster - I am not for profit and I use the ad free and have a domain name.

    NOW you tell me I lost SEO by getting the domain?

    How come I can never win on that SEO thing????? :((

  7. timethief
    Member

    @teamoyeniyi
    No your blog is fine from an SEO POV.

    Check this out > Ads

  8. arifsali
    Member

    @raincoaster, yes, agree that minimum is ZERO; however, this ZERO is limited, there are restrictions. A typical blog would expect some flexibility and the priority would be to be able to customize the look, have storage, and have full control on what shows up on your blog. In fact, all of these things were available at WordPress.com not too long ago (as far as I recall, aside from restrictions of audio/video files in storage) until the Upgrades show up one after the other. Now I am only documenting the current cost to see how WP compares to other blogging and self-hosted services. The least minimum you'd want is to have customization flexibility and that is $30 per year. I don't have experience with self-hosting, so I'm just curious why and how wordpress.com is pushing the envelope.

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