Why Is WordPress Free? What Are The Costs? What Is The Catch?

Most of the questions which arise about the popular content management platform, WordPress is about the money one needs to pay for using it. Well, the answer is, its totally free! You can access it free of cost.

But then why is it free? Are there any additional costs? What benefits does it offer?

There are many questions that must be arising in your minds, so here we are with another blog ready to answer all your questions.

WordPress is open-source software that allows you to use it and build content on it without spending a penny.

But it doesn’t mean that the features use for making your content more attractive will also be free of cost.

You will have to pay the costs for using certain features. Before we tell you what costs you might have to pay while using it. let us see why WordPress is free?

Why is WordPress free?

WordPress is not software owned by a single person or a single company.

Rather it is an open-source community project where many people contributed to make it such a broad platform.

A core team makes the major development, but anyone who wishes to make or add features can do so without requiring any permission.

Another major change that the core team brings in is regular updates. You must have seen some updates in the WordPress version; this is decided by the core team.

So now you see that it is is free, but you will be surprised to know that people can actually make money out of it. How? Let us find out!

How can you make money through WordPress?

Two major sources of income through WordPress are products and services.

It is open-source software, you can curate products and services keeping in mind the functioning of this platform.

For example, anyone who wishes to use WordPress has to own a web hosting service. Thus you can earn money by creating web hosting plans.

Another example can be plugins.

Plugins are like extensions that people use for adding some additional features to their website for making it look more attractive and appealing.

Thus, you can create some plugins for people to use. This might get you some huge lofts of money.

Some of the companies which have used these opportunities to get on top of the business world are:

• WP Engine –

A company is famous for providing managed web hosting services. It has also started selling commercial themes.

• Awesome Motive –

It is another famous name in the world of WordPress. It has come up with many amazing plugins for people to have a better experience with this platform.

• Yoast –

This company has launched the Yoast SEO plugin which promises websites with a boost in SEO ranking. It has earned a profit of around 4.5 million through this plugin.

• ElegantThemes –

The Company is the soul behind Divi and many other plugins.

You can see, there are many products and plugins which you can create for this platform and make money for yourself.

Now you know, how beneficial is this in spite of being free software, but what additional costs will you have to pay for using WordPress?

Costs of using WordPress

WordPress offers free usage and modification, however for using this software on the web, you will have to procure access to web hosting plans.

You can easily use the free version of WordPress, which is the WordPress.com for creating blogs, but it will offer you limited control.

For a better experience, you will have to upgrade to WordPress.org is a different service from the regular platform.

The major cost of using WordPress to create some minimal websites comes from web hosting and a domain name.

Web hosting can cost you around $7.99 per month and the domain name will cost around $14 per year.

Other costs are added to your WordPress site when you use some premium themes and commercial plugins.

However, you can prevent spending much on your site by using some amazing free themes and plugins offered by WordPress.

Conclusion:

WordPress has grown out to be a popular content management system as well as a website creator.