How much does it cost to run a website? The recurring costs, line by line
A small site's running costs come in five lines: the domain, the hosting or builder plan, email on your domain, fees on any payments you take, and the extra tools you add. Only the plan is strictly necessary, and even that has free tiers. The rest depends on what the site has to do, and the tools you add are where costs quietly grow.
The five recurring lines
Prices change and vary by country and provider, so this guide lists what you pay for, how it's charged and how to compare, rather than quoting figures that will be wrong by the time you read them. Put each line in a spreadsheet with the provider, the renewal date and the annual total.
| Cost | How it's charged | Can you avoid it? |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | Yearly renewal at your registrar; price depends on the ending (.com, .co.uk, .studio) | Yes, with a free subdomain from your builder, at some cost to credibility |
| Hosting or builder plan | Monthly or yearly subscription | Partly: free tiers exist, usually with branding and fewer features |
| Email on your domain | Per mailbox, monthly or yearly, from an email provider | Yes, but a webmail address on a business site looks less established |
| Payment fees | A percentage and/or fixed fee per transaction, taken by the provider | Only by not taking payments online |
| Extra tools | Subscriptions: newsletter, booking, scheduling, CRM, design tools | Often: check what the plan already includes before adding one |
Costs people forget
- Domain renewal price. First-year prices are often discounted; the renewal price is the one to compare. ICANN requires registrars to display renewal fees and send at least two reminders before a name expires, so keep the registrar's emails out of your spam folder.
- Add-ons at the registrar. Privacy, email forwarding and "site builders" bundled with domains. Untick what you don't need at checkout and at renewal.
- Currency and tax. Many tools bill in dollars or euros, plus local VAT. Your bank's conversion fee adds a little more.
- Your own time. Updating prices, opening hours and photos takes time each month. It's the cost most worth planning for.
Costs you usually don't need
SSL certificates. HTTPS is expected on every site, but certificates are now usually free: Let's Encrypt is a free, automated certificate authority, and most hosts and builders include a certificate at no charge. Paying extra for a certificate rarely makes sense for a small site.
Analytics suites, plugins and paid themes. A small business site can often run on the analytics its host includes, without paid plugins. Each paid tool should earn its place against a goal; see how to set goals for a website.
Work out your own total
- List what the site must do: show information, take enquiries, take bookings, sell, collect newsletter sign-ups.
- Match each job to a cost line. Enquiries need no extra tool on most builders; selling adds payment fees; a newsletter adds an email-list tool once it grows.
- Price each line on the provider's own pricing page, using renewal prices and yearly billing if you're sure you'll stay.
- Estimate payment fees from expected sales: the provider's percentage times your expected revenue, plus any fixed per-sale fee.
- Add a line for your time in hours per month.
- Set renewal reminders a month before each date, and review the list once a year.
What's included with Anticode
Anticode's plan covers the hosting and the building tool together; prices are on /pricing. Any site can be published free at name.anticode.dev, with a small "Made with Anticode" badge; paid plans remove the badge and let you connect your own domain, which you register and renew separately at a registrar. HTTPS is included on both addresses.
Several things that are often separate subscriptions come with the site: form submissions are stored and can be emailed to you, booking requests come through the built-in calendar, page views are counted per site without cookies, and the last ten published versions are backed up. Connectors send submissions to tools you may already pay for, such as Google Sheets, Mailchimp or HubSpot. Payments go through your own provider's payment link, so its transaction fees apply.
Limits
Anticode doesn't sell domains or email mailboxes; you'll need a registrar and an email provider for those (email with a custom domain explains the setup). Free sites keep a monthly allowance of form submissions visible, and the rest are held until the account upgrades. Usage for building comes from a daily and weekly allowance, with credit packs for heavy months.
Questions people ask
Can I run a website for free?
Yes, on a free plan with the builder's own subdomain. You give up a custom domain and usually some features, and the site carries the builder's branding.
Do I have to pay for an SSL certificate?
Usually not. Most hosts and builders include one, and free certificate authorities exist. Paid certificates are mainly for organisations with specific validation needs.
What happens if I forget to renew my domain?
The site and any email on the domain stop working once it expires. There's normally a short window to renew afterwards, often at a higher fee, before the name can be lost.