WordPress is free software, and that is the last free thing in the stack. Hosting, a page builder, an SEO plugin, a domain: four annual renewals to keep one page with your hours and prices on it — $1,604 over three years, before the evenings spent updating plugins. WordPress.com's own Business plan is $900. A page built for you, handed over with the files: $199, once.
There are two WordPresses, and a price only means something once you know which one it belongs to. WordPress.com is the hosted service — a plan, a price, someone else's servers. WordPress.org is the software: free to download, after which hosting, themes, plugins and security are yours to buy and maintain. WordPress.com's plan ladder, read on 11 November 2026:
Those are monthly rates on yearly billing, paid for the year up front; WordPress.com also sells 2- and 3-year terms at $3.25/$2.75, $6.50/$5.50, $20/$17.50 and $36/$31.50 a month, which is the same product with more of your money in advance. Plugins are the line the plan page does not put a number on. WP Rocket's own documentation is explicit: its plugin can be installed on WordPress.com Business or Commerce, and cannot be added on Personal or Premium — so the plan is the gate, and the licences are extra on top of it.
Self-hosted is the other route, and it is the one most shops take because it looks cheaper. It is cheaper in cash until the licences arrive: a page builder (Elementor Pro Essential is $60 a year for one site), an SEO plugin (Yoast SEO Premium is $118.80 a year), a caching or security plugin if the host does not include one, and a domain. Hosting is the line that renews first: WP Engine's Essential plan is $28 a month billed annually — $336 a year — and WP Engine's own offer terms say that first-year price is for new customers and is not valid for renewals. GoDaddy, which sells the other builder in this pair, advertises its managed WordPress hosting "as low as $6.99/mo, save 53%" — again a first-year rate, on a site that also has to be kept patched.
The 40 hours and the $25 an hour are ours; no vendor publishes them, because the honest answer to "how long does it take" is "as long as you keep tinkering". Hosting is counted at its first-year rate even though it renews higher, no security licence, premium theme or WooCommerce extension is counted, and the domain is an estimate at $20 a year. Run only free plugins and the cash falls to roughly $350 over three years — the licence line disappears and the weekends do not. Card processing is left out on both sides: we do not touch your sales.
WordPress hands you a finished site the way a kitchen hands you a finished dinner: everything is there, and you are the cook. This is the first build, and it is the same list on WordPress.com and self-hosted:
Then the part that never appears on a receipt. WordPress sites are updated: core, themes and every plugin ship new versions continuously, each one can break the page, and the ones that do not break it still have to be run. Hosts retire PHP versions on a schedule, and a PHP bump is the evening you find out whether your builder still works with your theme. That update queue is what the $199 removes: the deliverable is a file, and a file has no plugins to keep current.
Same job — your hours, your prices and your phone number, where a customer looks — with two very different bills.
| WordPress (self-hosted / WordPress.com) | ShopLaunch | |
|---|---|---|
| List price today | WordPress.com $4–$45 a month on yearly billing; self-hosted is whatever the host charges plus every licence | $49 / $199 / $499, once |
| What you pay in year 2 | The same again — hosting, builder, SEO, domain — at renewal rates that are not the first-year rates | $0 |
| Who builds it | You do, in the block editor or a page builder, from a theme you picked | We do, from your hours, menu and photos |
| Time to live | A weekend becomes three weeks, and the third week is the one that hurts | 24 hours from a completed form |
| What you end up owning | The software and your content. The design is a theme and a plugin licence, not a file | A URL and the files: HTML, CSS, images |
| Can you take it elsewhere | In principle yes — XML, database, uploads. The design comes along only while the builder licence is paid | Yes — that is the deliverable |
| Edits after handover | The WordPress admin, a plugin update queue and the PHP version your host decides to run | An edit key on the same page, or an email to us |
| Fees on your sales | Nothing from WordPress itself; a store means WooCommerce extensions, most of them annual | None — we do not touch your sales |
| Store, bookings, blog | Yes — this is the half of WordPress a page does not replace | No. Those stay exactly where they are |
| The mobile page | Your theme's reflow of the layout you built on a desktop | One column, built as a phone page first |
| Security | An admin login, a database and a shelf of third-party code the whole internet can reach | One HTML file and one stylesheet; no login, no database |
| Cancelling | Stop paying the host and the site goes; the content is yours to carry | Nothing to cancel |
WordPress.com plan prices, storage and plugin gating: wordpress.com/pricing, read 11 November 2026, US list, before tax; WP Rocket's own documentation for the Business/Commerce requirement. WP Engine Essential $28/mo billed annually, with first-year pricing restricted to new customers. Elementor Pro Essential $60/yr, Yoast SEO Premium $118.80/yr, both read on 11 November 2026. We are not printing a speed score for WordPress: it moves with the theme, the plugin count, the host and the day. If speed matters, run PageSpeed Insights on the WordPress site you are considering and on ours.
A page is one page. WordPress is a publishing system with a store, a blog and a plugin economy attached, and none of that is what this page is selling.
If you are launching a blog or a store this month, WordPress is the right tool and we do not sell one. The narrower question is the one that pays: does the page your customer actually needs — hours, prices, photos, a phone number — require a CMS, four licences and a renewal calendar? For the shops that answer no, the rest is a menu, a few posters and five posts.
Not a template you fill in. We take your hours, prices and photos, build each piece, and hand back files and a live link.
One form, five minutes. Live the next business day. No app for you or your guests, no monthly fee, and no cut of anything you sell.
The page and the menu are the Local Pack. Nothing here is a subscription, and nothing renews.
Less than two months of Core, and nothing after it.
The one most shops order.
Everything, plus 30 days of us on call.
Payment is taken by Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, on their checkout page — we never see your card. By ordering you agree to our terms and refund policy. The files are yours to keep and reprint.
For a one-page shop site, yes. For a blog, a store, memberships or a plugin that does something specific, no — we build a static page from your hours, prices and photos and hand over the files. We do not sell hosting, a CMS, a store or a blog engine.
The software is free; the stack is not. Hosting is $336 a year at WP Engine's first-year rate, a page builder is $60, an SEO licence is $118.80, a domain is about $20 — and every one of them is an annual renewal, not a purchase. Strip them all and run free plugins on $7 hosting and the cash falls to roughly $350 over three years; what stays is the update queue and the evenings.
Both, because the search does not distinguish them. WordPress.com is the hosted service with the plan ladder above. WordPress.org is the software you install on your own host, where you buy the theme, the plugins and the security yourself. Both end in the same place: a subscription somewhere, and the maintenance is yours.
Yes, more easily than from any other platform on this site: WordPress exports its content as XML, and the database and uploads are yours. The design does not come with it — it is a theme plus a builder — which is why the honest way to move is a rebuild. Send us the live link and the text and that is the $199.
Often, yes, and the free versions are genuinely good. What the paid versions add is what makes the page look like the demo you chose — and what the free versions add is your attention: updates, conflicts, and a settings screen for each one. Neither is wrong. Both are a cost this page puts in the bill.
Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, takes it on their checkout page. Your card details are entered there, never on this site, and they handle the receipt and the tax. We never see your card number.
The WordPress.com ladder, the plugin shelf priced per year, the three-year total and the three questions to ask before you renew, on one A4 page.
Fourteen more, each priced over three years from the vendor's own page — restaurant POS, ordering, and the booking apps barbershops use.
Everything on one page: the 2026 cost comparison · the fee calculator · barbershops & salons.
Send your shop once. We build the page, the menu, the posters and the posts, and hand it back the next business day — with the files. No subscription to forget, and nothing to export later, because it was never locked in.