"We can build your WordPress website for £3,000." That is a quote many business owners have received. And it may well be the right price for what the provider actually delivers. The problem is that it is rarely the price of what you actually need: over time.

WordPress is free to use. That does not mean it is free to own.

What does the quote include?

When an agency gives you a price for a WordPress website, it usually covers:

  • Installation and setup
  • Theme selection and configuration
  • Text and images you supply, placed into the template
  • A finished website you can start using

That is a starting point. It is not what a website costs to have.

The ongoing costs nobody explains clearly

Hosting: £50–250/month depending on traffic and performance requirements. Cheap hosting means a slow, vulnerable website. Good hosting costs more.

Plugin licences: Many WordPress websites depend on premium plugins (page builder, SEO tool, security plugin, form tool). These typically cost £10–50/month per plugin. A website with five premium plugins can easily cost £150–200/month in licences alone.

Maintenance and updates: WordPress, themes and plugins update regularly, and updates can occasionally break functionality. Some businesses stay on top of this themselves. Most do not, which means either security gaps or sudden problems. A maintenance subscription with a provider typically costs £100–300/month.

Security: Even with good practices, WordPress websites can be compromised. Handling a security incident (cleaning up, restoring from backup, fixing the vulnerability) typically costs £500–2,000 in consultant time. And that is if you have a good backup.

Extensions and changes: Business needs change. Adding new functionality to an existing WordPress site requires developer hours. For features beyond what is standard, this can become expensive.

What happens when the agency disappears?

Few people ask this question, but many experience the answer. The agency you used closes down, changes ownership or deprioritises smaller clients. You are left with a website you cannot update yourself, and perhaps a hosting account you do not own.

Then a new cost begins: finding someone who can take over, understand an unfamiliar setup and bring it to a state where work can be done again.

These are not scare stories. They are situations SMBs regularly end up in.

A more honest calculation

Take the starting cost and add:

  • 12 months hosting: £600–2,400
  • 12 months plugin licences: £600–1,800
  • 12 months maintenance: £1,200–3,600

The total cost for year 1 is easily double the quoted price. For year 2 and 3, the ongoing costs apply in full.

That does not mean WordPress is the wrong choice. It means comparing on quoted price alone is misleading.

What is the alternative?

Modern website solutions built on component-based frameworks and headless architectures have a different cost profile:

  • No plugin licences to maintain
  • Lower attack surface, not an off-the-shelf CMS with known vulnerabilities
  • Fast by default: built for performance, not configured toward it afterwards
  • Clear ownership: the code belongs to you, not a theme designer you cannot reach

These solutions are not cheaper to build initially. But they are often cheaper to own over two to three years, and they do not deteriorate in the same way.

What we recommend

At Ibenta we choose technology based on what the client actually needs, not what is easiest to sell. For most SMBs that means a modern solution without the WordPress dependency, and an honest picture of what ownership costs from day one.

Want to see a realistic cost picture for your situation? Get in touch for a no-obligation review.