Comments on: Blog Costs – Open Mike

By: lektury

lektury — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 14:18:28 +0000

ause it’s not a registered business expense, I don’t consider including the DSL in this calculation as *extra* money I am paying related to the site. If the site were for-profit though, of course I would include it as an expense!

By: Eric Scalf

Eric Scalf — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 11:35:28 +0000

My actual payouts for Fyreplace.com (all costs in USD):
Startup Costs:
Domain Name: $9 (Godaddy.com)
Blogging Platform: Free (WordPress 1.5.2)
Blogging Client: $15 (Ecto, on sale)
Graphics Program: $25 (PSP 7, Student version)
Code/Design Editor: Free (Notepad++)

Monthly Re-occuring:
Hosting: Free (long story, but it’s a darned good plan)
Broadband Internet Access: $44.99 (I will never give this up, it would be the last utility to go, after my phone, cable TV, and possibally natural gas and water)
Electric: (Varies, but c’mon, it’s a blogging-based expense. The more time I spend online, the more I pay in electric)
Cable Television: $39.99 (For news stations, educational channels, and the occasional cartoon network break)

My next blog will actually be much less expensive:
Startup: Free (Blogging client, platform, and hosting are paid for (the site will be a subdomain of my current domain))
Monthly: Probably no change, excepting a slight increase in electricity bill.

If that’s not a telling nudge to have more than one blog, I don’t know what is. If you subdomain it, future blogs are always less expensive.

By: Three Layer Cake

Three Layer Cake — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 10:19:06 +0000

$7.95/month hosting
$15/yr per domain (but right after I signed up with lunarpages, they started offering free domain for life, so I am going to revisit this one).
no start-up costs
Because it’s not a registered business expense, I don’t consider including the DSL in this calculation as *extra* money I am paying related to the site. If the site were for-profit though, of course I would include it as an expense!

By: Kamery cyfrowe

Kamery cyfrowe — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:22:03 +0000

the snacks i’m eating while i’m blogging

By: Pierre Cutler

Pierre Cutler — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:35:01 +0000

The cost answer is sort of like the Walmart movie – “The High Cost of Low Prices” – Blogging costs are actually fairly low, but the cost of not blogging is fairly high – in my first month of blogging, my seven sponsors have forked over $3,500 in pre-paid advertising. How could I afford not to blog?

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

By: George

George — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 06:00:22 +0000

about $100 a year.

By: Maksim

Maksim — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:02:44 +0000

about $160 per year

By: jay

jay — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:21:37 +0000

I do webdesign so blogging is just something as a free time activity but the costs of all my domains and stuff are 120$/month. Even though I got quiete a few readers I never used ad sense or anything else in the past years…. lol

By: Peter Parkes

Peter Parkes — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 10:01:58 +0000

Just starting out as a pro-blogger, I consider internet access and hosting costs to be sunk — I use the internet for plenty of other stuff, paid for my DreamHost package years ago. While I spent $10 on a domain name (glasgowexplorer.com), the largest element of the cost of running Glasgow Explorer is the time taken. Still, I don't think I fall into the 'time sacrifice' category that Dave mentions above — I tend to blog in idle moments, so don't consider the cost of my time when blogging to be very great at all.

By: Leroy Brown

Leroy Brown — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 06:22:35 +0000

Thus far just a lot of time. I’m on blogger to start off, so no hosting or domain costs. I know this costs me revenue & traffic, but that’s ok. Once i get to the point where I’m able to cover the costs of hosting /domain, then I”ll move that direction. I just don’t have much of a stomach for risk, so I need to be sure that I can make a bit off this, before I actually invest money. Until then, it’s just a blast :)

By: Nancy

Nancy — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 01:30:37 +0000

Hey great information from everyone,,,I’m a new blogger and started using Squarespace..its been simple and costs about 200.00 per year. I’ve been blogging for several months and really enjoy the resources on this site thanks Darren!
http://www.retirementthink.com

By: Todd Carpenter

Todd Carpenter — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 00:20:16 +0000

Nobody remebered to consider the Starbucks factor!

Domain/Hosting – 130 a year
Coffee – about triple

By: Michele

Michele — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:07:08 +0000

Time.
As I run a hosting company I don’t have those costs :)

By: Elliott Back

Elliott Back — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:44:41 +0000

I’m running a small network of a single domain split into multiple sub-domains, and the costs work as follows:

$1 / mo for the domain
$20 / mo for business hosting
$30 / mo for internet service
$50 / mo for bandwidth surcharges
[$500 / mo for my own labour]
= $101 / mo for basic blogging

Of course, I don’t really count the work that I put into it, or any of my guest bloggers.

By: Tom Hanna - Financial Options

Tom Hanna - Financial Options — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:19:34 +0000

I’m with John who said “blogging priceless”:
WordPress: free
Domains: $197/year
DSL plus required phoneline that has no phone attached: $815.40/year
Hosting: $660/year
Hardware: $1000/year
Software: $500/year
Memberships/dues/subscriptions: ~$300/year
Miscellaneous: ??

Side notes – Everyone is mentioning that they’d have internet access anyway, so I should mention that I was buying domain names years before I started blogging. Turning those domains into blogs entirely or adding blogs to them just made them more useful and effective.

I did put a couple of blogs that I didn’t want to devote a domain purchase and bandwidth to on Blogger and Blogsome. My experience is that their traffic is lower in number and quality. For those who say they have zero cost, I’d wager that their income is below its true potential, too.

By: miscblogger

miscblogger — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:43:57 +0000

Hmmm… lets see. My costs are pretty expensive considering most of the price for blogging is time. Time is the most valuable thing a person can have and blogging requires a lot of it. But when talking about money, my blogging is very inexpensive!

Really awesome unlimited-domain-names hosting (and practically unlimited bandwidth and disk space) – $36 a year
4 Domain Names – $4.50 average (many are .info)

It looks like a Mastercard commercial script! LOL

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 18:51:10 +0000

I’m going to disagree with this point of view from an earlier comment:

If on the other hand, you are blogging instead of sitting watching the television, playing with the kids, socialising with friends, then the cost is not time but the other interests you are sacrificing to continue blogging.

Time is finite, and as such always has value. What you’re doing is placing a different (non-monetary) value on your time, but it still is a “cost” even if it’s not a monetary cost. Now if someone could figure out how to give me even just one extra hour a day… heck, I would take an extra hour a week…

My financial costs are zero because I don’t blog for the general public. I blog for family and friends. I already manage several web sites, one of which makes more than enough in revenues to offset my monthly hosting of $180 US for a dedicated server. Being that it’s a dedicated server, I can put out as many domains as I want. My tiny little blog does not use anywhere near the resources of the larger sites.

My domain that I host my blog under is already paid for; I don’t have a specific domain for my blog. I use example.com/blog to host my wordpress installation.

In short, I have zero dollar costs for my blog, but I don’t blog for the same reasons as many. FWIW, I found this site (and continue to return) by looking for adsense tips. While many of the tips and posts here are specific to blogging there’s plenty of information that can be used for general website maintenance as well.

By: Paul -V-

Paul -V- — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 18:26:28 +0000

I sold my soul to blogging.

Thankfully, I wasn’t using it anyway.

By: tadpole

tadpole — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 17:15:19 +0000

I spend $8 a month on hosting including wordpress maintenance
$9 a year for my domain

I’ve also purchased $100 in recording equipment specifically for my blog

My blog is on picking up women, so I’ve also spent a small fortune in night clubs and on parking fees.

By: Marti

Marti — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:55:51 +0000

Cary, I have a domain name, but no technical skills – LOL

I don’t know how to get WordPress onto my domain, or transfer all of the current blog to it.

But thanks for condescending and making me feel extra-stupid (just kidding…I feel extra stupid without your help – LOL! )

I’m teasing! I’m teasing! Don’t get the villagers and pitchforks! You were very nice to offer that advice, thank you.

I’m just in an onery mood today. Sorry. I’m a serial apologist too. Sorry. LOL