A simple brochure site you build yourself costs you exactly two things: a domain at roughly ten dollars a year, and hosting from EGP 79 a month — under a hundred dollars for a full first year. Everything beyond that is a choice, not a requirement.
The wildly different figures you see ("$500 to $50,000") are all true, because they mix building it yourself with hiring an agency. Let us separate the line items.
The core items
| Item | Required? | Rough price |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Yes | ~$10 a year |
| Hosting | Yes | From EGP 79 a month |
| SSL certificate | Yes | Usually free |
| Theme | No | $0 – 60 one-off |
| Logo | No | $0 – 100 |
| Domain email | Useful | $0 – 6 a month |
| Professional design | No | $300 – 3,000 |
Only the first three are mandatory. The rest depends on your time, your skill, and how serious the project is.
Three routes, with numbers
1) Build it yourself — the cheapest
Domain + hosting + WordPress with a free theme.
First year: the domain plus EGP 3,792 for the whole term — under a hundred and sixty dollars for four years of hosting.
What you pay from yourself: roughly a week of learning.
Suits: a brochure site, a blog, or a small project page.
2) Build it yourself with paid tools — the middle
Add a paid theme ($30 – 60 one-off) and perhaps a plugin or two.
First year: between one and two hundred dollars.
Suits: anyone who wants a professional look without waiting on a designer.
3) Hire someone — the highest
A freelancer: $300 – 1,500 for a brochure site. An agency: from three thousand upwards.
And note: many quotes exclude hosting and the domain, which you then pay on top. Ask explicitly: does the price include the first year of hosting?
Prices on this page are read from our table the moment you open it, not typed into the text. Check the comparison page for the latest figures before buying.
Where money gets spent for nothing
These are the things most often sold to beginners who do not need them:
A paid SSL certificate. The free one (Let's Encrypt) gives the same padlock and the same encryption. Paid ones serve special cases, not a brochure site.
Expensive domain privacy. Some registrars include it free.
A hosting plan bigger than you need. A site with no visitors gains nothing from a large plan. Start small and scale when your site asks.
"SEO included" in the plan. Nobody can guarantee a ranking.
Paid email from day one. Most hosting plans include enough email to start.
Where saving is a bad idea
Very cheap or free hosting. You pay the difference in slowness and in ads that are not yours.
Backups. Losing a site costs many times the price of a daily copy — see website backups.
The renewal price. The cheapest offer today can be the most expensive plan a year from now. Budget both numbers; we work through it in hosting contract terms.
The honest yearly total
A brochure site you build yourself:
| Year | Domain | Hosting | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | ~$10 (or free with the plan) | EGP 79 a month | The low figure |
| After the term ends | ~$15 | EGP 239 a month | Higher |
The gap between those two rows is the surprise that catches most people. Plan for it from day one.
Starter plans we track
| Plan | Per month | Renewal | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stellar — Namecheap | EGP 116 | EGP 300 | Offer |
| Premium — Hostinger | EGP 79 | EGP 239 | Offer |
| Unlimited — Hostinger | EGP 139 | EGP 349 | Offer |
What about an online store?
A store costs more in hosting, not in building: WooCommerce itself is free, but the resources it asks for are higher. We cover it in WooCommerce hosting.
Add payment gateway fees (a percentage of every order) and possibly paid shipping plugins.
The short answer
The genuine minimum for a working site: a domain and hosting. Under a hundred dollars in its first year if you build it yourself.
And the two questions that save you more than anything else:
- What is the renewal price?
- What in this bundle do I not actually need?
Compare plans on both prices at once on the comparison page, and read domain vs hosting if you are starting from zero.
Read next: What is web hosting? · The best hosting company · Cheapest web hosting · Hosting contract terms · Compare plans
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