If you are interested in starting a blog, your mind may be consumed with choosing your blog name, tagline and who your audience is. You may even be already daydreaming about color schemes and in a hurry to snatch up a Facebook page URL.
While all those things are fun and important to running a successful, thriving blog….STOP. The one thing you need to consider first is how much does it cost to start blogging.
As a former CPA, I can (passionately!) tell you that your budget is vital to the success of your blog.
By the way….I’ve come to realize that not everyone gets excited about blogging budgeting and creating a budget PDF and spreadsheet, but I have and you can grab it right here!
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?
There are so many different variables to consider when figuring out how much it costs to start a blog, but there are some general must-haves for every blogger that I’m going to talk about in this post. If you already have it, great—you don’t have to count it as a cost. Of course, there could be more that you will need, depending on your niche but this will give you a great starting point. Let’s get started!
One-Time Blog Start-Up Costs
Here are some one-time costs you will need to purchase to start your blog. You will need to have:
- Domain name
- Blog theme
- Laptop/computer
- G-Suite (this is so you can have a custom domain email)
On-Going Monthly Expenses
Once you start your blog, you’ll have monthly expenses to keep up with. Some of these can be purchased at a discount if you buy annually, rather than monthly. There are a lot of expenses here—I go into a lot more detail in my Blog Budget Spreadsheet, but this is a good starting point.
- Web hosting
- Akismet spam filter
- E-mail service provider
- Tailwind
- Virtual storage
- Accounting software
Video/Photography Costs
Every blog needs imagery and video is becoming more and more important to blogs. Even if you do not enjoy photography, you will need to have some sort of way to add photo and/or videos. When you’re first starting out, your phone camera will work just great!
If you want a legit photography set up, here’s a good shopping list starting point:
- Stock image subscription
- stock music subscription
- DSLR camera
- Tripod
- Lenses
- Memory card
- Video camera
- Lighting
- Microphone (I had this affordable Snowball forever before upgrading to this Rode microphone and still highly recommend it)
Miscellaneous Blog Start-Up Expenses
Of course, this is another list that can vary greatly depending on your niche and what kind of goals you have. The Blog Budget Spreadsheet has spots for all of these categories and more, plus an added-in formula that will allow you to get the sum of your costs easily. This includes items like:
- Paid ads
- Product launches
- Business cards
- Travel expenses
- LLC formation
- Networking groups
- Courses
The Blog Budget Spreadsheet will help you figure out your exact costs for all the above items and more.
It can seem overwhelming to know which products to invest in and pick, but hopefully this list will be a good jumping off point for you!