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Startup Notes. for Moms

Free tool · Website Cost Calculator

Website Cost Calculator: WordPress vs a Static Site

Compare the one-, three-, and five-year cost of a WordPress host against a static site on a free tier — including the domain, themes, and the AI and tool subscriptions you'd pay either way.

Check your registrar's renewal price, not the first-year promo.

WordPress route

Renewal price — intro prices double or triple later.

Static site route (what I use)

Cloudflare Pages, Netlify and GitHub Pages have free tiers that cover a small site.

0 if you build it with AI yourself.

Same on both routes — it's the real cost of the workflow.

Total over 3 years

WordPress

—

Static site

—

Per month, WordPress—
Per month, static—
Of which tools & AI (both)—
Domain over the period—

Money isn't the only difference: WordPress needs updates and a backup plan; a static site needs you (or an AI) to be comfortable editing files. The note this tool lives in covers both sides.

What to enter

Use the renewal price for hosting and the registrar's renewal price for the domain. Put the same AI and tool subscriptions on both routes — they're the cost of producing content, not of the platform. If you'd pay someone to set up the static site, put that in the one-time box.

My own numbers

After moving off WordPress, my only recurring site cost is domains. Everything else — hosting, the daily rebuild that publishes scheduled posts, redirects — runs on a free tier. The AI subscription is the real monthly cost, and it's the one I'd keep if I had to cut everything else.

Questions I get asked

Is a static site really free to host?
The hosting can be. Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, and GitHub Pages all have free tiers that comfortably serve a small content site; my sites run on one. You still pay for the domain, and for any tools you use to build and write.
What's the catch with the static route?
Someone has to be comfortable editing files and pushing changes — in my case that's me with an AI assistant doing most of the typing. There's no admin dashboard, no plugin marketplace, and no one-click install.
Why enter renewal prices instead of the promo price?
Because the promo lasts a year and the renewal lasts the rest of your life. Hosting that's $3 a month for the first term is often $10–15 after; the calculator is only honest if you enter the number you'll actually pay.
Should I include my AI subscription?
Yes, on both sides. It's the real cost of the workflow whichever platform you use, and it's often bigger than hosting.

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