Is Blogging Free? How Much Does It Cost (Scratch to Advance)

 A straightforward answer to this question is YES as well as NO

I know that now you got even more confused than before 

But don't worry, in this blog I'll try to cover all the aspects under free blogging or paid blogging.

Let's know from the perspective, is blogging is free??

Yes, you can start a blog for free but in that, you will have certain limitations

But before knowing about the limitations of free blogging, let's know who all can start free blogging and what you will get from free blogging?

Now, when I start my blog, I started it on Blogger which is a free blogging platform because as an initial stage I didn't know much about blogging so I did choose a free blogging platform to try out blogging or you can say I tasted blogging from blogger platform.

Most people say that you cannot make money from free blogging or you can just start a hobby blog on free blogging platforms.

I think all these statements are just a myth and I want to burst these blogging myths and make you clear about it in this blog.

I have seen many blogs out there on the Internet which is started on blogger and also approved by Adsense and they are making a good amount of money from their blogs.

On the other hand, I have also seen some bloggers who invested a huge amount of money on expensive hosting and custom domain and custom email but were unable to make or generate money from their blog.

After this observation, I came to the conclusion that no matter how you do and which platform you use, you can generate a good amount of money from it 

But, you need to pro in it which you learn over time and experience.

Most people prefer paid blogging over free blogging, is because free blogging has certain limitations. So most of people switch to paid blogging

Also, read - Top Indian bloggers and their Income

Limitations of FREE blogging

• Not professional domain - If you don't have a custom domain people will not take your blog seriously and you will stay behind in your blog growth 

• Limited option - Free blogging platforms will have limited features as compared to self-hosted platforms

• Poor customer service - As if you have paid to host then the customer service will be high as compared to a free platform

• Lack of customization - In free blogging platforms you cannot much customize your themes and your blog format as easy as you can do on a self-hosted platform 

• And the list goes on...

Benefits of FREE blogging 

• You can start a free blog if you want to have a hobby blog where your primary motive is not to monetize your blog

• FREE to use (all the basic feature which you need to create a blog is available for free)

• Free domain and hosting 

• You can even monetize it

Advice to Newbie

Wanna Start Free blogging or at minimum cost?

If you want to start a money-making blog but you don't have enough money or trust to invest in it then you can simply start your blog as any free blogging platform for example - Blogger.

And then you can add a custom domain to it so to make it more professional.

How much does blogging cost?? In general 

Now Ok, you decide to invest your money in blogging then this is for you 

Here I will show you the estimated cost in order to start a blog 

1. When you want to start a professional-looking and working blog. The first thing you need to do is to have a domain and hosting 

Domain means example.com (domain name) 

Hosting means the service in which your blogs will be stored and from there you can assess your website.

Price of DOMAIN name - $10 to $20/yearly (estimated)

Price of hosting - $2 to $20/monthly (estimated)

Hosting service price may differ from company to company, totally depending on you and which company you need to buy hosting from.

Now Domain and Hosting are mandatory when you want to start a self-hosted blog.

Apart from this, there are other investments as well which is totally OPTIONAL 

Here is the other blogging investment (optional)

These investments are called expenses unless you don't know how to utilize it

• Subscription Pop-up 

• Paid email collection tool

• SEO tools

 

I suggest you use it once you realize the actual work of these tools because I have seen many of my blogging friends did buy an SEO tool Subscription for one month and they don't even know how to use it. So it becomes a waste of money if you don't use it properly 

I believe once you give at least one year to your blog and then you find anything important where you need to do investment, go for it because now after spending a precious one year into blogging you have developed a sense of importance towards it.

Now, that’s it from my side

Now time for your to start a blog no matter where but just start it because it might look different from the outside but once you actually start you will find many things difficult.

All those things you will learn after starting a blog.

I hope I cleared you about the most frequently asked question Is Blogging FREE?