WordPress
Open source self-hosted content software, the most widely supported option in this directory and the most maintenance per site.
- Price
- The software is free. You pay for hosting, and for any paid plugins or themes you choose.
- Delivery Model
- Open source software you install on your own hosting
- Who It Fits
- Shops that want maximum portability and have a strict, narrow plugin list
- What You Own
- Everything. Files and database, movable to any host
- If You Stop Paying
- Nothing stops. There is no platform subscription to stop
- Cost Shape
- Hosting plus whichever paid plugins and themes you choose
No licence to buy, which is why it is the default answer. Hosting and plugin costs vary per build, so there is no single comparable number.
WordPress is the default answer, and it is the default answer for good reasons. It is free software, it runs almost anywhere, and your client site is a folder plus a database that you can copy and move whenever you like.
Nothing else in this directory has that much momentum. Every host supports it, every freelancer knows it, and a client leaving you can find somebody else to look after it in an afternoon.
The cost is maintenance, and it is not small. A WordPress site is really a stack of other people's plugins, each with its own update schedule and its own opinion about how your content should be shaped. Twenty client sites means twenty stacks, and no two of them end up identical.
That is the trap for a growing shop. You own everything, which also means you maintain everything, and the work grows with the client count rather than staying flat. Plenty of good agencies run on it anyway. The ones that do it well pick a narrow set of plugins and refuse to deviate.
Current terms and features: wordpress.org/