Once you decide to have me build a site for you, we’ll discuss your ideas on content, design, navigation, social media, etc. Once the site is live, you decide if, and how much, editing you want to do. Some of my clients make their own updates to page content and create blog/news posts. Other clients have me do all of that. I only charge my hourly fee for those edits, there is no monthly fee.
Charges for StarrlightMedia web services (including website build, updates, content writing, site backups, and/or photo editing) are $35/hour. Some assistance on learning to edit the site is included with new sites I built, but I’m also available for remote tutoring. There is little maintenance needed on the “backend” for wordpress.com sites so after initial set up I only charge, on an hourly basis, for requested content and design updates, and site backups. If you do these tasks, there are no additional charges on my part.
If you go with a wordpress.com account, the website is hosted there. There are 5 plans available at wordpress.com, including a free plan. The free plan will include a wordpress url (address) for example “starrlightmedia.wordpress.com” and WP will put small ads on your site. (I don’t recommend this option.) If you want to use a custom domain (either new one or existing) and eliminate ads on the site, you’ll need to get at least the personal plan which is $48/year. A custom domain is provided by WordPress free the first year, then $18/year, or if you already have a domain managed elsewhere, it is $13/year to “map” it to your WordPress site. Any of the paid plans include support from the extremely helpful folks at WordPress. For a site that needs additional customization not included with the theme, you’d need at least the premium plan for the CSS coding feature, or the business plan in order to use plugins. For information on pricing see wordpress.com/pricing/ .
If you decide you want to go with the standard WordPress installation on a self-hosted site, you’d need an account with SiteGround, BlueHost or another webhosting company (I do not host sites myself). This option entails more setup time and overall maintenance but it does give more options with design and functionality than the WordPress.com sites do.
* Note re email: If you are interested in a website at wordpress.com, be aware that setting up email via WordPress they will charge an additional fee. If you currently use a webhost that also handles your email, and you drop that webhost to start with wordpress.com, keep this fact in mind.
You may have more questions – feel free to ask!