Cost

I do not charge for my services. I only collect the fees that the domain name registrar / hosting company charges. (Some would say that you get what you pay for, but I believe that I give a fair amount more than that.)

I use GoDaddy for domain registration and hosting. They are among the biggest and most well-known of the companies in that business. I use them because their prices are competitive and their customer service is excellent. (And they've cleaned up their act on their advertising recently.)

Currently, the annual cost for a new website on my GoDaddy shared hosting plan is:

Again, all of that money goes to GoDaddy. What I get is the satisfaction of a job well done.

Note: Cost subject to change when GoDaddy changes their prices or when sites enter or leave my hosting plan (at most once a year, at renewal). My fee, ZERO, is not subject to change.

Notes

^[1] Domain Name Registration

The "domain name" is the name that a user types into the web browser on his or her computer to go to a website — like "winsomesites.com." For this to work, a website has to register its name with a domain name registrar. The registrar then provides DNS service, which is the process that connects the user to the website.

The registrar charges the website a fee for this; GoDaddy's fee currently is $15 a year. This is about what most registrars charge on an ongoing basis; you can get first-year deals for less than that.

^[2] Private Registration

I also purchase for my sites a "private registration." There is an international organization called ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) that registers websites to make sure they are legitimate sites and not "dark web" malware peddlers. All reputable domain name registrars, like GoDaddy, require you to register with ICANN, which means giving them a name, email address and telephone number where the manager of the site can be contacted. This registration is actively audited, and if you fail to give legit information, your site can be shut down and your domain name forfeited.

A problem arises because, since the registration information is publicly available, it is a fertile source for, yes, malware developers — robocallers, spam emailers and the like. To avoid this, for $10 a year one can purchase a "private registration" from GoDaddy where they will register themselves with ICANN as your agent and contact you if you get any legitimate inquiries. For $10 a year, this is worth it.

^[3] Hosting

"Hosting" is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for websites. A website rents space on a computer (a "server") to hold the computer files that comprise it. The server provides the availability and connections that allow the DNS service to access the site.

I have a "shared hosting plan" with GoDaddy. This means that I can support multiple websites with a single plan. The sites then share the cost of the hosting plan. Currently I have five sites on my plan, so they split the hosting fee five ways. If I add a site for you, then the fee will be split six ways. If, in the future, more sites join my plan, your share could be reduced even more. If this happens, I will give you a credit on next year's fee.