This is just a list of things we’re paying for to do the site. Definitely not the ‘right’ way to do things. Probably a lot here we will cut if we can. But maybe it helps you budget if you’re launching something similar.
WP theme: A few hundred dollars like 8 years ago… Typically between free and $100
WP premium plugins:
ACF Pro: ~$100 CAD/lifetime
All In One Unlimited Migration: $69/lifetime
Imagify: $4.99/mo.
Theme My Login misc. extensions – $a few dozen/year
WP Rocket – $50 year (for 1 website. We pay $250 b/c Sam uses it for client work)
WP to Buffer Pro: $199/lifetime
WP Forms Pro: ~$200/year
Placid: $190/year
Buffer: $144/year (though we can probably downgrade to free, no problem)
Scrutiny: $145 CAD
IFTTT: $2/month (early PWYC plan)
Content
Adobe Stock: $33.89/mo. for 10 assets/mo.
InDesign templates: $20/template
Adobe Creative Cloud: $69.99/month
Contributors (and exchange rates): Per GftW, we pay each contributor $200/piece.
We lose a bunch on conversions or maybe it’s on Visa fees. Just for one example, one of our invoices for May was $1,250 USD. We got charged $1,580.04 CAD. When we converted $1,250 USD back to CAD to reimburse ourselves that was 1,498.00 (-$82.04). One more example: charged $2,000 USD, which converted to $2,484.60 CAD. Reimbursing ourselves, 2k converted to $2,357.40 (-$127.20). So, multiplied by 12 which is about how often Outvoice is billing us that’s a loss of, let’s say, $1,200 during our GftW period. Whoops! Uh, flee Canada? Or boycott American writers?
Podcast
Gear
Mic, stand, pop, headphones: probably ~$1k total
Audio Hijack: $59
Loopback: $99
Farrago: $49
SFX: Maybe ~$50-100/year?
Descript: $12-24/month
Highland 2: ~$69.99/one-time
Misc.
Notion: $48/year
Missive: $10-15/month
Huh. That’s at least $5,000 a year in costs not even counting contributors, isn’t it? Dang. We’ve been thinking about moving off WordPress to Ghost, which would slash our costs, replacing all the WP-specific expenses with just Pro Ghost hosting plus podcast hosting. The trade off would be a much simpler site. But jesus, at those numbers…