What does it cost to start a blog with the city living network?
What does it cost to start and run a city-specific publication with the City Living Network?
Around $15k, depending on the city — then less than $500 a year ongoing.
I know, I know, that’s a big number. But don’t run away. Let’s break down that number and see what you’re actually getting.
Then we’ll dive into the less than $500/annually factor — because trust me, not many businesses have yearly overhead costs of anywhere near as low as $500.
I’m going to structure this article to break down the individual costs of launching a city-specific blog as you get with the City Living Network. We’ll start with the biggest costs which are going to be your website itself, branding, and logo.
How much does it cost to launch a website?
We dug around on the internet to find the average cost of launching a professionally built and modern website. Not everyone has their prices listed online, but what we did find was that competent, experienced web designers were charging between $8,000-$12,000, but some could go as high as $20,000 depending on the number of pages and site customization that you wanted.
With the City Living Network you get an 8-page website, so let’s say you find a happy medium and a competent web designer that’s able to build you an 8-page website for about $10,000.
Great, now if you’re looking at our cost above, you also have branding, logos, social media setup, 10 launch articles, graphics, one-on-one consulting, a supportive network, and a full course teaching you how to run and manage your website for the additional $5k.
Let’s see how far we get with your budget.
The average cost of professional branding & logos
If you're looking to get your branding done well, look for agencies or freelancers that offer the full branding package: brand strategy, messaging, and visuals. This will include your fonts, colors, logo, and a brand strategy that helps you bring your branding to life on your website and each social media account.
When I started researching how much this all might cost in 2024, I can tell you right away that I was shocked. In my initial research, I was looking at small, boutique branding agencies that had starting prices of $10,000+. But, wanting to find you the thrifty option, I kept looking.
In the end, I was able to find some freelancers offering full branding services for between $4,000-$6,000. (Yup these were on the lower end!)
So if you wanted to cost this out yourself, between just your website and branding, you’re looking at a minimum cost of $14,000 without the added bonuses of having 10 launch articles ready when you launch your blog, all your social media channels set up, coaching with our founder, Lindsay and the other City Living Network editors, and a full course outlining how to manage your city-specific blog, run a podcast, sell ad space and so much more.
Additional costs to set up your city-specific blog
Finally, I’m just going to list a quick breakdown of the additional costs it would take to launch a city-specific blog on your own, without the help of the City Living Network.
Online course teaching you how to run and manage your own blog: Approx. $1000
Online course teaching you how to manage and run a podcast: Approx. $500
10 launch articles: Approx. $500
Initial setup of all social media accounts: Approx. $1,500
Course teaching you how to manage Pinterest, Instagram & TikTok for your blog: $1,500
One-on-One consulting: $1000
The overall cost of launching a legit blog in 2024 WITHOUT the help of the City Living Network: $20,000.
And don’t even get me started on the timeline… for most freelancers offering to build you a website, their timeline starts at 3-6 months. And branding is much the same. Plus you’ll have to have your branding and site outline DONE before your developer can start building you anything… You’re looking at 6+ months until you’ve launched, which is 6 months you’re waiting for this project to be done before you can start monetizing and making back your investment…
But with the City Living Network, we have your entire blog launched in just 30 days. And during that 30 days, you’ll be able to run through an entire online course teaching you how to manage your blog, launch a podcast and sell ad space to start making money.
Within 30 days of launching Lexington Living Magazine, Emily was able to make $3,000 from selling her first ad to a local laundromat! So while we were busy building her a beautiful website, Emily was already out there hustling her first $3,000 for her new business.
Ongoing costs of running a city-specific blog
Lastly of course we need to talk about the ongoing costs of running your city-specific publication. These are going to be the yearly or monthly subscriptions and services that you’ll need to host your website, manage and send emails and use the templates and designs created for you by us.
Squarespace hosting: $150-$300 annually
Canva Pro subscription: $130 annually
Newsletter hosting: $6 monthly
Professional email: $6 monthly
The average yearly cost to maintain your new blog: $424.
That’s about $35/month to run your entire business. Now we’ve talked before about how you can monetize your city-specific blog and you can read that here. But in this post, I want to give you an example of how you can start recuperating the overall cost of your city-specific blog, much like Emily from Lexington Living Magazine did in her first month of running her blog.
Using our email pitch templates you’ll reach out to businesses in your town to see if they would like to place a custom ad on your website. You’ve just launched to let’s say you’re going to charge $1,500 for an ad. They agree but you’re not a photographer or writer… so you need some help getting the content!
You hire a photographer to go take some photos around their business for the ad, which costs $50. Then you hire a writer to create a short, 500-word article about the business to be published on the blog. You’ve spent $100 to create and publish this ad, which means your take-home from the ad placement is $1,400.
With the City Living Network, you have templates to walk you through this entire process, so you’re not left in the dark trying to negotiate or speak to businesses in a way that will get them to say HELL YES to your proposal.
You get the exact templates that we use to sell ad placements on Laguna Beach Living. Our goal is to help you have a beautiful, functional, and monetized publication in just 30 days.
Now of course there are going to be people shaking their heads at our predictions, saying you can get a logo and branding done on Fiverr for $50 and a website built for less than $500. And yes, you can… but remember as with all things, you’re paying for quality. And while people on Fiverr can do an incredible job, websites are a lot of work and it’s important to work with someone who can teach you what they’ve built you, that you have full access to, and that you know has done a professional job. We’ve heard way too many horror stories of scrambled code and botched websites to recommend this route.
All that being said, if you’re ready to take the leap and add Editor-in-Chief to your resume, take advantage of working with the City Living Network.
Schedule a free, no-obligation call with our founder Lindsay today.
