Free tool

How much does it cost to start a business online?

Most answers to this are a listicle with a number someone invented. This one shows you the actual line items, what each really costs, and how much of the list is free until you have customers.

This only covers businesses you can start from a laptop. A restaurant, a gym or a food truck is a different question with a much bigger answer, and we are not going to guess at it.

What are you starting

Your line items

Switch off anything you do not need. The ones you cannot switch off are the costs nobody escapes.

Legal and admin

Registering the businessSet by your state. Some states add an annual report or franchise fee on top.

$150

Registered agentFree if you use your own address and are willing to have it on the public record.

$0/mo

Business bank accountPlenty of business accounts are free. Some charge once you hold a balance or take cash.

$0/mo

Bookkeeping softwareA spreadsheet is genuinely fine for the first year of a one-person business.

$15/mo

Being online

Domain name, first yearA .com renews at a similar price. Premium names and some newer extensions cost far more.

$15Unavoidable

HostingFree while it is a side project. The free plan on the most popular host is non-commercial only, so the day you earn money you are on the paid plan whatever your traffic looks like.

$20/moUnavoidable

Database and loginFree until you outgrow the allowance. Our Free Tier tool works out when that happens for your numbers.

$0/mo

Sending emailFree up to a few thousand a month, and there is usually a daily ceiling too, so one launch blast can hit the wall early.

$0/mo

The product

AI model usageDepends entirely on how much each user talks to it. Our AI Cost Calculator turns that into a per-user figure.

$20/mo

Taking paymentsFree to set up. It costs you a slice of every sale instead, around 2.9% plus 30 cents on a card, which is why it is $0 here and still very much a cost.

FreeUnavoidable

App store developer accountsApple is $99 a year, Google is a one-time $25. Both together is $124 to start.

$124

Getting customers

Site or landing page builderOnly a cost if you would rather not build the page yourself.

$0/mo

Email list toolFree at small list sizes on most of them, then priced per subscriber.

$0/mo

Paid advertisingOff by default on purpose. Paying for traffic before you know the thing sells is the most common way to spend a startup budget on nothing.

$300/mo

Months before you charge anyonemonthsHow long you expect to build and sell before the first payment lands.

The cost that is not cash

Optional. Your own hours are the largest line item in almost every online business and the one that never makes it onto the spreadsheet. It is kept out of the cash totals because it is not cash.

Hours a month you will put inhoursWhat an hour of your time is worth$

To get started

Cash before first payment$285

One-off setup$165

Every month after$40/mo

First twelve months$645

Range: $60 to $1,470 before your first payment.

Most of this list is free to start

7 of your 9 line items can cost you nothing at the start, because each one has a free plan that covers a launch. That is the real answer to this question for an online business, and it is why the figure people quote is usually far too high.

Only 2 of the 9 cost money from day one whatever you do. Those are the ones to budget for.

The cost that is not cash

Over 3 months that is 180 hours of your own time, worth $9,000. It is not cash, so it is not in the totals above, but it is the most expensive thing on this page.

What people actually ask about starting costs

How much does it cost to start a business online?

Less than almost anyone tells you, and the honest answer is a range rather than a number. If you are building software, the tooling is free until you have real users: hosting, database, auth and email all have free plans that cover a launch. What you cannot avoid is registering the business, which runs from about $50 to $500 depending on your state, and a domain at roughly $15 a year. Everything after that is a choice. Put your own list together above and the tool separates the two for you.

How much does it cost to start an LLC?

The filing fee is set by your state, and the spread is wide: it runs from around $50 at the low end to roughly $500 at the high end, with most states in the middle. Some states also charge an annual report or franchise fee on top. Check your own Secretary of State's page for the current figure, because it is the one number here that is published, exact and specific to you.

How much does it cost to publish an app?

Apple charges $99 a year for the Developer Program. Google charges a one-time $25 registration fee. Those are the store costs, and they are the same whether your app has ten users or ten million. Everything else about running an app is the infrastructure on this page.

What startup costs do people forget?

Three, consistently. Payment processing, which is not a monthly fee but a slice of every sale, around 2.9% plus 30 cents on a card. The month your free tier flips to paid, which arrives as an invoice rather than a warning. And your own time, which is the largest cost in almost every online business and is on this page precisely because it is never on the spreadsheet.

Why is this so much cheaper than the numbers I have seen?

Because most articles about starting a business are written about physical businesses. A restaurant, a gym or a landscaping company genuinely does need tens of thousands of dollars for premises, equipment and stock. An online business does not, and averaging the two together produces a number that is wrong for both. This tool only covers the online case and says so rather than quietly blending them.

What this assumes

United States, one person starting one business, paying published list prices. Ranges are low to high across common providers and states, and the likely figure is the middle rather than an average of anything. A line item counts as free to start when the bottom of its range is zero, which means it has a free plan that covers a launch, not that it stays free. It does not model taxes, payment processing fees on your sales, salaries, hardware you already own, or anything specific to your industry. Software prices come from the same daily check that feeds our Free Tier tool; state filing fees and store fees are published figures maintained by hand. Every number here is a published price or a stated range, not a projection of what your business will cost.

Cheap to start is not the same as ready to sell

The costs above are the easy part. The expensive surprise is a database anyone can read, or an API key sitting in the JavaScript every visitor downloads. Both are free to have and free for a stranger to find.

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