Sitecore vs WordPress: Total cost of ownership & budgeting considerations

If you compare Sitecore and WordPress for TCO, WordPress is the more cost-effective solution. That’s mainly because development resources comprise the bulk of your TOC investments (if you set aside the ongoing subscription/infrastructure costs). And this is where WordPress offers lots of expert technical resources for considerably lower than what you’d be able to hire for Sitecore. Only a very niche community of developers cater to Sitecore. 

So if you’re looking at long-term cost efficiency for scaling your CMS, WordPress is the clear winner.

Here’s an overview of what your financial commitments will look like for Sitecore and WordPress.

Let’s look at Sitecore first.

Initial costs: Licensing and setup

If you go with Sitecore’s Experience Manager CMS solution, you’ll be looking at these investments:

1. The licensing fee for the solution.

2. The costs for setting it up on-premise or on public cloud infrastructures. 

Alternatively, if you go with Sitecore’s Cloud XM CMS solution, you’ll be looking at a single subscription plan. Naturally, you’ll be looking at a much heftier contract in that case because that will bundle the licensing fee too. And how much can this all cost? It turns out that XM Cloud’s pricing is subject to too many things, and even Sitecore partners can’t disclose the pricing structures openly. But the awesome folks at Fishtank give the insider’s scoop:

Sitecore XM Cloud is an entirely SaaS platform and its licensing will account for not only your traffic but also include your sizing and performance needs. Performance costs used to be controlled by infrastructure (be it Managed Cloud or in your own cloud environment) but now you’ll see it reflected in the license. There may be some variability in pricing relative to each client’s needs. — Dan from Fishtank (a leading Sitecore agency partner)

Also, because Sitecore Cloud XM is a headless-only CMS, you’ll need to invest in a frontend host too (like Vercel). 

3. The development costs going toward the setup. If you go with the self-hosted option, it’s really important to work with an experienced Sitecore development agency, as your Sitecore infrastructure costs vary greatly based on how it’s implemented. Even with Sitecore’s cloud offerings, it’s important to understand how their default topologies work.

5. Costs toward additional Sitecore features you may want to use. On top of your setup costs, because Sitecore’s Experience Manager solution is a composable CMS, you may choose to add more features to it from Sitecore’s suite of solutions. Your licensing costs will go up depending on the features you add to your CMS. For example, if you want to use Personalize, you’ll need to purchase it separately. If you choose their Cloud XM solution, again, you’ll need to buy Personalize additionally (as Cloud XM only ships with basic personalization and not the entire Personalize suite).

But we aren’t done yet.

6. There are integrations to consider too.

Integrations, too, are a part of setting up your CMS. Even at the very least, your CMS has to integrate with a few of your marketing and sales solutions. Take Salesforce Marketing Cloud, for instance. 

Now, if you want to connect your Sitecore CMS to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you’ll have to buy Sitecore’s Connect solution, which will add $20,000 to your setup annually:

(Actually if you want to bring any third-party solution to the Sitecore ecosystem, the Sitecore Connect add-on is a compulsory buy.)

7. While we’re at it, let’s consider the costs associated with integrations. There will always be some overhead in the form of developing and customizing your integrations as well.

Because Sitecore tends to deal primarily with enterprises, its development resources tend to be on the higher end. So for all your development, customization, and integration needs, you’ll generally pay more for Sitecore than you would for a more mainstream CMS like WordPress.

Let’s talk about WordPress now.

So, if you go with WordPress:

• There’s zero licensing fee. There’s no licensing fee for WordPress (as WordPress is an open-source solution),
• Your upfront costs will include setting up your infrastructure for hosting your WordPress CMS. And if you go with some of the best managed WordPress hosting providers for this part, like WordPress VIP, you’re looking at plans starting at $25000/year. You do have higher plans depending on the traffic volumes and features you’re looking at.
• Then, you’ll have development costs going toward the setup. Unlike Sitecore, hiring talented WordPress development services is much more cost-effective.

Let’s also look at integrations.

Suppose you want to integrate your Salesforce Marketing Cloud account with your WordPress CMS. In this case, if you go with WordPress VIP, you don’t just get a native integration between both the solutions, but it’s also significantly more affordable. WordPress VIP lets you bring Salesforce Marketing Cloud to your WordPress CMS for $12,000/year:

By the way, we brought this integration to the WordPress VIP ecosystem and were even awarded with WordPress’s “Top Partner Innovator” recognition for the same. You can read more about it on WordPress VIP.

Total cost of ownership (TCO) over time

After factoring in your CMS’s initial setup costs, it’s important to consider the overall total cost of ownership (TCO) that you’re looking at over the platform’s entire lifecycle. TCO includes all ongoing expenses beyond the upfront investments and covers both direct and indirect costs associated with using and maintaining your CMS over time.

Here are some key considerations:

• Ongoing infrastructure costs: If you choose a self-hosted option, such as Sitecore’s Experience Manager or WordPress’s self-hosted version, you’ll need to account for server maintenance, hosting, and IT infrastructure management.
• Subscriptions: For managed versions like Sitecore XM Cloud or WordPress VIP, you’ll have recurring subscription costs. These cover hosting, security, and some maintenance services but are a regular expense. With Sitecore XM Cloud, you’re also looking at a frontend hosting subscription. Even with WordPress, you’ll incur an additional subscription to host your frontend if you use WordPress in a headless setup.
• Continuous optimizations: CMS platforms need periodic optimizations to stay efficient. For instance, you may realize the need to integrate a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, which could add additional costs.
• Ongoing maintenance: Although managed services like Sitecore XM Cloud and WordPress VIP handle much of the maintenance (such as updates and security patches), you may still incur costs for maintaining third-party integrations, plugins, or custom features.
• Customization needs: With CMSs, you’ll often find yourself needing more templates or design blocks or general customizations, all of which come with development costs.
• Migration costs: For self-hosted CMS options, migrating to newer versions can be resource-intensive. However, managed services like Sitecore XM Cloud and WordPress VIP include automatic updates to the latest versions, significantly reducing migration costs.
• Upgrade costs: If you happen to outgrow your current CMS infrastructure or subscription plan, you should know what your newer costs would look like. Understanding the pricing structure for such upgrades is important for planning.
• Integration/expansion costs: Over time, as your martech stack grows, you may need to integrate more solutions with your CMS, all of which have associated costs (in terms of both licensing fees and spending on integration development and customizations).
• Training costs: When you introduce a new CMS, when your CMS introduces new features, or even if you customize your CMS, you also need to set aside some budget for creating your training materials. Those costs go here.

In addition to these, you’d also want to see how expensive it would be to migrate from the CMS you choose to a different CMS in case your needs change. Plus, the costs—in, say, the loss of business–from any downtime the CMS suffers.

Long-term financial impact: ROI and budget planning

Finally, it’s crucial to understand the long-term financial impact of your CMS choice.

While every CMS implementation is unique, you can gain a fair idea of what your CMS investment can translate to in a few years by learning from the experiences of other users who have invested in these platforms over extended periods. 

Let’s talk about WordPress first here.

In its “The Total Economic Impact™ Of WordPress VIP” study (commissioned by WordPress VIP), Forrester found WordPress VIP to offer a 5X return on investment. 

So how exactly do WordPress VIP customers realize this ROI and savings?

As WordPress VIP’s customers put it, costs come down “across the board” with WordPress, mainly through:

• Savings in development resources (This alone translates to hundreds of thousands of dollars over the CMS lifecycle.)
• Savings in security investments 
• Savings in operational costs

And more. 
Check out Forrester’s report for more.