10 Best Blogging Platforms to Make Money 2026 [Compared with Costs]

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Creating a blog is as easy as ever, thanks to numerous blogging websites that have simplified the process. Yet, with these myriad popular blogging platforms, you may struggle to choose the best blogging platform for your needs. We’re here to help you with this comprehensive guide on the most popular blog platforms and their key features, pros, and cons.

How we analyze the top blogging platforms for monetization in 2026

We spent many hours choosing the best blogging platforms through evaluation and testing of many platforms. The following are the criteria we consider:

1. Ease of use

To assess the usability of a platform, you can take into account simplicity and efficiency. You should be able to set up quickly even without any technical skills. Thus, you will be able to create a neat-looking blog right away, concentrating only on writing posts. In general, the best blog platforms keep things simple and help you create a professional blog right at the beginning.

2. Customization possibilities

At the same time, you should be allowed to personalize the background of your blog site, the fonts, the size of the images, the icons, colors of the texts, video player, and other visual elements on your site. Professional blogging sites provide customizable templates, through which you can create visually attractive blogs without much effort.

3. Monetization possibilities

Blogging sites allow various ways of monetization. Blogging sites have paywall services where people have to pay to get access to certain posts. Email marketing or sponsored posts can also be added. It is advisable to get a proper balance of the various forms of monetization that will help to generate income for the blog.

The perfect blogging site should be able to provide you with the ability to add the ad code in specific places and make money from views and clicks. For example, you can add the Adsterra Banner ad code in your blog to earn money online from views and clicks. Or add advanced Social Bar ads which are 33X more effective than web push notifications.

4. SEO functionalities

Search engines are the top source of organic traffic for blogs. Hence, an ideal blogging platform should allow you to optimize your blog in order to get good ranking on search engines. 

You should be able to customize meta descriptions, image alt tags, headers, and titles in order for search engines to index your blog well and not just scrape something on your blog. SEO functionalities give you an advantage against your competitors.

5. Data analytics

This is a crucial factor which is very closely related to SEO. You need to know the impact of your maneuvers. Compatibility and ease of integration of GA 4 (Google Analytics 4) and GSC (Google Search Console) with your blogging site is important.

6. Pricing

Certain well-known blogs have special premium features that are available only through payment. Thus, you should analyze your desired features against the financial resources you possess. If you are on a tight budget, it is advisable to choose the affordable platform or opt for a free one first and upgrade later.

7. Scalability

When approaching your first simple blog site, it is very hard to predict the future growth and expansion directions for it. However, it is just a nice addition when the best blogging platform you choose allows for the advanced scalability options.

8. Stability and development of best blogging sites

The stability and further development of your online platform should match the development of your blog site. Choose it with care, read reviews and study feedback.

9. Positive reviews

And yet again. No procrastination reason should stop you from checking forums and community recommendations and reviews, like from the WordPress community. It is certain that someone must have traveled down this path before, learned something from the experience and told the world about it.

10. No coding skills

If you set yourself for simplicity, make sure you can drag and drop all the necessary features without a developer’s help. When you start monetizing with ads, it’s very easy just to copy and paste the ad code to your site. Your ad network will provide you with step-by-step instructions.

11. Ease of hosting

Hosting that is free makes a perfect choice if you don’t wish to go through more planning and implementation.

12. Easy-to-migrate

Transferring blogs between different platforms is a frequent matter, for instance, transferring from Blogger to WordPress. Though possible with best blogging for monetization, this process can be quite complex, thus requiring assistance from a technical expert.

How did we test blogging platforms?

Blog features

What advanced features does the blogging platform have, and which features make it unique from competitors? We extensively tested SEO features, templates, customizability, and third-party integrations to be seamless.

Ease of use

We tested each platform to evaluate its user-friendliness. This factor is essential because many people struggle with the initial process of creating their own site or blog online.

Value for money

Are the features worth the price of a blogging platform with potential to earn money? We took advantage of free trials to extensively test the features of paid blogging platforms. We compared these features with those of the free platforms to get factual opinions.

Here’s what one of Adsterra’s star bloggers has to say about value for money when choosing between a paid and free blogging platform.

Future-proof strategies for long-term blog success

Choosing the best blogging platform from the start will make your life much easier. Look in a few years ahead, even if it’s hard and future-proof strategy seems to be abundant. It will save you the stress of making a second choice and swapping to an easy blog platform to start a blog or a more advanced one.

Often, users prefer minimalist platforms for blogging that allow for simple writing and publishing, when complex technicalities of traditional platforms are left behind.

Also remember that the internet contains over 600 million blogs competing for readers’ attention. This intense competition mandates customizing your blog to stand out from the crowd, so you need a platform that makes this possible.

Top ten blogging platforms. Quick comparison for earnings potential

Platform	Best For	Key Strengths	Limitations	Cost*
WordPress.org	Universal / flexible	Extremely customizable, huge plugin ecosystem, SEO tools, free themes	Setup complexity, hosting required	Free. Hosting from $2–30+/month, domain $10–20/year
WordPress.com	Businesses	Managed hosting, support, easier setup than .org	Expensive for high-traffic sites, limited control vs .org	Free plan. Paid plans from $4/month
Blogger, free blogging platform	Beginners / free blogs	Simple interface, Google-backed	Limited customization, no extensive plugins	Free. Includes hosting & a Blogger subdomain. Custom domain $10–20/year
Wix	User-friendly blogs	Visual drag-and-drop builder, easy interface	Less powerful than WordPress, paid for full features	Free with Wix branding. Paid plans from $17/month
HubSpot CMS	Marketing / content blogs	Drag-and-drop builder, marketing tools, scalable	Limited free features, paid for full access	Free tools available. Paid plans from $20/month
Weebly	Personal blogs	Easy setup, affordable, SEO and e-commerce basics	Less advanced customization	Free plan. Paid plans from $10–15/month
Squarespace	Visual / art blogs	Strong visual templates, built-in ecommerce and paywall	Not ideal for text-only blogs	Only free trial. Paid plans from $11/month
Medium, free blogging platform	Audience / exposure	Social discovery, easy publishing	Limited branding and SEO, no third-party ads	Free publishing available
Substack	Long-form / newsletter blogs	Simple setup, newsletter plus blog, built-in discovery	Limited layout and customization	Free domain or paid custom domain, $50 one-time fee
Jekyll (GitHub Pages), free blogging platform	Technical / programmer blogs	Free hosting, highly customizable with code	No dynamic content or plugins	Free. Custom domain from $10–20/year

Pricing summary

• Completely free blogging platforms: Blogger, Medium, Jekyll (GitHub Pages)
• Lowest-cost professional options: WordPress.org, WordPress.com, Wix, Weebly
• Business-focused platforms: HubSpot Content Hub, Squarespace, WordPress.org
• Best for long-term monetization plan and flexibility: WordPress.org lets you control hosting, ads, affiliate marketing, plugins, and e-commerce

*Please note that prices vary by country, promotions, billing cycle, and plan updates, but you can check the most current prices for plans by the link for every compared blogging site that we dissect below.

10 Best blogging platforms right now

WordPress.org – Best universal platform

WordPress.org is the most commonly used blogging system and supports 41.9% of all sites in the world. WordPress is an open-source content management system which can be used to build your own website, and then you would have several web hosting providers to choose from to store your website.

WordPress has a very big market of apps for more features. Such apps, referred to as “plugins,” basically offer you all the features that you could wish to have. For instance, the WooCommerce plugin allows you to create an online store for your blog. The Yoast plugin accelerates your website SEO-wise to rank high on search engines. 

With its broad features, WordPress is very customizable. You can also insert ad codes and easily monetize your blog via Adsterra:

1. Sign up in under 10 minutes
2. Add your website
3. Choose an ad format
4. Copy and paste the provided ad code to your WordPress website (or any other)
5. Congrats — your ads are live to earn!

With 16,000+ reputable advertisers and a variety of high-converting, non-intrusive ads, Adsterra lets you monetize your website effectively. Join now to gain access to relevant, high-quality ads.

Pros

• Total ownership and control
• Thousands of free and paid themes and plugins
• Works with all types of monetization, such as ads, affiliate marketing, membership sites, and online stores
• Amazing SEO flexibility
• Scalable to any size of a website

Cons

• Requires separate web hosting and domain
• Updates, backups, and security are up to you (and/or your host may take care of these)

Current plans and pricing

WordPress.org current pricing

Recommendation

Most blog owners prefer WordPress as it is on of the best blog platform for monetization. The only downside with using WordPress for someone who is new is that it can be complicated. That is why external assistance may be required at times. However, it can be learned with practice.

WordPress.com – Best for big and small businesses

It’s essential to understand the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The former is an open-source, self-hosted version for the blogging platform, while WordPress.com is a hosted turnkey version of WordPress.

WordPress.org and WordPress.com use the same underlying software. The difference is that WordPress.com provides managed hosting services and stellar customer support, unlike WordPress.org, where you handle most technical issues yourself.

WordPress.com eliminates most technical issues involved in creating WordPress sites. It has a user-friendly interface and provides excellent support for businesses that need help creating blogs. It is one of the best blog platform for monetization. You can monetize your blog with Adsterra ads by adding a small code snippet.

Pros

• Very easy to set up
• Hosting, security, and updates are handled by them
• They offer a free plan
• Suitable for experienced bloggers and new bloggers

Cons

• Lack of customization in lower plans
• Some monetization features are only for paid plans
• Less flexible than WordPress.org

Current plans and pricing

WordPress current pricing

Comparison table for WordPress.org and WordPress.com

Feature	WordPress.org	WordPress.com
Software	Free	Free plan available
Typical pricing	$40–300+/year (hosting + domain)	Free to $45+/month (depending on plan)
Domain name	$10–20/year	Free for the first year on many paid plans
Hosting	$2–30+/month	Included
Best for	Long-term growth and monetization	Beginners and users wanting managed hosting

Recommendation

WP is one of the best blogging platforms for making money online. If you intend to transform your blog into a business or make money from it, then WordPress.org is a better choice as there will be more flexibility and possibilities for monetization. You can always start with a simpler version to migrate your content creation to a fully-fledged ecosystem with time.

Expert tip

“If you have some skills and investment, I would suggest starting with WordPress business. With WordPress, we have the freedom to create clickable links and images using plugins, which can be a bit more challenging on Blogger”.

Saif Khan, YouTube expert, entrepreneur

Blogger – Best for beginners

Blogger is one of the best blogging platforms in the world. It is a free service provided by Google and is easy to use. The user interface of Blogger is easily comprehensible even for a layman, which means that creating a blog and earning money from it using Adsterra ads is not easy.

Adsterra offers ads in 248 geographies and ensures 100% fill rate for your blog’s ad slots. Don’t hesitate to join our network of high-earning bloggers.

This platform allows you to create templates for your blog that you can customize according to your preferences. Free blogs have a hosting service on the “Blogspot.com” domain, and this is the reason why many people start their money Blogspot venture using Blogger. You can use a custom domain name through any external registra.

Blogger does not offer a third-party application marketplace like WordPress, making it less functional than the latter. The downside here is that Blogger has very few options for features and customization, since you will not be able to change as many website components as on WordPress, and there are not many templates available either – unlike WordPress that has unlimited templates created by third-parties.

Pros

• It is free to use and offers free hosting with Google
• Easily customizable, thus great for newbies
• Allows using custom domain for a professional web address
• No need for any maintenance as Google takes care of everything

Cons

• Less customization options than other platforms such as WordPress
• Has fewer themes and plugins limiting what you can do
• Basic SEO and blogging options
• Not scalable for larger blog websites
• Tied up with Google as it owns the platform and controls it

Current plans and pricing

Free. Optional costs for custom domain and design template

Recommendation

If you are a beginner, it is the best free platform for blogging, although it may require migration to another platform as you grow.

Wix – Best user-friendly blogging platform

Wix is one of the most popular blogging websites which is well-known for its simplicity. Its simple-to-navigate, visually appealing interface is sure to please most people. You can easily add Adsterra ad codes to monetize your Wix blog.

The wide range of features and numerous third-party integrations is available, but there are fewer of them comparing to those offered by WordPress. For example, Vidjet for posting videos on your blog or PDF File Viewer for scrolling through PDF files added to your blog.

Wix allows using the free plan when your website will be connected to the Wix-branded subdomain and you will get restricted access to certain features. There are several paid plans providing you with advanced features starting from $17 monthly for 2 GB of storage space to $159 monthly for unlimited storage space.

Pros

• Simple drag-and-drop editor that doesn’t require coding skills
• More than 800 templates professionally created for different sectors
• SEO and marketing solutions
• E-commerce capabilities to sell products and services online
• Website hosting, security, and updates automatically
• AI-powered website designer to build websites quicker

Cons

• Not so flexible compared to WordPress for customizations
• Templates for redesign
• Free version shows branding of Wix and Wix subdomains
• Advanced features can only be available on premium plans
• No much control over website hosting and servers
• Tend to get more costly as your website develops

Current plans and pricing

Free plan available. Wix current pricing

Recommendation

Wix isn’t the top-choice platform for a personal blog, but it is ideal for professional blogs that generate significant revenue. You can test Wix’s advanced features with a 14-day free trial.

HubSpot – Best for marketing blogs

HubSpot provides a profound sales and marketing software suite. The suite comes with a content management system (CMS), which drives blogs and other website kinds with extensive customizability and intuitiveness.

The interactive drag-and-drop interface of this platform makes it easy for you to create outstanding blogs. It comes with numerous beautiful themes that you can customize to suit your tastes. Little technical knowledge is needed to design a blog using this CMS, though you may need assistance with advanced customizations.

This platform provides a free HubSpot CMS plan. However, it comes with limited functionalities, storage space, and bandwidth, which refers to the volume of data that can be transferred to your blog visitors. If you want more capabilities, you’ll have to pay $20 per month.

Pros

• Pre-installed CMS, CRM, and marketing solutions on the same platform
• User-friendly website and blog editor that requires no programming skills
• Good SEO, analytics, and lead generation functionalities
• Automation solution for email and nurturing customers
• Highly secure and fast hosting with automatic updates and SSL certificates
• Can scale with growth

Cons

• Higher price compared to most other blogging platforms
• The advanced functionality is only available with paid options
• Fewer design options compared to WordPress
• Steep learning curve for newbies due to its marketing-oriented features
• Not suitable for personal or hobby blogs due to its business-oriented nature

Current plans and pricing

Free plan available. Hubspot current pricing

Recommendation

It is more suited for businesses, marketers, and growing companies that want to combine blogging, SEO, lead generation, and customer relationship management in a single platform.

Weebly – Best for personal blogs

Weebly is a perfect choice among all other blog platforms for beginners. The user-friendly interface allows anyone to start a blog in a couple of hours. There are many professional templates that can be easily customized by you, and it has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface.

Weebly comes with SEO tools to help boost the ranking of your website in the search engines and attract more organic traffic to your website. There is also an option for accessing e-commerce tools where you can sell some of your products to the target audience. Direct support is available for paid subscribers who need help creating and managing their blogs.

There is a free package of Weebly that will host your blog on the Weebly domain. But in order to change it to a custom domain, you’ll have to pay for the hosting. At a cost of $10-$26 per month, it is one of the cheapest blog hosting platforms. Users get unlimited storage, password protected pages and advanced analytics features.

Expert tip

“There exist free domains that are typically subdomains like yourname.platform.com provided by website builders. It would be better if your domain name is relevant to your website niche. Include keywords into your domain name”. Here is more on how to earn with your online blogging platform if you are a beginner.

Artem Kanev, Team Lead, Publisher Department at Adsterra

Pros

• Simple drag-and-drop website builder
• Beginner-friendly interface for quickly creating blogs and websites
• Free plan for basic sites
• Integrated e-commerce features
• Hosting services along with security and automatic updates
• Responsive themes

Cons

• No customizability like in WordPress
• Fewer templates and apps
• Only basic functionality for blogging which makes it inappropriate for content-intensive websites
• Few SEO and marketing features
• Not suitable for large websites

Current plans and pricing

Free plan available. Weebly current pricing

Recommendation

It is well suited for beginners, personal blogs, small businesses, and users who want a simple website builder with basic blogging and e-commerce capabilities.

Squarespace – Best for art blogs

Squarespace is among the top-rated blog sites which are known for focusing on visual posts. Such an attribute has made Squarespace suitable for artists who need to create blogs for showcasing their artistic pieces.

There are interactive templates that can be used and edited with a drag-and-drop builder, choosing precisely where to place visual elements, including Adsterra ad units if you want to start earning at once. 

The system is endowed with some advanced eCommerce solutions allowing you to present visual content and sell products from one website. Another important feature of Squarespace is monetization of the website by means of a built-in paywall, which is not always possible in other similar platforms.

Monthly prices begin from $11, and Squarespace offers a free custom domain for users paying for the annual subscription plan. There is also a free 14-day trial period to test all the features of the website.

Pros

• Well-designed templates for blogs and business purposes
• Drag and drop editor without coding
• Inbuilt SEO, blogging, and marketing tools
• E-commerce facility to sell goods or services online
• Reliable hosting, security and automatic updating
• Responsive designs to support mobile devices

Cons

• Less customizable than WordPress for advanced websites
• No free account (trial available)
• Not as many third-party integrations
• High pricing compared to other basic website builders
• Not flexible for developers needing total control over coding

Current plans and pricing

Squarespace pricing plans

Recommendation

It’s well-suited for artists, photographers, designers, bloggers, and small businesses in search for beautiful, sophisticated designs.

Medium – Best for audience exposure

Medium is a social blogging site and one of the most recommended sites when it comes to blogging due to the high exposure due to the social traffic. Medium recommends material to the readers that gives the serious blogger enough opportunities to build up an audience.

Medium is a completely free platform regardless of the use of Medium.com to host your blog live or another custom domain. The user interface of Medium is very simple even for the layman.

It would be one of the best blog platform to monetize, however, there is one problem that is associated with Medium. It doesn’t have many customization and search engine optimization (SEO) features. This is a good tool for new writers who want to get some visibility, but in the end, one will have to switch to a different website, because it offers better tools.

Adsterra offers creative, top-converting ad formats like Popunders and industry-advanced Social Bars to earn money from your blog much quicker. Instant approval and monetization are just one click away!

Pros

• Free and easy to use without any need for hosting or setup
• Proper writing environment
• Secure fast hosting service with automatic updates.
• Opportunity to make money through the Medium Partner Program (where available).
• Active community for discovering and distributing content.

Cons

• Not much flexibility in design and branding
• Does not offer custom plugins or any other advanced features
• Monetization capabilities are limited when compared to self-hosting solutions
• You neither own the platform nor control its policies and algorithms
• SEO capabilities and analytics are limited
• Creating a unique brand is difficult as the content is associated with Medium

Current plans and pricing

Medium pricing for memberships

Recommendation

It’s great for writers, journalists, thought leaders, and content creators looking for a publishing platform without website management. Please remember you’ll likely need to migrate in the long term to a platform with more powerful features in the way of customization and monetization, as third-party ads are not allowed here.

Substack – Best for long-form content

Substack is the best free blog platform. Substack enables one to share blogs for free and upload videos and audios unlimitedly. However, there’s a one-time $50 charge to use a custom domain for your blog.

Substack has dominated the niche for newsletters and long-form blog posts. Setting up and managing a blog with Substack is as easy as ABC. 

As opposed to other blog hosting platforms that exist independently, Substack is basically a social platform hosting various blogs. Substack recommends the content to Substack readers, and hence there is an increased likelihood of your blog getting traffic from your target readership. Users can subscribe to your blog and receive notifications when you publish new posts.

The drawback is that Substack has limited customization. You can’t tweak your site’s visual elements as much as you’d do on other platforms. All Substack blogs follow a similar theme, although colors can differ.

Pros

• No special technical knowledge or website management needed to get started
• Combines the features of blogging and newsletters into one single platform
• Has an in-built system for discovering audience via the Substack network
• Supports paid subscriptions
• Simplicity for writing and publication workflow
• Promotes reader engagement via direct email.

Cons

• Comparatively low amount of customization options
• Substack takes a percentage of paid subscription revenue
• Less efficient for display advertising and regular website monetization
• Lower SEO capabilities
• Dependency on Substack’s platform, policies, and ecosystem
• Not ideal for online complex websites, e-commerce, or large content platforms

Current plans and pricing

Substack pricing details

Recommendation

Substack is not the best and easiest platform to monetize a blog. However, it is a perfectly fine fit for newsletter authors, independent writers, content creators, and subject matter experts looking to monetize their blog website via subscriptions and not ads.

Jekyll (GitHub Pages) – Best for technical and programming blogs

GitHub is one of the most popular repositories where programmers can share their work. But there is more. GitHub also has a built-in blog application (Pages) where developers can have their own blogs hosted at GitHub.io or custom domains free of charge.

GitHub Pages is totally free, and this is the greatest strength of this service. It provides reliable hosting, and you can customize your blog’s look and feel to make it distinct. It does make sense for developers use GitHub Pages to host their blogs since they use this platform for their programming code.

The drawback is that GitHub Pages can’t create interactive, dynamic sites. There’s no network of plugins to add sophisticated, powerful features to your blog. This tool is ideal for technical users who prefer function over form, not vice versa.

Pros

• Free website hosting using GitHub Pages, no need to pay for server
• Extremely high performance due to its static nature
• Great security due to reduced number of possible vulnerabilities
• Ideal choice for programmers
• Can be used with custom domain name and allows to create SEO-friendly static pages

Cons

• No need for technical knowledge of Git, markdown and programming
• No user-friendly visual editor or drag-and-drop website builder
• Fewer blogging capabilities comparing to WordPress and Ghost
• Not suitable for people with no technical skills or who need easy implementation
• Manual setup for advanced features

Current plans and pricing

Free plan available. Github current pricing

Recommendation

It’s great for web-masters, developers, technical bloggers, and documentation websites.

How to pick the right blogging platform for your needs

Different platforms work well for different websites, depending on what you want to achieve and how technical you are.

Here is a brief description to help you decide:

1. Easy for beginners and the fastest start-up: Blogger and Medium are free and very user-friendly.
2. Best choice for building your blog for the long run: WordPress.org is most flexible option available.
3. Most user-friendly visual builder: Wix and Squarespace are great for designing professional websites without code.
4. Blogging and websites for marketing and business purposes: Hubspot CMS includes built-in marketing, CRM, and automation tools.
5. Best for writers wanting to reach out to an audience: Medium and Substack emphasize on writing instead of website management.
6. Best for developers: Jekyll on GitHub Pages are extremely fast and customizable.

Conclusion

When you’ve started blogging, your preferred platform is of great importance, and thus the above guide will be of much use in making the right decision. With an effective blogging platform (CMS), you can create a great-looking and optimized blog that will attract many visitors. You can then capitalize on the traffic using innovative and evergreen ads provided by Adsterra.

FAQs: About the best blogging platforms to make money