Search “how to start a blog” and you get two answers that don’t agree. One says the easiest route is a free hosted platform. The other says if you want ad money, self-host WordPress. Both are right — they’re just measuring different things. Easy and profitable pull in opposite directions.
I run this blog on self-hosted WordPress, so I’ve felt where each choice is smooth and where it bites. This isn’t a hunt for the “best” platform. It’s a hunt for the one that’s easy to run and still leaves room to earn. Here’s how the main options really stack up.
Easy and profitable pull opposite ways
Get this straight first and the rest falls into place. The platform with the least friction, a free hosted blog, usually gives you the least control over ads. The platform with the most earning freedom, self-hosted WordPress, asks for the most work. Chase “easiest” or “most profitable” on its own and you give up the other side.
There’s a middle seat that holds both, more or less: free to run, yet you can still add Google AdSense. For most people starting out, that seat is Blogger. Let’s start there.
Blogger — Google’s free on-ramp to AdSense
Blogger is Google’s free blogging service. Hosting costs nothing, and you can connect your own domain for free — you still pay a registrar for the domain itself, around $10 to $15 a year. The best part is AdSense. There’s an Earnings tab built into the dashboard, so linking ads takes a few clicks. AdSense is Google, Blogger is Google, and it shows.
Now the honest part. Blogger has barely changed in years. There’s no shutdown notice and Google still keeps the help docs current, so it isn’t going anywhere tomorrow — but it’s not a product Google is actively growing either. The theme selection is thin, so deep design work is a struggle. If your plan is a zero-cost blog aimed at Google search, with the simplest path to ad revenue, Blogger fits better than anything else on this list.
WordPress — freedom at the top, but you do the work
WordPress comes in two flavors, and mixing them up causes half the confusion online. One is WordPress.com, where the company hosts the site for you. It has a free plan, but the free plan won’t let you run your own ads — it shows the company’s ads instead. To place AdSense you have to climb to a higher, Business-level paid tier. So if income is the point, the free plan isn’t really the answer.
The other flavor is the real thing: self-hosted WordPress.org. The software is free; you pay for the hosting and domain that put it online. Shared hosting runs roughly $3 to $10 a month and a domain about $10 to $15 a year, so a small blog starts for well under $150 in its first year. In return, the ceiling disappears. AdSense, affiliate links, your own products — add whatever you want. Thousands of plugins and themes sit behind it. If you’re building something to own and grow, this is where you land.
It also asks for your time. That part I know first-hand. Setting this blog up on self-hosted WordPress, I had to hand-fix the server config when the clean URLs wouldn’t work, sort out the security certificate when auto-renewal jammed, and convert images to a lighter web format because the pages were heavy. It’s dependable once it runs. But the setup and upkeep eat hours. That’s exactly why I won’t tell a first-timer to “just use WordPress.”
Medium, Substack, Ghost — when readers pay instead of advertisers
These three earn a different way, so it helps to name it. Instead of advertisers paying per view, your readers pay you directly. Medium runs a Partner Program that pays based on how long paying members spend reading your stories; you can’t put your own AdSense on it, and you don’t really own your audience or your search ranking. Substack is built for paid newsletters — free to start, it keeps about 10% of your subscription revenue, runs no ads, but lets you own and export your email list. Ghost does paid memberships too and takes no platform cut, just card fees, and it’s the one here that can also run AdSense — though on its hosted plan the paid-subscription feature starts around $29 a month.
If ad revenue is what you’re after, this group is a detour. If you’d rather be paid by a small circle of readers than by advertisers, Substack or Ghost is worth a look.
Side by side
| Platform | Ease | Cost | Your own AdSense | Ownership | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blogger | Very easy | Free | Yes (easiest) | Tied to Google | Zero-cost AdSense start |
| WordPress.com | Easy | Free–paid | Higher tiers only | Tied to platform | Hosted, low fuss |
| WordPress.org (self-hosted) | More work | ~$60–150/yr | Full freedom | You own it | Growing a real asset |
| Substack / Ghost | Easy–moderate | Free–$29/mo | No / Ghost yes | You keep your list | Paid readers, not ads |
| Medium | Very easy | Free | No | Platform-locked | Writing with built-in readers |
If it were me
Split it by what you actually want.
- Zero budget and you just want to see ad revenue work → Blogger.
- You’d rather be paid by readers than by ads → Substack or Ghost.
- You’re building something to own and grow, ads and all → self-hosted WordPress.
If it were me, here’s the call. To learn what ad income even feels like, I’d open a free Blogger blog and link AdSense that same afternoon. No money down, nothing to maintain. But if I knew going in that I wanted this to last, I’d buy a domain and self-host WordPress from day one — which is exactly what this blog is. The setup is a chore, yet I’d still rather build on ground I own. Rented platforms change their rules, and their owners, whenever they like.
There’s no perfect pick. Decide one thing first — do you want ad income now, or do you just want to write without the hassle? — and the list shrinks fast. That one choice saves you more time than comparing ten platforms ever will.