How Much Would It Cost to Build a Website like Craigslist?

Craigslist is an online platform of classified advertisements devoted to housing sales and purchases, jobs, wanted items, community services, services, resumes, gigs, and other discussion forums. The Company generates 649 USD Million every year. It is one of the most successful websites available online.

Would you like to create a website similar to Craigslist? If you aspire to create a platform like Craigslist, look no more. We are offering the most efficient, reliable, and affordable solution for the development of a website. Craigslist is a great example for people to make money in the classified advertisement field. 

Why Choose the Classified Ads Online platform?

Classified ads are a hassle-free and cost-effective way for connecting with people online. Many people tend to find classified advertisements online that help in reaching millions of global internet users. Are you thinking about why you should choose the web design of Craigslist?

You are not alone. There might be many people who ask about the benefits of the field that they are choosing. Therefore, we are presenting a few facts below to choose the best-classified ads site below:

• It has 700 locations in 70 different countries.
• Because it supports 13 languages, anyone can submit any form of an ad in any language.
• It holds a monthly page view record of 50 billion.
• Each month, the discussion forums get a maximum of 200 million posts.
• Craigslist hasn’t changed its look in the 25 years since it was founded, but it has grown in popularity. This makes it the most distinguished site online. 
• A total of 100 million classified ads are posted each month.

These are the best analytics that defines why you should build a site. Craigslist is indeed one of the best site designs whose popularity has sustained over 25 years. 

Building a Website like Craigslist

Many people interested in journalism, online marketing tools, and advertisements are willing to achieve goals by building a site like Craigslist. However, you cannot plagiarize the business idea of Craigslist. You should have a unique business idea, business structure, and format.

Once you have formed the unique business idea, it is time to take action and operate in the field. Following, we have come up with the total guideline regarding how to build a site like Craigslist:

What Gave Success to the Craigslist?

To create a site similar to Craigslist, you should ponder over the site design and site model of Craigslist. The fundamentals of web development are choosing a domain name, site hosting, and purchases. So, we will explain the site design and web development parts to understand the platform’s platform greatly.

There are a few factors that have contributed to the success of Craigslist. However, before we jump into creating an online platform, we will explain the factors that have assisted the site in becoming the most successful platform online. Following, we have defined the site design of the Craigslist site:

1. Content Management Software (CMS)

Content Management Software (CMS) helps in the hosting and maintenance of the site. People can design and develop the website from scratch. However, they can also establish a website online on an open-source framework.

WordPress is one of the most famous content management systems that help create sites for all kinds of businesses. WordPress features a site hosting platform that is equipped with a great number of features, plugins, and themes. So, you can meet the classified ad requirement on the WordPress.Com site well. 

The craigslist-like site can be created on the WordPress site. 

2. Selection of the Themes

Choosing a theme for the site is similar to canvas painting. There are so many multi-featured and suitable themes available online. The WordPress ClassiPress, Classifieds, and Classified Engine are some of the most excellent themes that would help you build a website like Craigslist. It has amazing classified business needs that help develop a beautiful, functional, and reliable online platform online. 

3. Addition of Plugins 

There are so many fully functional plugins available on WordPress. Some of these reliable themes include WPAdverts, AWPCP, and User Front-End for the classified platform. In addition, there is a long list of free or paid listings. Unfortunately, free plugins do not add great efficiency to the site. So, we request you to add the paid plugins into the WordPress site that increases the overall productivity of the web. 

If you would like to make money with the produced site, you should go for the paid listings. The paid listings add greatly to the style and function of the website. 

Other Features of Craigslist to Be Added to the Web

These are the top three selections that would help you in creating a site like Craigslist. In addition, there are tabs on Craigslist that increase the functionality of the site to a greater extent. The Content Management Software, Themes, and Plugins should help you in supporting these features. Following are some of the top features, which can be added to the platform:

1. Integrations

There are also must-have integrations available on the classified platform. Some of the most famous integrations include Geotagging, multiple payment gateway systems, map integrations, multi-lingual integration, SMS API integration, multi-lingual integration, and more.

These are the main elements that help you in becoming successful classified ads online. Unfortunately, if your website lacks any of these features online, many people abandon the idea of working with you. So, make sure to add these integrations online. 

Craigslist has all of these integrations online that increase the efficiency and productivity of the web. So, you should also add many integrations into your site to give it similarity to Craigslist. 

A plugin is a type of software that adds great functionalities to a WordPress site. They aim at enhancing the functionality of your WordPress blogs or add new features. WordPress plugins are built in the PHP programming language and work in tandem with the WordPress platform. The API Integrations also assist you in adding extensions to your online platform on WordPress.Com. 

The price integration of extensions varies from one web to another. The functionality of the integration determines the price of the integration online. Following are some of the top integrations to add to your platform:

1. HomePage: The website should have a homepage, which may accommodate housing, jobs, services, discussion forums, community pages, and more. The homepage shows up the latest ads on the homepages. For example, the WordPress website would create a homepage of the platform. You should add these tabs on the homepage to give the platform a look similar to Craigslist. 

You can utilize any page on your website as your homepage using WordPress. To create a new page, navigate to Pages » Add New Page in the WordPress admin area. Let’s call this page ‘Home’ and make it live. This page will serve as your own homepage. Thus, you can make a homepage on Craigslist without making any effort. 

1. For the Users: This is the section that had been devoted to the users. There are different types of features available on the website, such as registration process, functionality, automatic geolocation, social networks, other forms for contacting reviews and sellers, etc. 
2. A page for the Admin: This is the part of the online platform reserved for the online platform’s admins. The section also includes many other features such as management of categories, management of locations, management of payment gateways, verification of ads, etc. 
3. For the Sellers: The website also includes the ad listings, registration/login, ad types, submit ads, and other functionalities. This is the part of the platform that deals with selling ads online. So, you can put up the ads live and give great exposure to the sellers. This is how; you will be able to run a platform of classified advertisements online. 

2. Data Security and Safety of the Users on the Website

This is the biggest concern in this age when hacking has become common. The safety of the payment gateway system is a bigger challenge for webs with eCommerce platforms. The fundamental concern with this multi-faceted online platform is security.

As the web owner, you must ensure the safety of all advertising, users, vendors, and purchasers. In addition, because the platform has many listings and categories, you must ensure that the details and user data are kept safe.

If you would like to ensure your web’s data security on WordPress, the web application firewall is the simplest approach to protect your web. It increases the safety and security of your WordPress security (WAF). Before dangerous traffic enters your web, a website firewall prevents it. Website Firewalls at the DNS Level — these are the firewalls that tend to filter your website traffic through cloud proxy servers.

JetPack is one of the most useful data security plugins available on WordPress. The price of the JetPack plugin is set at $19. Similarly, Succuri is also a beneficial data security plugin. The price of the Succubi is set at $299. It depends on you. 

3. Event Calendars

The event calendars are a dominant feature present on the Craigslist web. It increases awareness regarding the ads posted on the web. Sellers can include their contact information in the event description so that interested users can contact them. Users are notified in advance of these events. The event calendars feature available on the WordPress web. 

There are many events calendar features available on WordPress. Some of these events calendar webs include My Calendar, Events Schedule, The Events Calendar, Calendarize It, Modern Events Calendar and Stachethemes Event Calendar, etc. Every plugin has a different price.

The price of the Event calendar ranges between $80 and $100. This is an annual price of the event calendars. Once the duration expires, you should update the plugin and improve the functionality of the web to a greater extent. 

4. Customer Support 

Since it is a classified ads web, it becomes imperative that the web should face some issues now and then. Therefore, the web requires a customer support system. It is also present on the Craigslist website. A customer care representative’s primary responsibility is to handle and resolve client complaints quickly and efficiently.

Support professionals communicate with consumers across various channels, including phone, email, and social media, and ensure that all legitimate customer problems are addressed promptly.

There are many Customer Support plugins available on WordPress. These plugins would equip your web with a customer support system. WP Live Chat System is one of the most famous and widely accepted plugins available online on WordPress. 

In the WP Live Chat system, employees can solve people’s problems using a multiple-chat system. The multiple chat sessions feature a dominant part of the WordPress web. The platform also offers canned solutions for the Frequently Asked Questions. Employees can also tag the chats.

The agents may also send the files to clients via the chat widget. In addition, customer help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through LiveChat’s built-in ticketing system. So, WordPress offers one of the most fantastic customer support systems to premium webs. 

There are some free as well as paid customer support plugins available. Most of the customer support plugins are available for free on WordPress. 

Bottom Line: The Cost to Build a Website like craigslist

These are some of the top features that would help you in building a web. The overall cost of the development of a web similar to Craigslist cost around $800 to $3000. The final price depends upon the type of the plugins and theme.

Each theme and plugin has its functionality and price. Depending on your requirements, the cost of launching a WordPress web might range from $100 to $500 to $3000, or even more. Therefore, it’s critical to understand what type of website you’re creating and what you’ll need for it, as this will directly impact your budget. So, go through the above guideline and decide on the plugins and themes for getting your estimate of building a website.