Blog · November 11, 2026

I moved my website off WordPress and cut my hosting bill to $0 with AI

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Confession: I paid for web hosting for years on a website I hadn't updated since 2020. If you have a little blog or business site sitting quietly on WordPress, you might be doing the same thing.

The "why am I still paying for this?" moment

I started Mommy is the Boss in 2018. I set it up the way everyone did back then: WordPress, a hosting plan from Bluehost, a fancy theme, and a pile of plugins. Then life happened. Full-time job, kid, no time. The site just sat there.

The hosting bill did not just sit there. It kept showing up.

And honestly? Old-school hosting feels like it was built for 2010. A dashboard full of upsells. Add-ons for things you never asked for. An email account bundled in that I never used once. All that, so a handful of pages could sit on the internet.

So when the renewal came around, I decided I was done.

What I actually did

I'm not a developer. I'm a working mom with a marketing background and a strong opinion about wasting money. So I did what I do with most problems now: I opened Claude and started asking questions.

Here's the short version of what we did together:

  1. Backed up everything. Every post, every page, and all 64 images from the old WordPress site, saved to my own computer.
  2. Rebuilt it as a "static" site. Fancy term, simple idea. Instead of WordPress building each page every time someone visits, the pages are just finished files. No database, no plugins, no security updates to babysit.
  3. Gave it a fresh look. New colors, new fonts, and custom illustrations instead of the dated theme.
  4. Kept every old link working. If someone had an old link saved, it still takes them somewhere useful instead of an error page.
  5. Moved hosting to Netlify's free plan. I literally drag a zip file into a box, and the site is live.
  6. Pointed my domain to the new site. Two settings changed. That's it.
  7. Cancelled the old hosting. And yes, I got my renewal refunded: $155.94 back in my pocket.

What it costs now

Hosting: $0.

The only thing I still pay for is the domain name itself (mommyistheboss.com), which I kept where it was. A domain name is cheap. Hosting a site nobody was updating was not.

The honest trade-offs

I promised myself this site would be honest, so here's what I gave up:

  • No WordPress dashboard. I can't log in and click "edit." When I want to change something, I tell AI what I want, it updates the files, and I drop the new zip into Netlify. For me that's actually faster. For you, maybe not.
  • Domain changes take a little patience. After I switched, the "www" version of my site still showed the old WordPress site for a few hours. Nothing was broken. The internet just needed time to catch up.
  • No plugins. If your site runs on an online store, bookings or memberships, this isn't a weekend project for you. Mine was mostly words and pictures, so I didn't need any of that.

Should you do this?

Ask yourself one question: When did I last actually update my website?

If the answer is "umm…", you're paying rent on an empty house. A simple site like mine doesn't need a monthly hosting plan anymore. And you don't need to learn to code to move it. You need a free afternoon or two and an AI assistant that will patiently answer the same question three times.

That's the whole point of this site now: using AI to work smarter and live smarter, starting with the boring stuff that quietly drains your time and money.

Curious what else I use? Here's my list of AI tools I actually use. Spoiler: it's short.