How much money will a social networking site cost to build?

[Zach]

I've look online, the library, everywhere, I've tried finding a clear answer but they all say it'll cost a lot, or you will never be able do it, or just tells me where to get the money. Is there an article that shows the actual cost or is there a way to estimate of how much it'll cost to build a social networking site?

[Ryan M]

Of course there is no "clear answer". Such a cost is in NO WAY standardized. It depends completely on the size and scope of the site you want to operate, how much knowledge YOU have in the technical side, and the equipment that you want. It might cost $10,000 or $10 million.

[trade]

Most of the popular social networking sites costs millions due to the overhead charges of the servers or data center they need to handle a high volume of traffic. If you ignore the traffic and popularity then you can start by registering a domain name and using shared hosting all under $100 /yr.