How to Build a Profitable Niche Website Using AI (Under A$70)
Most people who want to build a niche website spend weeks planning it.
They research niches, compare hosting providers, watch YouTube tutorials, make spreadsheets, and eventually decide they are not quite ready yet. Then they do it again the following month.
I did it in an afternoon. Here is the exact process, every decision, and every dollar.
How I Started to Build a Niche Website
I wanted to build a content site that reviewed AI tools and earned affiliate income. The model is straightforward: write honest articles about tools people are searching for, include affiliate links, earn a commission when readers sign up.
The problem was that I had barely used any of the tools I was supposed to be reviewing. I use Claude every day for research, planning, and brainstorming. I use ChatGPT. That is essentially it.
You can feel the difference between a review written by someone who genuinely needed a tool and one written by someone who signed up for a free trial specifically to write about it. Readers feel it too. The whole model falls apart if the content is hollow.
So I had to solve a different problem first. I needed a genuine reason to use AI tools. I needed to build something that required them.
That is what Pace Reports is. It is not just the thing I am building. It is the reason I get to write honestly about the tools I use to build it.
Choosing the Niche Website
The niche almost chose itself. My content lane is already income, online business, and what actually works versus what sounds good. AI tools for people trying to make money online sits directly in that lane.
It also has a structural advantage. The people searching for these tools are buyers. Someone searching “best AI writing tool” is not casually browsing. They are trying to solve a problem and they are willing to pay for the solution. That buyer intent is what makes affiliate commissions possible in the first place.
The affiliate programs in this space pay 20 to 30 percent recurring commissions for up to 12 months per customer. One person who signs up for three tools from a genuine recommendation is worth several hundred dollars over a year.
The Niche Website Domain
I wanted a .com. The .com extension still carries the most authority and removes any friction for first-time visitors who do not know the site yet.
pacereports.com was taken. After checking a few variations I landed on pacereports.com being unavailable but found it clean and available at Cloudflare Registrar.
I registered through Cloudflare specifically because they sell domains at cost with no markup and no renewal price increases. The price you pay in year one is the price you pay every year after. That is not how most registrars work.
Domain cost: A$10.46 per year, flat.
Hosting
I used Hostinger for WordPress hosting. The decision came down to three things: it is beginner friendly, the one-click WordPress install is genuinely one click, and the price is the lowest I found from a provider with a real support team.
I chose the Single plan at the 12-month billing option. Single allows one website with 10GB of storage, which is more than enough for a content site that will be running text and compressed images. I deliberately avoided the 48-month plan even though the per-month price is lower. Committing four years of hosting fees upfront to build a niche website that has not earned a dollar yet is not a sensible risk calculation.
The renewal price after the first year goes up, which is standard across all hosting providers. By the time that renewal arrives the site should be generating enough income to justify it or I will have enough data to make a different decision.
Hosting cost: A$55.08 for 12 months.
Setting Up the Niche Website
The WordPress install through Hostinger took about three minutes. I chose the Massachusetts data centre because it sits on the US East Coast, which gives the best latency for both European and Australian readers.
I built from scratch rather than using Hostinger’s AI site builder. AI site builders produce generic output that looks like every other AI-built site. Building from scratch with a clean theme is faster than it sounds and gives you full control over what goes where.
Theme: Kadence
Kadence is free, extremely fast, and built specifically for content sites. It is one of the most widely used WordPress themes for niche websites and review blogs because it loads quickly and does not get in the way of the writing.
SEO Plugin: Rank Math
Rank Math handles the technical SEO layer: meta descriptions, sitemaps, schema markup, and Google Search Console integration. The free version covers everything a new site needs. Installing it early means every article published from day one is properly structured for search.
Connecting the Domain
I registered the domain through Cloudflare and host through Hostinger, which means I needed to point one at the other. Rather than switching nameservers away from Cloudflare (which would have lost Cloudflare’s free CDN and security layer) I added two DNS records directly in Cloudflare:
An A record pointing to Hostinger’s server IP, and a CNAME record for the www version of the domain. The whole process took about five minutes. The domain propagated within two hours.
Keeping the domain on Cloudflare rather than transferring nameservers to Hostinger means the site benefits from Cloudflare’s performance and security infrastructure at no additional cost.
Total Cost
Domain: A$10.46
Hosting (12 months): A$55.08
Everything else used to build it: Free
Total: A$65.54
That is the entire cost of a live, functional niche website with SEO installed, a custom domain, and WordPress fully configured. Under A$70.
What the Niche Website Looks Like Now
Empty. One article. No traffic. No affiliate links yet because the applications are pending.
This is intentional. The point of documenting day one is that everything that comes after can be measured against it. The site exists. The foundation is correct. Every article published from here builds on something real rather than something theoretical.
The affiliate applications go in next. Then the first proper review article, written about a tool I will actually use to build a niche website.
That is how this works. Do first. Write second. Everything else follows.
This is the first post on Pace Reports. The site documents what actually happens when you try to build income using AI tools honestly. No fabricated results, no tools reviewed without genuine use. Follow along from the beginning.
