WordPress.com is the hosted version of WordPress, the open-source publishing software. It delivers the software together with hosting, security and updates, so that nobody has to install or maintain a server. The service is operated by Automattic, the company founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, which also publishes WooCommerce, Jetpack and Gravatar. Automattic states its mission as democratizing publishing and ecommerce, one website at a time, and says it ships updates almost every day.
The range runs from a free blog to an online shop and hosting for large enterprises. The free plan has no expiry date, and the paid plans are billed monthly or for one, two or three years, with the monthly price falling as the term gets longer. The service leans towards people who write and publish first and sell afterwards: its plans climb from a personal blog to a store built on WooCommerce.
What WordPress.com offers
- Website builder with themes, patterns and an AI website builder
- Blogs and newsletters
- Ecommerce with WooCommerce on the Commerce plan
- Managed hosting, including a version for agencies
- Site migration from another host
- Domains: registration and transfer of names such as .com, .org and .net
- Professional email
- Enterprise hosting through WordPress VIP
- An affiliate program
How it works
Every plan, the free one included, comes with hosting. Sites run on WordPress, updated automatically, behind a global CDN with SSL, a web application firewall, DDoS and brute-force protection, and malware detection and removal, which the pricing page says come at no extra cost. Bandwidth is unmetered on all plans, and pages, posts, users and visitors are unlimited.
The free plan gives 1 GB of storage, an address ending in wordpress.com, basic SEO, social sharing and the last seven days of site statistics. Visitors of free sites see WordPress.com ads, and help comes from the user forums. Paid plans remove those ads, connect a custom domain (free for the first year on annual and multi-year plans) and open the installation of plugins, from a catalogue the pricing page puts at more than 50,000. A plan can be upgraded or downgraded at any time, and the unused part of the current subscription is credited towards the new one.
Prices
Prices as published on wordpress.com/pricing, in US dollars:
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Storage | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, no expiry | $0 | 1 GB | wordpress.com address, ads shown to visitors |
| Personal | $4/mo | $9/mo | 6 GB | No ads, free domain for a year, plugins |
| Premium | $8/mo | $18/mo | 13 GB | All premium themes, payment buttons, video uploads, premium analytics |
| Business | $25/mo | $40/mo | 50 GB | 24/7 priority support, real-time backups, SFTP, SSH and WP-CLI |
| Commerce | $45/mo | $70/mo | 50 GB | WooCommerce built in, unlimited products, inventory management, 0% transaction fees |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Custom pricing | Not listed | WordPress VIP, from $25,000 a year according to the homepage |
Longer terms lower the price: the Personal plan comes to $3.25 a month over two years and $2.75 over three. The pricing page marks Premium as its most popular plan, and describes its refund policy as stress-free and no-questions-asked.
What it claims
- WordPress runs more than 43% of the web, according to the platform.
- The platform reports two billion unique visitors and twenty billion page views a month.
- The homepage displays a rating of 4.5 stars from more than 2,000 reviews.
Brands on show
For WordPress VIP, its offer for large enterprises, the homepage shows Salesforce, Al Jazeera, Capgemini and Facebook.
FAQ
Is WordPress.com free? Yes. The free plan has no expiry date and includes 1 GB of storage, unlimited pages and posts, and an address ending in wordpress.com. Visitors see WordPress.com ads, and a custom domain comes with the paid plans.
What is the cheapest paid plan? Personal, at $4 a month billed yearly or $9 billed monthly. It removes the ads, raises storage to 6 GB, includes a free domain for the first year and allows plugins.
Can plugins be installed? Yes, on every paid plan: Personal, Premium, Business and Commerce.
Is hosting included? Yes. Every plan, the free one included, comes with hosting, security protections and automatic WordPress updates.
Which plan suits an online shop? Commerce, at $45 a month billed yearly, which builds in WooCommerce with unlimited products, inventory management and no transaction fees.
Who runs WordPress.com? Automattic, founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, which also publishes WooCommerce, Jetpack and Gravatar.
Contact
- Website: wordpress.com
- Plans and prices: wordpress.com/pricing