WordPress.com Plans: Pricing and Features Compared
WordPress.com sells five plans in 2026: Free, Personal at $4/month, Premium at $8/month, Business at $25/month, and Commerce at $45/month. The gap between Premium and Business is the one that matters. That’s the line where you get plugins, custom themes, and SFTP access. Everything below it is a walled garden with a WordPress label on the door.
The short version most comparison pages won’t tell you: unless you specifically need Automattic’s hosting layer for a hobby site or a managed enterprise deployment, self-hosted WordPress.org on a $7/month Hostinger or Cloudways plan beats every tier below Business. You get every plugin, every theme, every API, and you save about $180 a year versus the Premium plan alone.
Here’s what each plan actually includes, what it quietly excludes, and when the WordPress.com path makes sense over renting the same software somewhere else.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org: The Setup Confusion First
WordPress.com is Automattic’s hosted service. You sign up, pick a plan, and they run the software. WordPress.org is the open-source software itself, which you install on any host you pick. Same core codebase, radically different control.
The confusion is Automattic’s marketing. They sell “WordPress” hosting, so people assume a WordPress.com plan gives them full WordPress. It doesn’t. Until you reach the Business tier, you can’t install plugins, can’t upload custom themes, and can’t touch files over SFTP. You get a managed CMS that looks like WordPress.
If you’ve read “install Yoast” or “use WP Rocket” in a tutorial and you’re on the Personal or Premium plan, that advice doesn’t apply to you. The plugin directory is locked.
WordPress.com Plans at a Glance
WordPress.com now exposes monthly, annual, 2-year, and 3-year billing options. The table below uses the published annual rate in US dollars so the plan comparison has one denominator.
| Plan | Annual-billing rate | Storage | Current positioning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 GB | Basic site with WordPress.com ads |
| Personal | $4/month | 6 GB | Custom domain for year 1, no visitor ads, plugin access |
| Premium | $8/month | 13 GB | All premium themes, payments, video, analytics, plugin access |
| Business | $25/month | 50 GB | Real-time backups, developer tools, priority support |
| Commerce | $45/month | 50 GB | WooCommerce and store features |
Prices and features come from the official WordPress.com plan page. Longer commitments show lower monthly equivalents, but they also increase prepayment and switching cost.
The Free Plan: A Demo, Not a Home
The Free plan gives you 1 GB of storage, a yoursite.wordpress.com subdomain, and WordPress.com ads showing on your pages that you don’t earn from. You get three free themes, no plugins, and no payment tools.
It’s fine as a 10-minute tryout. That’s it.
For anyone publishing seriously, the ads alone disqualify it. WordPress.com runs their own ad units on your content and keeps the revenue. You’re the product. If you want to run your own ads or join AdSense, you need Premium or higher. If you want to remove ads without running any, you need Personal.
The Personal Plan ($4/Month Billed Yearly)
Personal removes WordPress.com visitor ads, includes 6 GB of storage, and provides a free domain for the first year on an annual term. The current plan page also lists WordPress plugin installation, which makes older comparisons saying plugins require Business obsolete.
Use the current feature matrix before committing because billing term, promotional savings, and bundled features can change independently.
The Premium Plan ($8/Month Billed Yearly)
Premium includes 13 GB of storage, all WordPress.com premium themes, payment buttons, video hosting, advanced site statistics, and plugin installation. The real comparison against Personal is the theme, media, analytics, and monetization bundle, not plugin access.
The Business Plan ($25/Month Billed Yearly)
Business adds 50 GB of storage, real-time backups, one-click restores, staging, SFTP/SSH, WP-CLI, Git-based deployment features, and priority support. It is the operational tier, but it is not the first tier with plugins.
The Commerce Plan ($45/Month Billed Yearly)
Commerce keeps the 50 GB base storage and adds the WordPress.com WooCommerce bundle, store themes, and commerce features. Compare the 12- and 36-month platform total against self-hosted WooCommerce only after pricing equivalent backups, security, email, developer time, and support.
For the self-hosted side of that comparison, price the current plans from Hostinger, Kinsta, Rocket.net, Cloudways, and the server cost from DigitalOcean.
Storage and Bandwidth Limits Nobody Reads
The storage numbers on the pricing page are media storage. Image-heavy sites should estimate annual upload volume from average optimized file size multiplied by planned uploads, then leave room for replacements and growth. Raw camera dimensions do not predict storage after resizing and compression.
Bandwidth is “unlimited” on all paid plans, with a soft cap that Automattic doesn’t publish. If you get hit with a traffic spike from a Reddit front page, they don’t rate-limit, but they may reach out if you sustain high bandwidth. For normal sites, it’s not a concern.
The visitor counts WordPress.com shows on their pricing page (like “up to 100,000 visitors”) are stat estimates for theme compatibility, not hard caps. Traffic itself isn’t metered.
Custom Domains and Email
Every paid plan includes a custom domain for the first year. After that, .com and .org renewals run $18-$22/year, .co is around $30, and country-code TLDs vary. You pay Automattic, not a separate registrar.
Email is separate. You can add Google Workspace through the WordPress.com billing at $6/user/month, or point MX records to any email provider you already use. There’s no built-in mail hosting, which is the correct choice because shared mail hosting on a CMS platform is historically a bad idea.
When WordPress.com Actually Wins
Three cases where I’d pick a WordPress.com plan over self-hosted:
Automattic enterprise deployments through WordPress VIP, where the compliance and SLA story matters more than plugin freedom. This is the $2,000+/month tier, not the consumer plans.
Non-technical users who need zero-maintenance hosting, don’t care about plugins, and value the WordPress.com editor experience. The Personal plan at $48/year is a reasonable “publish and forget” option if you genuinely don’t want to touch infrastructure.
Existing WordPress.com users with years of Jetpack data and stats tied to the platform who’d lose analytics history in a migration. Inertia is a real reason.
When Self-Hosted WordPress.org Wins (Almost Always)
For nearly every serious blog, business site, or store, self-hosted WordPress.org on a decent managed host is the better deal. Here’s the specific comparison for a site that needs plugins.
WordPress.com Business: $300/year, full plugins, 50 GB storage, Automattic’s infrastructure.
Cloudways DigitalOcean 2GB: $33/month ($396/year) with full plugins, root SSH, staging, any server location, better real-world speed on third-party benchmarks, and you can scale CPU/RAM independently.
Hostinger Business WordPress: $7.99/month ($96/year promo, $167/year renewal) with full plugins, 50 GB NVMe storage, LiteSpeed cache built in, and free SSL. For 90% of blogs, this performs comparably to WordPress.com Business at a third of the price.
The WordPress.com tax is real. You pay for Automattic’s opinionated infrastructure, the Jetpack bundle, and the WordPress.com editor chrome. If those three things aren’t worth $200+/year to you, they aren’t.
Migrating Off WordPress.com
If you’re locked into Premium and realize you need plugins, the migration is manageable but not clean. WordPress.com’s export tool gives you a standard WordPress XML export of posts, pages, and media. You install WordPress.org on your new host and import the XML.
What doesn’t transfer: Jetpack stats (you start over), custom CSS added through WordPress.com’s design editor on Premium (you lose it or have to paste it into the new theme), subscriber lists from the Follow button (Jetpack sync can help here but not reliably), and any theme-specific customizations tied to WordPress.com’s theme variants.
Budget a Saturday for a basic migration, a full week if the site has 500+ posts or subscriber data to preserve.
FAQs
What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
WordPress.com is Automattic’s hosted service where they run the software for you. WordPress.org is the open-source software you install on any host. Same core code, but WordPress.com restricts plugins and themes on lower plans. WordPress.org gives you full control on any infrastructure you pick.
Can I install plugins on WordPress.com?
Only on the Business plan ($25/month) and Commerce plan ($45/month). the Free plan does not allow plugin installation; paid plans starting with Personal do. Jetpack is pre-installed and available on all paid tiers.
Is the WordPress.com Free plan actually free?
Yes, but WordPress.com runs their own ads on your site and keeps the revenue. You also get a subdomain like yoursite.wordpress.com and only 1 GB of storage. It works as a demo but isn’t practical for a serious blog.
Which WordPress.com plan should I pick?
Business at $25/month is the first plan that gives you real WordPress. Below that, you’re renting a walled garden. If you don’t need plugins, self-hosted WordPress on Hostinger for $8/month is a better deal. If you need plugins, either Business or a managed host like Cloudways or Kinsta.
Can I use my own domain on WordPress.com?
Yes, on any paid plan. The first year is included. Renewals run $18-$22/year for .com and .org domains, more for other TLDs.
Does WordPress.com include SSL certificates?
Yes, free SSL is included on every plan including Free. It’s automatic and uses Let’s Encrypt. No setup needed.
Can I migrate from WordPress.com to WordPress.org later?
Yes. WordPress.com’s export tool produces a standard WordPress XML that imports into any WordPress.org install. Posts, pages, and media transfer cleanly. Jetpack stats, WordPress.com subscribers, and custom CSS from the design editor don’t transfer cleanly.
Does WordPress.com show ads on my site?
Only on the Free plan. Any paid plan removes WordPress.com ads. Premium and higher let you run your own ads through WordAds or AdSense.
Hidden Costs Nobody Budgets For
Three recurring costs that don’t show up on the pricing page but will hit your card.
Domain renewal after year one. .com or .org renewal runs $18-$22/year. .store, .online, and trendy TLDs renew at $30-$60/year. Budget this into year two, because the “free domain” is free exactly once.
Email service. WordPress.com doesn’t bundle email. Google Workspace through their billing is $6/user/month, or about $72/year per mailbox. Most solo operators need at least one pro email, sometimes three.
Premium Jetpack features. The Jetpack modules bundled with your plan cover stats and basic security. Real backups (Jetpack VaultPress), real search, and the full security suite are separate Jetpack plans running $10-$50/month on top of your WordPress.com plan. If the sales copy mentions Jetpack as a value add, check which tier of Jetpack you actually get.
On a Business plan, budget $400-$500/year all-in once domain and email are factored in. On a Commerce plan with Jetpack VaultPress and a transactional email service, the real spend lands at $700-$900/year before payment processor fees.
Performance Reality
WordPress.com runs on Automattic’s WP Cloud infrastructure, and the performance is genuinely solid on Business and above. Median TTFB from a US probe lands around 200-400ms on a fresh Business install with the default theme. Page cache is automatic. Object cache is on. Edge caching via WordPress.com’s network handles static assets.
For a bloggy use case, these numbers are fine. You won’t notice slowness on a content site with typical image counts.
Where the numbers get less flattering is logged-in admin. The WordPress admin on WordPress.com feels noticeably slower than on Kinsta or Rocket.net, with interface latency that’s specifically painful when you’re editing a post for the fifth time that morning. Part of this is the Calypso admin layer (the WordPress.com React-based editor) doing extra work. Part is the caching layer being optimized for visitor traffic, not editor sessions.
If you edit a lot, this matters. If you publish twice a month and forget it exists between posts, it doesn’t.
The Call
WordPress.com’s pricing ladder is designed to push you from Free to Premium, where most hobby bloggers park. That’s the worst tier in the lineup. You’re paying real money for a WordPress experience that can’t install a single plugin.
Pick Business or skip WordPress.com. If you need plugins and themes, Business at $25/month is the minimum viable tier, and it competes fairly with Kinsta and Rocket.net at similar prices. If you don’t need plugins, you don’t need WordPress. Use Ghost, Squarespace, or Substack, which do the hosted CMS job with less confusion. And if you want full control, self-hosted WordPress.org on Hostinger, Cloudways, or SiteGround gives you everything WordPress.com does, plus the entire plugin ecosystem, at a third of the price. That’s the deal most people miss.
Continue reading: WordPress Site Redesign · WordPress REST API · CMS Selection Criteria
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