WordPress.com pricing plans in 2026: what you actually get at each tier

WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two different products built on the same software. That distinction confuses more people than any other question in the WordPress ecosystem. Before discussing pricing, it needs to be clear.

WordPress.org is the free, open-source content management system. You download it, install it on your own hosting, and have full control. You pay for hosting and domain registration. The software itself costs nothing.

WordPress.com is a hosted platform operated by Automattic (the company co-founded by WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg). It runs WordPress software for you, handles hosting, updates, and security, and charges a monthly or annual subscription based on the features you need.

This guide covers the WordPress.com pricing structure in 2026, what each tier actually includes, where the hidden limitations are, and when self-hosted WordPress is the smarter investment.

#WordPress.com pricing plans in 2026

WordPress.com offers five plan tiers. Each enables progressively more features, storage, and control.

#Free plan

The free tier is genuinely free — no credit card required. It includes:

• A yoursite.wordpress.com subdomain (no custom domain)
• Limited storage
• WordPress.com branding on your site
• Basic block editor access
• Community support only

Who it suits: Personal blogs, student projects, hobby sites. Anyone testing the WordPress editor before committing to a paid plan.

Limitations: No custom domain, WordPress.com ads displayed on your site, no access to premium themes, no plugin installation, limited customization, no monetization options.

#Personal plan

The entry-level paid tier removes the most obvious free-tier limitations:

• Custom domain (included for the first year, renewal pricing varies)
• WordPress.com branding removed
• Increased storage
• Email support
• Plugin installation
• Global styles, custom CSS, and font uploads
• A selection of premium themes

Who it suits: Personal blogs and simple portfolios that need a professional URL and selected third-party plugins.

Limitations: It lacks the developer tooling, real-time backups, larger storage allowance, and priority support included with Business. The bundled creator and commerce features are also narrower than on Premium and Commerce.

#Premium plan

The mid-tier plan adds design and monetization features:

• Everything in Personal
• Premium themes access
• Advanced design tools and custom CSS
• Monetization features (WordAds, paid content)
• Social media integration tools
• Video uploads and hosting
• Google Analytics integration

Who it suits: Bloggers, freelancers, and small creators who want design flexibility and basic monetization without managing their own hosting.

Limitations: It lacks the developer tooling, real-time backups, and priority support included with Business. Commerce features are not bundled as an integrated store package.

#Business plan

This is the tier where WordPress.com adds professional operational and developer tooling:

• Everything in Premium
• Custom theme uploads
• SFTP and database access
• Automated site backups with one-click restore
• Increased storage
• Priority support

Who it suits: Small businesses, professional websites, and agencies that need specific plugins (contact forms, SEO tools, security plugins) but want Automattic to handle hosting and infrastructure.

Limitations: While you can install plugins, the hosting environment has restrictions. Some plugins that require server-level access (certain caching plugins, server-side modifications) may not work. Performance is shared infrastructure, not dedicated.

#Commerce plan

The e-commerce tier built for online stores:

• Everything in Business
• WooCommerce pre-installed
• Payment processing integrations
• Shipping and tax calculation tools
• Premium store themes
• Product management tools

Who it suits: Small to mid-size online stores that want WooCommerce without managing their own server infrastructure.

Limitations: For high-volume stores with custom checkout flows, complex product configurations, or heavy API integrations, self-hosted WooCommerce on dedicated hosting typically performs better and costs less at scale.

#Plan feature comparison across all tiers

The tier write-ups above read top to bottom, but most decisions come down to four or five features. This matrix shows the lowest tier at which each capability first appears, so you can stop reading at the row that matters to you.

Two conclusions fall out of the grid. First, Personal is now the extensibility line: since 2 April 2026, every paid plan supports plugin installation. Second, Business is an operational upgrade rather than the first open tier. It adds developer access, real-time backups, more storage, and priority support. Premium mainly expands the design, media, statistics, and monetization bundle.

One number the matrix cannot show is the billing structure. WordPress.com advertises each plan at a monthly-equivalent figure, but that headline assumes you prepay for a full year. Paying month to month raises the effective rate, and the free first-year domain reverts to standard renewal pricing afterward. Always read the annual total for the term you intend to keep the site, not the marketing per-month number.

There is also a commitment dimension. Annual plans are the default because they are cheaper per month, but they lock in a year; the refund window is short and applies mainly to the plan fee, not to a domain you have already registered. For a site you are still validating, the honest comparison is a full year of WordPress.com against a month-to-month managed host you can leave at any time.

#How much does WordPress cost in total

The plan subscription is not the only cost. Here is what the real total looks like:

For simple sites (blog, portfolio, brochure), WordPress.com plans are often cost-effective because they bundle hosting, security, and backups into one subscription.

For business sites that need specific plugins, custom functionality, or advanced SEO control, self-hosted WordPress on quality managed hosting (Cloudways, Kinsta, WP Engine) frequently offers better value. The total cost of ownership over three years tends to favor self-hosted for any site that outgrows the Premium tier. For a detailed breakdown of self-hosted WordPress costs by project type, see our WordPress website pricing guide.

#WordPress.com vs self-hosted WordPress: which costs less

The crossover point depends on complexity:

WordPress.com is cheaper when:

• You need a simple site with under 10 pages
• You do not need custom plugins or themes
• You have no developer and no technical interest
• You value zero-maintenance hosting

Self-hosted WordPress is cheaper when:

• You need more than 2-3 premium plugins
• You want full control over caching, CDN, and server configuration
• You plan to scale content (100+ pages, multilingual, SEO-heavy)
• You want to own your data and infrastructure with no platform dependency

For a quantitative comparison of WordPress against other platforms, see our WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace comparison.

#Hidden costs and limitations of WordPress.com

#Domain renewal pricing

WordPress.com includes a free domain for the first year on annual and multi-year paid plans, not monthly plans. The renewal price after year one varies by TLD and can differ from purchasing the same domain directly from another registrar.

#Plugin access changed in 2026

The Free plan does not allow plugin installation. Since 2 April 2026, Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce do. The remaining differences are the bundled features, storage, support, backups, and developer access. A plugin may also depend on server-level capabilities that the managed platform does not expose.

#Storage limits

Each tier has a storage cap. For media-heavy sites (photography portfolios, video content), storage limits can become a constraint. Self-hosted WordPress has no inherent storage limit — you pay for what your server provides.

#Migration complexity

Moving away from WordPress.com to self-hosted requires content export, DNS migration, and potentially redesigning templates if you used WordPress.com-specific themes. The migration is doable but not trivial. Choosing self-hosted from the start avoids this tax.

#SEO limitations by tier

The Free tier relies on WordPress.com’s built-in SEO features. Paid plans can install an SEO plugin, but that does not provide the same server and deployment control as self-hosted WordPress. Check whether your required schema, redirect, analytics, and workflow features work on the selected managed plan before committing.

#WordPress.com enterprise plan

For large organizations, WordPress.com offers enterprise-level hosting through WordPress VIP. This is a separate product from the standard tiers, designed for high-traffic media companies, Fortune 500 corporate sites, and government agencies.

WordPress VIP provides:

• Dedicated infrastructure with guaranteed uptime SLAs
• FedRAMP authorization for government deployments
• Custom code review and deployment pipelines
• Dedicated account management and technical support
• Advanced security and enterprise governance documentation

Pricing for WordPress VIP is custom and significantly higher than standard WordPress.com plans. It competes with Sitecore and Adobe Experience Manager rather than standard hosting providers.

#When to choose WordPress.com vs self-hosted

#When a WordPress.com tier forces an upgrade

The awkward part of WordPress.com pricing is rarely the sticker price. It is the moment a live project hits a wall its tier cannot climb, and the only exit is a jump to a higher plan. The common triggers:

• The workflow needs developer access. SFTP, SSH, WP-CLI, Git-based deployment, and database tooling are Business-level reasons to upgrade; plugin installation alone is not.
• Recovery requirements become stricter. Business and Commerce bundle real-time backups and one-click restore, which matters once a site has frequent editorial or transactional changes.
• The store needs an integrated package. Paid plans can install plugins, while Commerce bundles the WooCommerce-focused store features and support path.
• Media storage fills up. Photographers and video creators exhaust lower-tier storage caps first, and the remedy is a whole plan upgrade rather than a per-gigabyte add-on.
• A campaign spikes traffic. Business and Commerce still run on shared infrastructure with no server-level tuning; genuinely dedicated performance only arrives at VIP, which sits in a different price universe.

These are capability jumps, not plugin-access gates. Teams that expect custom infrastructure, deployment workflows, or heavy commerce may still prefer self-hosted WordPress from day one, but a simple plugin requirement no longer forces a move to Business. If you are weighing that call, our WordPress developer team can scope it against your actual feature list before you commit to a tier.

#How to migrate from WordPress.com to self-hosted

If you start on WordPress.com and outgrow it, migration follows this process:

1. Export content from WordPress.com (Tools > Export > Export All)
2. Set up self-hosted WordPress on your chosen hosting provider
3. Import content using the WordPress Importer plugin
4. Migrate media (images, uploads) to the new server
5. Update DNS to point your domain to the new host
6. Set up redirects if URL structures change
7. Install and configure plugins (SEO, caching, security, backup)
8. Test thoroughly before cancelling the WordPress.com subscription

The process typically takes a few hours for small sites and a day for larger sites with extensive content. For a detailed migration guide, see our WordPress migration guide.

Learn more about professional WordPress development at WPPoland.