WordPress pricing
Free, GPL-licensed publishing software you can host anywhere, also sold as a hosted service through WordPress.com.
| Plan | Price | Unit | Billing | Seats | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted (wordpress.org) | No licence fee | — | free | — | Free software; you pay for hosting |
| WordPress.com Personal | $4 $9 month to month | per month | billed annually | — | |
| WordPress.com Premium | $8 $18 month to month | per month | billed annually | — | |
| WordPress.com Business | $25 $40 month to month | per month | billed annually | — | |
| WordPress.com Commerce | $45 $70 month to month | per month | billed annually | — |
Read from the vendor’s pages on , in USD, excluding tax. Where a page did not say whether a price is annual or monthly, the table says “billing period not stated”.
What you get, and the catch
- Best for
- Businesses that want to own their site and pick their own host, or want a hosted plan they could later move off.
- Watch out
- Self-hosted WordPress is free software but needs hosting, updates and plugin care. The free WordPress.com plan shows ads to visitors.
"WordPress" means two different things, and the difference is the main pricing decision.
WordPress the software is free. Its licence page says it is "released under the GPLv2 (or later) from the Free Software Foundation". You can install it on any server or any host that supports it, and you can move it between hosts. The cost is the hosting, plus the time to keep the core, themes and plugins updated.
WordPress.com is a hosted service running that software. Its pricing page printed four billing options per plan on our read date (monthly, yearly, two-year and three-year). Monthly and yearly figures:
| Plan | Yearly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Personal | $4/mo | $9/mo |
| Premium | $8/mo | $18/mo |
| Business | $25/mo | $40/mo |
| Commerce | $45/mo | $70/mo |
The free plan includes 1 GB of storage and, in WordPress.com's words, "Free sites display WordPress.com ads to visitors", which most businesses will want to avoid. Paid plans list unlimited users.
Because the software is GPL-licensed, a site built on either option can be exported and run elsewhere. That is the strongest exit route of any builder in this category.
For a small business site: $4 to $8 a month on yearly WordPress.com plans, or the cost of a host. Compare it in the website builders category.
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