Compare WordPress.com's free plan and paid Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce tiers, and see how the hosted platform differs from self-hosted WordPress.
WordPress.com is a managed hosting platform operated by Automattic, the company co-founded by WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg in 2005. It runs the same core WordPress software distributed by WordPress.org, but as a fully hosted, paid service rather than software you install yourself.
The platform is designed for individuals, bloggers, small businesses, and organizations that want a WordPress-powered website without managing their own hosting, security patches, or backups. Automattic handles the technical infrastructure, and customers choose a plan based on how much customization, storage, and ecommerce capability they need.
WordPress.com should not be confused with WordPress.org, the free open-source software project. WordPress.com is a commercial product with tiered subscription pricing, ads on its free plan, and restrictions on plugins and custom code that only lift at higher paid tiers.
The free plan lets anyone start a WordPress.com site with no credit card, though it includes WordPress.com branding, no custom domain, and no plugin support.
Paid plans progressively unlock a free custom domain, premium themes, more storage, and at the Business tier and above, full plugin installation and custom theme uploads, effectively matching the flexibility of self-hosted WordPress.
The Commerce plan adds integrated ecommerce functionality for selling products or services, while all paid plans bundle hosting, domain registration, privacy protection, and security into a single subscription.
WordPress.com offers a free plan with no credit card required, alongside four paid tiers. As of mid-2026, Personal starts around 4 dollars per month billed annually, Premium around 8 dollars per month annually, Business around 25 dollars per month annually, and Commerce around 45 dollars per month annually, each roughly doubling in monthly-billed pricing.
The Business plan is the key upgrade threshold since it is the first tier to allow plugin installation and custom theme uploads with 200GB of storage, while Commerce builds on that with ecommerce-specific tools.
Enterprise customers with large-scale or agency needs can access custom pricing through Automattic's dedicated enterprise and agency programs rather than the standard self-service tiers.
WordPress.com offers a genuinely free plan with no credit card required, though it has limitations like no custom domain, no plugin installation, and WordPress.com branding.
WordPress.com is a paid, managed hosting service run by Automattic that handles infrastructure for you. WordPress.org is the free, self-hosted open-source software that you install on hosting of your choice.
As of mid-2026, paid plans range from around 4 dollars per month for Personal up to around 45 dollars per month for Commerce, all billed annually, with higher monthly-billed pricing.
Plugin installation is only available on the Business plan and above; lower tiers do not support custom plugins.
WordPress.com is operated by Automattic, the company co-founded by WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg in 2005.
Yes, the Commerce plan includes integrated ecommerce tools for selling products and services directly through the site.
Paid plans include a free custom domain for the first year; the free plan uses a wordpress.com subdomain.
Yes, its managed hosting model removes the technical setup burden of self-hosted WordPress, making it approachable for users without server management experience.