WordPress.com review 2026: plans, fees and how it differs from WordPress.org

What it is and who it’s for

WordPress.com is a hosted website service run by Automattic Inc. It runs the same open-source WordPress software you can download for free, but Automattic hosts the site, runs the server and sells access as plans with set prices and limits.

The names trip people up because tutorials say “WordPress” for both. In practice, on WordPress.com your plan decides what you can do: storage, payment fees and access to the server. On self-hosted WordPress, your host sets the resource limits and you get full code access.

A note on where our view comes from. We build on self-hosted WordPress every week, not on WordPress.com. The editor, themes and plugins are the same software, so they behave as you’d expect. The plan details below come from WordPress.com’s pricing page and help center.

Who it fits

• People who want WordPress without managing hosting, updates on the server or security patches.
• Bloggers on a budget: Personal is $4 a month billed yearly.
• Small businesses that want plugins but prefer a managed setup.

It fits less well if you plan to sell on the cheaper plans, or if you need server-level access without paying for Business.

Plans and what they really cost

There’s a free plan, four paid plans with listed prices and an Enterprise tier. Prices exclude taxes. The longer you prepay, the lower the monthly rate.

Two-year rates sit in between: $3.25 a month for Personal, $6.50 for Premium, $20 for Business and $36 for Commerce. Enterprise runs on WordPress VIP and is priced by custom quote.

What each step up adds, per the pricing page:

• Free: a WordPress.com subdomain, 1 GB of storage, limited themes and community forum support. “Free sites display WordPress.com ads to visitors.” It never expires.
• Personal: plugins (the page cites 60,000+), third-party theme uploads, no ads, and a free custom domain for one year on annual plans.
• Premium: all premium themes.
• Business: WooCommerce with 0% transaction fees, SFTP, SSH and database access, downloadable full backups, VideoPress and 24/7 priority support.
• Commerce: everything in Business plus full WooCommerce store tools and premium store themes.

A 3-year cost example

Two common setups. A personal blog on Personal, and a small-business site on Business with one business email address. Both lock in the 3-year rate, which avoids renewal guesswork for that period.

How we got there. WordPress.com didn’t list its domain renewal price on the pages we checked, so we use Namecheap’s .com renewal of $18.48 a year as a stand-in for years 2 and 3. Email isn’t included on any plan. Google Workspace Business Starter is $7 per user a month on an annual plan ($8.40 on the flexible monthly plan).

If you’d rather pay yearly, Business at $25 a month billed yearly is $300 a year. That’s $900 over three years if the renewal holds at the same rate, which we couldn’t confirm. The 3-year rate saves $270 against that.

The fee math if you sell

Personal and Premium let you add payment buttons, but WordPress.com takes a cut. These are transaction fees on top of whatever the payment processor charges. Say you sell $5,000 a year:

• Personal: $48 plan (billed yearly) plus $500 in fees at 10% = $548 a year.
• Premium: $96 plan plus $400 in fees at 8% = $496 a year.
• Business: $300 plan plus $0 in fees = $300 a year.

Once sales pass a few thousand dollars a year, Business costs less than the cheaper plans, and you get a full WooCommerce store instead of buttons.

What you can build

Because it’s real WordPress, you can build most of what self-hosted WordPress can. The plan you pay for decides how much of it you can reach.

Design and themes

The Free plan has a limited set of free themes. Personal adds dozens of premium themes, Premium and above include all premium themes, and Commerce adds premium store themes. Every paid plan can upload third-party themes. Server access through SFTP, SSH and the database is on Business and Commerce only, so custom code work beyond themes and plugins needs one of those plans.

Blog and content

You get the full WordPress editor and blogging tools: posts, pages, categories, tags and comments. For a writer who wants WordPress’s publishing tools without running a server, this is the main draw.

Online store

Personal and Premium are limited to payment buttons, with the 10% and 8% fees above. A full WooCommerce store needs Business or Commerce, both at 0% platform fees. Payment processing rates weren’t published on the pages we checked.

SEO

You get WordPress’s built-in SEO basics, and paid plans can install SEO plugins such as Rank Math or Yoast. That’s the same toolset we use on self-hosted sites. If SEO is new to you, start with clean page titles and one clear topic per page.

AI features

We didn’t find AI tools listed among the plan perks we tracked, so we can’t say what’s included. If an AI-made starting draft is your priority, compare the options on our best AI website builders list.

Support

Free plans get community forums. Personal and Premium include “free support.” Business and Commerce include “free 24/7 priority expert support,” per the pricing page.

What happens when you leave

WordPress.com scores 8 out of 10 on our exit score. Leaving is easier than on most hosted builders because the destination, self-hosted WordPress, runs the same software.

The skill needed to leave is medium. According to WordPress.com’s export guide, Tools > Export creates an XML file with your posts, pages, comments, categories and tags, plus links to your media. It leaves out the media files themselves, your theme, design changes and plugins. You can export the media library separately.

On Business and Commerce you “can download a full backup or restore from a backup at any time,” which includes site files and the database. The same guide covers importing into self-hosted WordPress and recommends Jetpack for that move.

Our tip: if you think you’ll move to self-hosted WordPress someday, register your domain at an outside registrar and connect it. Then the domain never has to move. Our guide to leaving a website builder has the full checklist.

Gotchas

• Payment-button fees on cheaper plans. 10% on Personal and 8% on Premium; 0% only on Business and Commerce (wordpress.com/pricing).
• Free sites have real limits. They show WordPress.com ads, use a subdomain and get 1 GB of storage (wordpress.com/pricing).
• The free domain has conditions. It’s only on annual or longer plans, and only for the first year (wordpress.com/pricing).
• Renewal price isn’t spelled out. The yearly price is shown as a discount, and the renewal figure didn’t appear when we checked (wordpress.com/pricing).
• The standard export is content only. Media files, theme and plugins aren’t in it; a full backup download needs Business or Commerce (wordpress.com/support/export).
• Prices exclude taxes, so your bill will be a little higher than the listed rate (wordpress.com/pricing).

Who should pick it, who should not

Pick WordPress.com if you want WordPress’s editor and plugins without managing a server. Personal is a low-cost home for a blog. Business makes sense for a small business that wants plugins, a store with 0% platform fees and 24/7 support in one bill.

Skip it if you plan to sell on Personal or Premium, since the fees add up fast. Also skip it if you want server access or full backups on a small budget. Self-hosted WordPress gives you both on any host, though you take on the upkeep and shared-hosting prices rise at renewal.

Alternatives worth a look

• Self-hosted WordPress if you want full control and a 10/10 exit score. Read our WordPress review.
• Squarespace if you’d rather not deal with plugins at all and want polished templates. It scores 5/10 on exit. Read our Squarespace review.
• Wix if you want an all-in-one drag-and-drop builder. It scores 3/10 on exit. Read our Wix review.

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