WordPress.com — Managed WordPress Hosting and Site Builder

WordPress.com provides tools for building and publishing websites and blogs on the open-source WordPress platform, combining the site editor with managed hosting, security and support. The service is operated by Automattic, whose terms of service also cover related products such as WooCommerce, Jetpack, Gravatar and VaultPress. The company states that it is WordPress's largest contributor, having dedicated thousands of hours to advancing the open-source platform that powers 40.2% of the internet. Matt Mullenweg is identified as CEO of WordPress.com and co-founder of WordPress.

• Part of Automattic
• Slogan: "Build a website, build a movement"
• Registered address: 60 29th Street #343, San Francisco, CA 94110, US
• Described as trusted by 160 million worldwide

Hosting is bundled into every WordPress.com site, with unmetered bandwidth and traffic on all plans. The company cites 99.999% uptime, a custom CDN spanning 28 or more locations, and a private network of 28 data centres across six continents, along with edge caching, dynamic image optimisation and real-time data centre failover. Security is included rather than charged separately, covering firewalls, encryption, malware scanning, brute force and DDoS protection, spam protection and automatic updates. Paid plans include 24/7 support from the company's support team, referred to as Happiness Engineers.

• 99.999% uptime
• Custom CDN with 28+ locations
• Unmetered bandwidth and unlimited visitors
• Malware scanning, DDoS protection and web application firewall
• Real-time backups with one-click revert
• SSH, WP-CLI and GitHub access
• 14-day money-back guarantee

WordPress.com offers a Free plan alongside paid Personal, Premium, Business and Commerce tiers, with billing available monthly or on one, two and three-year terms. The Free plan includes 1 GB of storage, unlimited pages, posts, users and visitors, Jetpack essential features such as basic SEO, site statistics and social sharing, and community forum support; free sites display WordPress.com advertising to visitors. Paid annual plans include a custom domain free for the first year and remove visitor ads, with storage rising by tier — for example 6 GB on Personal and 50 GB on the Business plan. Support levels differ by plan, from email on Personal and live chat from Premium to priority response on Business and Commerce.

Sites are built with themes and patterns using drag-and-drop layouts, with full colour and typography control and the option to switch themes after launch. The platform draws on the WordPress open-source ecosystem, offering more than 50,000 plugins, custom code, and a built-in AI website builder. WordPress.com emphasises portability: users can export their content, design and store at any time and migrate to any other WordPress host in either direction. Ecommerce is available on any paid plan by installing WooCommerce, or pre-built into the Commerce plan.

• Hundreds of themes, including premium WordPress.com themes
• 50,000+ plugins
• Built-in AI website builder
• Full-site export on any plan
• WooCommerce for selling online

WordPress.com runs a guided migration path for existing WordPress sites. Users choose a plan, install and run the Migrate to WordPress.com plugin, follow the on-screen prompts, and are notified when the transfer completes; the company states most sites migrate in under ten minutes, with live chat help available during setup. Migrations are covered by the 14-day money-back guarantee. Newsletter publishers can also import an existing newsletter from Substack.

• Migrate to WordPress.com plugin
• Live chat assistance during migration
• Most sites migrate in under 10 minutes
• Substack newsletter import

Newsletter functionality is provided by Jetpack Newsletter, which is also made by Automattic and is available on WordPress.com sites without separate installation, as well as as a plugin for self-hosted WordPress.org sites. It is free to start with unlimited subscribers and unlimited sends, and supports paid subscriptions, gated content and audience analytics. WordPress.com states it has been sending more than 20 million emails a day for 18 years. Creators can also add a merchandise store and reach readers through the Reader network.

• Jetpack Newsletter included on WordPress.com sites
• Free to start with unlimited subscribers and sends
• Paid subscriptions and gated content
• Processing fees as low as 0% on paid plans
• Reader and Freshly Pressed discovery

The 100-Year Plan is a one-time payment product combining century-long domain registration with top-tier managed WordPress hosting. It includes a 100-Year Domain, which secures a name for a full century rather than the standard decade, plus ownership-transfer assistance and an optional locked mode that prevents changes without the owner's permission. Public sites are integrated with the Internet Archive and use a Wayback Machine link-fixing plugin, and content is backed up multiple times across geographically distributed data centres. WordPress.com states that a portion of the purchase price is placed in long-term investments to fund ongoing site preservation.

• One-time payment for 100 years
• 100-Year Domain registration
• Internet Archive integration and link fixing
• Optional locked mode
• Multiple geographically distributed backups

WordPress.com sells domain names with or without an accompanying website, including .com, .org and .net extensions, and includes a custom domain free for the first year on annual paid plans. Alongside hosting and domains, the company lists Professional Email, a Website Design Service and an affiliate programme among its offerings. Terms for some Automattic programmes, including the Affiliate Program and Refer-A-Friend Program, are governed by additional or separate policies. A Jetpack mobile app gives site owners access to their site from a phone.

• Domain registration, with or without a site
• Free domain for one year on annual plans
• Professional Email
• Website Design Service
• Affiliate and Refer-A-Friend programmes
• Jetpack mobile app

WordPress.com publishes side-by-side comparison pages setting its plans against other hosting providers and website builders. The WP Engine, GoDaddy and SiteGround pages compare storage, PHP workers, bandwidth, CDN coverage, backups and included security against those providers' higher-tier plans, with the WP Engine figures noted as last verified on 30 September 2024. The Squarespace and Wix pages focus on content ownership, theme switching, plugin counts and the ability to move hosts. The company also cites ReviewSignal's 2022 WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks and Google Core Web Vitals in these comparisons.

• WordPress.com vs WP Engine
• WordPress.com vs GoDaddy
• WordPress.com vs SiteGround
• WordPress.com vs Squarespace
• WordPress.com vs Wix

Use of WordPress.com is governed by Automattic's Terms of Service, which also cover WooCommerce, Jetpack, Gravatar, VaultPress, MailPoet, Studio and other Automattic services. The contracting entity depends on the user's location: Automattic Inc. for users outside the Designated Countries, and Aut O'Mattic A8C Ireland for users within them, with equivalent arrangements for WooCommerce. The terms set out minimum age requirements, visitor and user responsibilities, and rules on fees, payment and renewal, and note special provisions for users in the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The terms are published under a Creative Commons ShareAlike licence and are available on GitHub.

• Automattic Inc. or Aut O'Mattic A8C Ireland, by region
• Minimum age requirements apply
• Separate terms for Akismet, Crowdsignal, Newspack and WordPress VIP
• Terms licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike