Plugins on Personal change which plan you need
Every WordPress.com plan, the free one included, comes with hosting, and the pricing page lists malware detection and removal, a web application firewall and DDoS protection on all of them. The paid tiers split like this:
- Personal: no ads for visitors, 6 GB storage, select premium themes, any of over 60,000 plugins
- Premium: 13 GB, all premium themes, PayPal and Stripe payment buttons, Google Analytics, video uploads
- Business: 50 GB, real-time backups with one-click restores, SFTP/SSH and WP-CLI, a staging site, US$200 in Blaze ad credits and a business email account free for a year
- Commerce: the Business toolkit plus WooCommerce store extensions built in, such as inventory management and bulk discounts, which Business only gets through plugins
The Free plan gets 1 GB, a wordpress.com address and WordPress.com ads, and it can't install plugins.
Notice the plugin line. WordPress.com's FAQ puts it plainly: "You do not need to be on the Business or Commerce plan to install plugins." If backups, SSH and staging aren't on your list, Business isn't the automatic pick.
Five plans across four billing terms
Per-month prices as listed on WordPress.com's pricing page on 4 October 2026, in US dollars, excluding taxes. Totals in brackets multiply the per-month price across the term, which is billed up front. The Free plan is US$0 with no expiration date. WordPress.com doesn't publish separate renewal prices; its billing guide says anything bought with a promotion or coupon renews "for the full subscription price at the end of the discount period."
By the page's own labels, yearly billing saves 55% on Personal and Premium, 37% on Business and 35% on Commerce. Three years stretches those to 69%, 69%, 56% and 55%.
The 8% fee, the early renewal and other ways to pay less
Price the payment fees before the plan. On the comparison table, standard payments carry a transaction fee of 8% on Personal, 4% on Premium, 2% on Business and 0% on Commerce, plus standard processing fees. As an illustration on yearly billing, Personal is US$48 and Premium US$96, so once paid subscriptions pass US$1,200 a year, Premium's lower fee makes it the cheaper plan. WooCommerce payment features carry a 0% transaction fee on both Business and Commerce.
Don't stay monthly. Twelve monthly Personal payments come to US$108 against US$48 billed yearly, and monthly plans skip the free domain.
Start low. Unused time is credited when you upgrade, and a downgrade inside the refund window refunds the difference automatically.
Watch the early charge. Yearly plans renew a month before they expire, so the 14-day refund window on a renewal closes about two weeks before the old term would have ended. If you might leave, switch auto-renew off under Billing. For more on trimming renewals you don't need, see our guide to avoiding unused subscriptions.
Personal for most sites, Premium once money moves
Buy Personal. With plugin installation included, it covers most blogs, portfolios and small business sites, and three-year billing makes it US$99 for 36 months. If the site is an experiment, pay yearly instead: the refund window is the same 14 days and the first-year domain is still free.
Move to Premium when the site starts taking money. PayPal and Stripe buttons need it, and paid subscriptions past roughly US$1,200 a year cost less there. Business earns its US$300 a year only if you need real-time backups, SSH or a staging site. Commerce is for WooCommerce stores that want abandoned cart emails, upsells and inventory tools built in rather than bolted on.
Skip the Free plan for anything carrying your name: no custom domain, no plugins and WordPress.com ads on your pages. If you'd rather run WordPress on your own hosting, start with our cheapest WordPress hosting roundup.
Start on Personal, and let your sales, not a WordPress.com coupon, tell you when to upgrade.
