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WordPress itself is free and open source, but getting a site online always involves costs like a domain and hosting.
In this guide, you’ll learn what WordPress includes for free and what you should realistically expect to pay for when running a full website.
Is WordPress really free? Yes, but with a caveat
WordPress core software is free and open source under the General Public License (GPL). You don’t pay to download it, install it, or build with it.
What does cost money is putting your website online. To publish a full site, you’ll need at least:
- A domain: your site’s address
- Hosting: the service that keeps your site running and available to visitors
Everything else — premium themes, plugins, or advanced features — is optional depending on what you want your site to do.
Want to test the waters first? Start free on WordPress.com today.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: How the cost differs
With WordPress.org, you pay for hosting and maintenance separately; with WordPress.com, hosting and key features for running a website are bundled into your plan.
Here’s a quick summary:
- WordPress.com provides managed WordPress hosting that handles security, updates, backups, and performance for you. You can start for free and choose a paid plan for your needs.
- WordPress.org offers the free WordPress software, while you’re responsible for paying for your hosting and domain, as well as setting up any additional tools or services you want to use.
Both options can be more or less affordable, depending on what you choose.
The cost difference comes down to what’s included versus what you need to set up and maintain yourself.
What you get for free with WordPress — and why
The WordPress software is free because it’s open source, and the GPL license ensures it will always be available to use, study, and modify at no cost.
Anyone can publish, build improvements, or add new extensions — continuing the project’s mission of open, community-driven web publishing.
Overall, you can access:
- The WordPress website builder; there is no license fee to download or use it
- Hundreds of free themes and plugins available in the WordPress ecosystem
- The ability to export, move, and reuse your site’s files wherever you choose
- WordPress Studio, a free local development app for building and testing sites on your computer
What costs extra when you use WordPress
Running a fully functional website always incurs costs regardless of the web builder or host you use.
Here’s what you need to budget for.
Domain name
A domain name usually costs under $30 annually. Most web hosts, including WordPress.com, offer free domains in the first year on any paid annual plan.
On WordPress.com, popular domain extensions like .com, .org, and .net average $13 per year.
Web hosting
Web hosting can cost anywhere from a few dollars per month to hundreds for higher-traffic or enterprise sites.
The price depends on the type of hosting you choose, the resources included, and how much traffic your site receives.
As your traffic grows and you exceed your plan’s limits, you may also need to upgrade — e.g., going from 35,000 to 105,000 monthly visits can raise costs from about $35 to $90 per month, adding roughly $660 per year.
WordPress.com takes a different approach. Every paid plan includes unlimited bandwidth and visits for a predictable monthly price (from $4 to $45 with annual billing), along with security protections, backups, updates, and expert support.
Premium plugins and themes
Premium WordPress plugins and themes come with annual license fees — these are optional upgrades offering advanced functionality or more professional designs.
Prices vary widely, with most plugins falling in the $20–$200/year range and premium themes costing $20–$100+, depending on the provider and features.
For example, the Sensei Pro plugin ($9/month) lets you create, manage, and sell online courses — a useful upgrade for creators growing their knowledge businesses online.
Development and maintenance costs
Hiring third-party professionals for custom development or ongoing maintenance can range anywhere from $15 to over $200 per hour, depending on their experience and the complexity of the work.
This is common in WordPress setups where hosting, updates, backups, security, and performance are not handled at the platform level, and responsibility ultimately sits with the site owner.
On WordPress.com, advanced security, performance optimization, and automatic updates and backups are included in your plan — saving you the effort of paying separate services.
You get SSL certificates, DDoS protection, encryption, brute force prevention, advanced firewalls, and more.
Tip: If you prefer a hands-on workflow, WordPress Studio is a free tool that lets you build and test WordPress sites locally before publishing them anywhere. It’s useful for developers and creators who want full control during the building phase.
Other considerations (email, ecommerce, monetization, etc.)
Hosting covers the basics, but many site features — especially for email, marketing, monetization, and ecommerce — typically add $5–$60+ per month.
These can include:
- Business email, SMTP, and newsletter tools
- Payment processing and subscription features
- Ecommerce add-ons like shipping tools or advanced WooCommerce extensions
- Performance and marketing upgrades, such as CDNs, analytics tools, or SEO assistants
On WordPress.com, many of these extras are already included, so you get built-in tools for ecommerce, newsletters, social sharing, memberships, performance, and AI content generation — without stacking add-on fees.
You also get access to the AI website builder that lets you generate and set up your entire website using simple text prompts.
Here’s what it looks like:
Benefits of using WordPress
After breaking down what different parts of a WordPress site may cost, let’s look at what you get in return.
Here are the key benefits of using WordPress:
- Scalability and performance: WordPress is a great choice for any website, and WordPress.com’s full-stack performance infrastructure keeps your site fast even during traffic spikes.
- SEO friendliness: WordPress uses clean, crawlable code, and WordPress.com automates essential SEO tasks, including generating sitemaps.
- Themes and plugins: You can choose from 100,000+ themes and plugins to add features — like crowdfunding, quizzes, memberships, etc. — without hiring developers.
- Customization and ownership: As open-source software, WordPress gives you full control over design, functionality, and long-term ownership — which is also true for WordPress.com.
- Support and community: WordPress has a huge global community, and WordPress.com paid plans include 24/7 expert support from our Happiness Engineers.
Tip: WordPress.com also includes essentials like Jetpack for security, backups, and analytics, so you don’t need multiple add-ons and extensive experience to successfully grow your website.
Start your website journey with WordPress.com
The WordPress software itself is free, but running a fully functional website always involves costs — hosting, a custom domain, and the premium features you need to operate your site reliably.
If you want everything handled in one place, WordPress.com simplifies the entire setup.
You get managed WordPress hosting with automatic updates and backups, built-in security monitoring, unmetered bandwidth and visits, a free domain for the first year, expert support, and tools like the AI Website Builder.
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