WordPress.com
Still simple to run but with far more room to grow than Squarespace, a full export if you ever leave, and an owner having a difficult year.
Who owns it
WordPress.com is run by Automattic, the private San Francisco company Matt Mullenweg founded in 2005, which also controls the WordPress.org trademark, plugin directory and update servers that every self-hosted WordPress site depends on. That dual role is the root of the dispute we describe below. We found no Russian or Chinese link in ownership or engineering. There is no UK entity, but UK visitors see pounds.
What it costs
Prices were read in a UK browser on 16 September 2026; the page does not state whether VAT is included, and we record them as shown. Business is the plan we score, because Premium below it does not allow plugins, themes or SFTP: £20 a month in the first year, then it auto-renews at £29 a month on annual billing, or £32 a month billed monthly, a 10 percent premium. Personal is £3 then £5 (£8 monthly), Premium £7 then £12 (£17 monthly), Commerce £36 then £51 (£55 monthly) with WooCommerce built in and no platform transaction fee. Two and three-year terms discount further. Every paid plan includes a custom domain free for the first year, removes ads, and has unlimited pages, posts and users; the Free plan shows WordPress.com ads on a subdomain. There is no card trial; Automattic relies on a refund window instead.
What you get and what to watch
The editor is the block editor, section and pattern based rather than free-form, with a guided AI builder on every paid plan and an AI assistant on Business. Business adds 50 GB, staging, SFTP and SSH, WP-CLI, GitHub deployments, real-time backups and 24/7 priority support by chat and email; there is no phone support. Forms are the Jetpack form block with Akismet spam filtering, roles are WordPress's native five, multilingual is a plugin, and the SEO controls are what WordPress gives you plus Yoast or equivalent once plugins are on. WordPress.com also carries a real MCP implementation: WordPress.org's Abilities API and MCP Adapter shipped in February 2026 and the Agent Abilities for MCP plugin exposes 179 governed abilities on paid plans. Export is a WXR file of posts, pages, comments and taxonomy with media links, importable into any WordPress; Business and Commerce can take full backups too. Trustpilot is 3.7 on 4,151 reviews, some invited, with September 2026 one-star themes about AI features making unwanted changes and chat support replaced by AI.
The conduct record is why WordPress.com shares first place rather than taking it outright. In September 2024 Mullenweg called WP Engine "a cancer to WordPress" and blocked its access to WordPress.org; WP Engine sued in October; on 10 December 2024 a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction ordering access restored and the takeover of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin listing reversed. In January 2025 Automattic cut its WordPress core contribution from about 2,560 hours a week to 45, in April 2025 it laid off about 16 percent of staff, and in May 2025 it announced a return to core. The case was still in motions in mid-2026 with trial expected late 2026 or 2027. Then on 9 September 2026 Automattic's board placed Mullenweg on leave and named an interim chief executive; by 12 September he was back with the board's support and by 14 September most of the board had gone. None of that changes what a Business plan does today. It does bear on who you are relying on.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, vendor documentation, the vendor's own help centre and status pages, and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +The whole WordPress ecosystem on the Business plan: 60,000 plugins, any theme, staging, SFTP and SSH, real-time backups, unlimited users and pages
- +Full WXR export that any WordPress host can import, and an official MCP adapter so agents can act on the site under governed permissions
- +Renewal and monthly prices both stated on the page: £29 on annual billing, £32 billed monthly, a 10 percent premium
Cons
- −Automattic's conduct: the WP Engine litigation and injunction, the 2025 cut in core contributions and layoffs, and the September 2026 boardroom turmoil around its founder
- −The page does not say whether VAT is included, the first-year price is 31 percent below the renewal, and there is no phone support
- −The block editor is less free-form than Wix or Squarespace, multilingual needs a plugin, and recent one-star reviews cite AI features changing sites unasked
Pricing
Minimum commitment: £29 (£29/mo × 1 seat × 1 months). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
Business
£32/mo · month-to-month
£29/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 10% more
- ✓£20 a month in year one, auto-renews at £29 a month on annual billing; £32 billed monthly (read 16 Sep 2026, VAT basis not stated). 50 GB, plugins and themes, staging, SFTP/SSH, WP-CLI, real-time backups, 24/7 priority chat and email support, AI assistant, free domain first year. Two and three-year terms discount further.
Commerce
£55/mo · month-to-month
£51/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 8% more
- ✓£36 in year one, renews at £51 on annual billing; £55 monthly. Adds WooCommerce with no platform transaction fee, store themes, 135 currencies. Below Business: Premium £7 then £12 (£17 monthly) without plugins; Personal £3 then £5 (£8 monthly); Free with ads on a subdomain.
Specifications
| Rating | 4.0 |
| Pricing and plans | |
|---|---|
| Scored plan* | £29/mo annual · £32/mo monthly (Business) |
| Month-to-month | £32/mo (+10%) |
| Free plan | Limited free plan |
| Scored plan name | Business |
| VAT basis | Excluding VAT |
| Licence | Subscription (WordPress itself is GPL) |
| Free trial (days) | 0 |
| Entry plan | £5/mo (Personal) |
| Top plan | £51/mo (Commerce) |
| First-term promotion | Business £20 a month in year one, auto-renews at £29; every paid plan carries a first-year discount of 34 to 62 percent. VAT basis not stated on the page |
| Monthly price only at checkout | No |
| Domain free first year | ✓ |
| Domain renewal | Free first year; renewal price page not reachable on the research date |
| Editor seats | Unlimited |
| Storage and bandwidth | Business 50 GB plus 250 GB VideoPress; bandwidth not metered |
| Price changes | Not captured beyond the multi-year discount structure |
| UK VAT handling | No |
| Features | |
| Shape | Hosted WordPress |
| Visual editor | ✓ |
| Custom code | Full theme code |
| Blog | ✓ |
| Forms | ✓ |
| Commerce | Add-on or higher plan |
| Memberships | Included |
| Multilingual | Paid add-on |
| SEO controls | Full |
| UK or EU hosting | No |
| Vendor hosting | ✓ |
| Page and item limits | Unlimited pages and posts |
| Editor | Block editor with patterns; section-based, not free-form |
| Switch template after launch | ✓ |
| Form submissions | Jetpack forms; no published cap |
| Scheduling | ✓ |
| Roles and approvals | ✓ |
| Bookings | No |
| AI site generator | ✓ |
| AI content tools | ✓ |
| Accessibility tooling | No |
| Redirects | ✓ |
| Structured data control | ✓ |
| Image optimisation | ✓ |
| CDN included | ✓ |
| Injected scripts | None confirmed on Business |
| Performance | Not measured |
| Payment providers | Payment buttons via Stripe and PayPal on Premium and above; WooCommerce on Commerce |
| Domain transfer out | Not captured |
| Integrations and developers | |
| API | ✓ |
| Headless | ✓ |
| MCP server | ✓ |
| Export your site | Full |
| Open source | ✓ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ |
| Webhooks | No |
| MCP server note | WordPress.org Abilities API and MCP Adapter (February 2026); Agent Abilities for MCP plugin, 179 abilities, paid plans |
| CRM integrations | Jetpack CRM built in; HubSpot and others via plugins |
| Zapier or Make | ✓ |
| App market | 60,000 plugins from the WordPress.org directory on Business and above |
| Export note | WXR export of posts, pages, comments and taxonomy with media links on every plan; full backups on Business and Commerce |
| Import tooling | Importers for WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace, Wix and others |
| Ownership and trust | |
| Owned in** | US-owned |
| Russian or Chinese link | None found |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 3.7 (4,151) |
| HQ | US |
| Owner | Automattic (private) |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Data location | Automattic infrastructure; regions not published |
| Link evidence | None found |
| Governance | Automattic controls WordPress.org; WP Engine litigation and December 2024 injunction; 2025 core-contribution cut and layoffs; founder placed on leave and reinstated, September 2026 |
| GDPR tooling | No |
| SOC 2 | No |
| ISO 27001 | No |
| Status page | ✓ |
| Major incident on record | No |
| Incident note | No WordPress.com outage confirmed with a date; the governance record is on the profile |
| Security updates | Core kept current by WordPress.com; plugin updates optional automation; daily Jetpack scan |
| Support | |
| Phone support | No |
| Live chat | ✓ |
| UK support hours | 24/7 priority chat and email on Business; no phone |
| Community | The largest CMS ecosystem; agencies and freelancers everywhere |
| Support channels | Live chat, Email, Help centre +1 |
*Scored plan: the business plan the score is set on (the cheapest plan with a custom domain and no vendor branding, contact forms, basic SEO controls and room for a fifty-page site; for a managed WordPress host, one production site with staging and daily backups), per month on annual billing at the renewal price, then per month billed monthly where that is offered, in the currency the vendor shows a UK visitor on the research date. Developer CMSs show the licence plus a stated reference hosting cost. See each profile for the VAT basis, first-term promotions and what the plan above adds.
**Owned in: where the company that owns the vendor answers to. A US-owned vendor is subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act) wherever the site is hosted. "Russian or Chinese link" records ownership, management or engineering links found on the research date, with the evidence on the profile; Saaskly marks these down in the score by editorial rule and says so.
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Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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