Is WordPress Free? Yes, but Here's What a Site Costs (2026)
Our test site, built with WordPress 7.1.2, the free Kadence theme and its free “The Pantry” starter template, October 2026. Total software cost: $0.
Short answer: Yes. The WordPress software from WordPress.org is free to download, use, change and share, forever, for any kind of site. But a WordPress website that other people can visit is usually not free. You need hosting and a domain, which cost roughly $50 in year one and $150 a year after that for a small blog. WordPress.com, a separate company’s hosted service, has a free plan, but it shows ads, uses a yoursite.wordpress.com address and does not let you install plugins. Premium themes, paid plugins and business email are optional extras that can push a small business site to about $240 to $400 a year.
This guide explains the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, lists current WordPress.com prices, and shows what a self-hosted site really costs in year one and year two. We also built a complete site using only free software on a test install and counted every place a free product asked us to pay.
Quick facts
| As of October 2026 | |
|---|---|
| WordPress software (WordPress.org) | Free. Open source under the GPLv2 (or later) license. Current version 7.1.2 |
| WordPress.com free plan | $0, with ads, a wordpress.com subdomain, 1 GB storage and no plugins |
| Cheapest WordPress.com paid plan | Personal: $4/month billed yearly ($48), renews at $5/month |
| Self-hosted blog, year 1 | About $48 (Hostinger Premium, 12 months, domain included) |
| Self-hosted blog, year 2 | About $152 (hosting renewal plus domain renewal) |
| Small business site, year 1 / year 2 | About $240 / about $394 |
| Online store, year 1 / year 2 | About $439 / about $663, plus card fees of 2.9% + $0.30 per sale |
| Upsell prompts counted on our $0 build | 37 across one theme and three free plugins. WordPress itself showed none |
Why is WordPress free?
WordPress is open source software, built by a large community of contributors and released under the GNU General Public License (GPLv2 or later). According to WordPress.org, that license gives you the freedom to run the program for any purpose, to study and change it, and to share it, including your changed versions. In plain terms, nobody can charge you a license fee for WordPress, and you can run it on as many personal or commercial sites as you like.
So how does anyone make money? Companies sell things next to the software: hosting, premium themes, paid plugins and services. That is why the free tools you add to WordPress often ask you to upgrade, as our hands-on test below shows.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com
Most “is WordPress free” questions come from mixing up these two. They share a name and the same core software, but they are different things.
| WordPress.org | WordPress.com | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The free software you install on any web host | A hosted website service run by Automattic, built on WordPress |
| Price | Free software. You pay for hosting and a domain | Free plan, or paid plans from $4/month billed yearly |
| Your web address | Any domain you buy | yoursite.wordpress.com on the free plan, your own domain on paid plans |
| Plugins | Any plugin, any time | Not on the free plan. All paid plans can install plugins |
| Ads | None unless you add them | WordPress.com shows its ads on free sites |
| Who handles updates and security | You or your host | WordPress.com |
| Best for | Full control, business sites, stores | Beginners who want zero setup, hobby blogs |
The real difference is who runs the server and how much control you get.
What WordPress.com costs in 2026
WordPress.com’s plans on yearly billing, checked October 2026. Each plan shows its renewal price below the button.
WordPress.com plans include hosting, security and updates, so there is no separate hosting bill. Prices below are from WordPress.com’s pricing page in October 2026, in US dollars, before tax.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Renews at | Monthly billing | Storage | Key additions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | $0 | 1 GB | Unlimited pages and posts, basic stats for 7 days |
| Personal | $4/mo ($48) | $5/mo | $9/mo | 6 GB | No ads, custom domain free for year 1, plugins, select premium themes |
| Premium | $8/mo ($96) | $9/mo | $18/mo | 13 GB | All premium themes, payment buttons, video uploads, full stats |
| Business | $25/mo ($300) | $28/mo | $40/mo | 50 GB | 24/7 priority support, business email for a year |
| Commerce | $45/mo ($540) | $50/mo | $70/mo | 50 GB | Online store features built on WooCommerce |
Longer terms cost less. Personal drops to $3.25/month on a two-year term and $2.75/month on a three-year term. The free domain is only included with yearly or longer plans, not monthly ones.
One change from a few years ago matters a lot. WordPress.com now lets every paid plan install plugins, starting with Personal. Older guides that say you need the Business plan for plugins are out of date.
What the WordPress.com free plan allows
According to WordPress.com, the free plan gives you:
- A yoursite.wordpress.com subdomain, with no custom domain
- 1 GB of storage
- Unlimited pages and posts
- Dozens of free themes
- Basic visitor stats for the last 7 days
- No expiration date, and no credit card needed
It does not include plugins, a custom domain, or an ad-free site. WordPress.com shows its own ads to your visitors until you upgrade to Personal. That makes the free plan fine for a hobby blog or for learning, but a poor fit for a business. If you are weighing other free options, our WordPress vs Blogger comparison covers Google’s free blogging platform.
The real costs of a self-hosted WordPress site
Self-hosted WordPress means the WordPress.org software on a host you choose. You pay for the pieces separately. Here is what each one costs.
Hosting is required
Hosting is the server that stores your site and shows it to visitors. It is the one cost you cannot avoid for a public site, and most hosts now include the SSL certificate, the padlock in the browser bar, for free.
Shared hosting is the cheapest option and is fine for most new sites. According to our Hostinger review, the Premium plan costs $3.99/month on a 12-month term, paid upfront as $47.88. On a 48-month term it is $2.99/month, or $143.52 upfront. Either way it renews at $10.99/month. Our FastComet review lists its Starter plan at $1.99/month as an introductory price, renewing at $9.95/month.
The pattern across cheap hosts is the same: a low first-term price, then a renewal price three to five times higher. Plan your budget around the renewal price, not the headline price. If you would rather pay more for a host that handles more of the work for you, see our guide to the best managed WordPress hosting.
A domain name
A .com domain costs around $10 to $20 a year at most registrars. Hostinger lists .com at $19.99 before discounts. Many hosts, including Hostinger, include a free domain for the first year on yearly plans, so the domain cost usually starts in year two.
A premium theme is optional
There are thousands of free themes on WordPress.org, and the good ones are enough for most sites. Paid versions add design options, more starter templates and support. As of October 2026:
- GeneratePress Premium: $59/year
- Astra Pro add-on: $69/year for 3 sites
- Kadence Essentials, with the premium theme and blocks add-ons: $99/year
Paid plugins are optional, but they add up
Plugins add features. Most popular plugins have a solid free version and a paid tier. Some typical paid prices as of October 2026:
- Forms: WPForms Basic is $49.50 for the first year and renews at $99/year, according to WPForms. Our WordPress form plugin comparison covers cheaper options.
- SEO: Rank Math PRO is $7.99/month for the first year, then $8.99/month ($107.88/year). Yoast SEO Premium is $118.80/year per site. See Rank Math vs Yoast for which free version is better.
- Backups: UpdraftPlus Premium starts at $70/year for two sites; our UpdraftPlus review shows what the free version leaves out.
Business email
A free Gmail address works, but a business usually wants you@yourbusiness.com. Google Workspace Business Starter costs $7 per user per month on a one-year commitment ($84 a year), according to Google. Some hosts include basic mailboxes: Hostinger’s are free for the first year, then $0.59 per mailbox per month.
Maintenance costs time or money
WordPress, themes and plugins need regular updates, and you should keep an offsite backup. Many hosts now apply updates automatically. Doing the rest yourself costs time, not money; hiring someone means a monthly fee.
How much does a WordPress site cost? Year 1 vs year 2
These examples use 12-month hosting terms so year one and year two are easy to compare. All prices are in US dollars, before tax, as of October 2026.
| Site type | What you pay for | Year 1 | Year 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A free site | WordPress.com Free plan (ads, subdomain), or WordPress on your own computer | $0 | $0 |
| A basic blog | Hostinger Premium ($47.88, domain free in year 1), free theme, free plugins | About $48 | About $152 |
| A small business site | Hostinger Premium, GeneratePress Premium ($59), WPForms Basic ($49.50, then $99), Google Workspace for 1 user ($84) | About $240 | About $394 |
| An online store | Hostinger Cloud Startup ($119.88, then $25.99/mo), WooCommerce (free), Astra Pro ($69), Rank Math PRO, UpdraftPlus Premium ($70), Google Workspace ($84) | About $439 plus card fees | About $663 plus card fees |
How we got these numbers:
- Year 2 jumps because of renewals. Hostinger Premium renews at $10.99/month ($131.88/year) and Cloud Startup at $25.99/month ($311.88/year). We added about $20 for the domain renewal. WPForms Basic doubles from $49.50 to $99, and Rank Math PRO goes from $95.88 to $107.88.
- Longer hosting terms smooth this out. Hostinger’s 48-month Premium term costs $143.52 upfront and covers four years, about $36 a year.
- Store payments cost extra. WooCommerce itself is free. WooPayments has no setup or monthly fee but charges 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment, according to WooCommerce. On $20,000 of sales that is roughly $580 plus $0.30 per order.
- Not included: paying a developer or designer, paid stock photos, and ads. Those can easily cost more than everything above.
For comparison, the WordPress.com Personal plan would cost $48 in year one and $60 plus a domain renewal in year two, with hosting and updates handled for you.
What it took to build a site for $0 in software
The Kadence Starter Templates library on our test install, October 2026. 41 of the roughly 90 templates carry a Premium badge.
To see what “free” means in practice, we built a small business site for a made-up bakery on a test install, using only free software. It ran on a local test server, so hosting and a domain cost nothing here. A public version of this site would still need both.
The stack, all free from WordPress.org: WordPress 7.1.2, the Kadence theme 1.5.2 with the free Kadence Starter Templates 2.3.4 and Kadence Blocks 3.7.12 plugins it installs, WPForms Lite 2.0.2.1 for the contact form, Yoast SEO 28.6 and UpdraftPlus 1.26.8 for backups.
What we did
- Design. From the Kadence theme screen, one click installed Kadence Starter Templates. We picked “The Pantry,” a free bakery template. Several other food templates, such as Coffee Shop and Resto, required WooCommerce, so we skipped them. The Pantry only needed Kadence Blocks. The import took about 17 seconds and produced a full home page: a hero section, an about section, a tabbed menu with prices, an order form, an FAQ and a footer with opening hours. We still had to replace the placeholder brand name and some filler text in the hero.
- Contact form. In WPForms Lite we used the Simple Contact Form template, which asks for a name, email and message, and placed it on a Contact page. The form submitted and showed its thank-you message.
- SEO. We ran Yoast’s five-step first-time configuration: a content scan, site details, social profiles, personal preferences and finish. We skipped the newsletter sign-up and declined data sharing.
- Backups. UpdraftPlus opened a six-step setup wizard, which we skipped through. A manual backup of the database, plugins, themes and uploads finished in about 10 seconds and came to 62 MB.
The result looks finished and works. Everything a small business needs at launch was possible without paying for software.
We counted 37 upsells
We counted every distinct place where a free product asked us to pay: notices, banners, locked features, upgrade buttons, wizard steps and menu items. Repeated locked items in one list count once, so WPForms’ 26 locked form fields count as one place. We only counted screens we actually opened.
| Product | Upsell places | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress core | 0 | None at all |
| Kadence (theme, Blocks, Starter Templates) | 6 | A “Do more with the Kadence Pro Addon” panel with 10 locked features, Premium template badges, an “Upgrade to Blocks Pro” box |
| WPForms Lite | 12 | A green “Upgrade to Pro” menu item, 26 locked fields, a pop-up when you click a locked field, a 50% off banner |
| Yoast SEO | 8 | An “Upgrade” menu button, Premium badges on Redirects and Workouts, two upgrade cards on the dashboard |
| UpdraftPlus | 11 | A full “Upgrade to premium” step in the setup wizard, 7 locked storage destinations, a Premium comparison tab |
| Total | 37 |
On top of those, we saw 8 prompts that were not asking for money: two newsletter sign-ups in setup wizards, a webinar notice, two data-sharing opt-ins, suggestions to install other plugins, and a WPForms “Challenge” with a five-minute timer that covered the form builder.
WPForms Lite 2.0.2.1 on our test install, October 2026. The standard fields are free; Phone, Date, Address, File Upload and the other Fancy Fields need Pro.
What each free piece could and couldn’t do
| Free product | What it did for free | Where it stopped |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress 7.1.2 | Pages, posts, media, menus, users, the block editor. No upsells | Nothing locked |
| Kadence | A full designed site from a free template, header and footer builders, global colors and fonts, a form block | 41 of about 90 templates are Premium. Conditional headers, mega menus, hooked elements and a dark mode switch need Kadence Pro. Kadence AI is only offered on older paid plans |
| WPForms Lite | A working contact form in about a minute, 11 standard fields, CAPTCHA, email notifications | Entries are not saved in WordPress, only emailed. 26 fields are locked, including Phone and File Upload. Mailchimp and 20 other integrations are locked. 72 of 2,179 templates are available. Stripe, PayPal and Square work but add a 3% fee per payment |
| Yoast SEO | Five-step setup, SEO and readability checks, XML sitemaps, site schema, llms.txt | Redirects and Workouts are Premium, and five features in its settings carry Premium badges |
| UpdraftPlus | Full manual and scheduled backups, restore, offsite storage on Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, FTP and email | OneDrive, Backblaze, SFTP and 4 other destinations, backups to more than one place, incremental backups, fixed backup times and site migration are Premium |
Yoast SEO 28.6 after its first-time configuration on our test install, October 2026. Note the Premium badges and the yellow Upgrade button in the menu.
None of the upsells stopped us from building the site. They are noisy, and WPForms is the pushiest of the four by a wide margin. A few free limits do matter for a real business, though.
- WPForms Lite does not save form entries. If your site’s email is not set up correctly, a message from a customer can be lost. A free form plugin that stores entries, or setting up reliable email, fixes this.
- UpdraftPlus keeps backups on the same server by default. UpdraftPlus itself warns that this is not recommended. Connect free remote storage such as Google Drive or Dropbox in its settings.
- Payment forms in WPForms Lite cost 3% per payment on top of Stripe’s own fees.
Step 5 of the UpdraftPlus 1.26.8 setup wizard on our test install, October 2026. You can skip it.
What you can do with WordPress for free
- Use the software. Download WordPress from WordPress.org and run it on any number of sites, for any purpose.
- Learn and build locally. WordPress Playground runs WordPress in your web browser, and WordPress Studio is a free desktop app for building sites on your own computer. Neither costs anything, but neither makes your site public.
- Start a hobby site on WordPress.com’s free plan. You accept ads and a wordpress.com address.
- Use free themes and plugins. WordPress.org says it offers over 15,000 free themes. As our test shows, a complete small business site is possible with free ones.
When you’ll have to pay
- You want a public site on your own domain. That means hosting and a domain, or a paid WordPress.com plan.
- You want no ads and a custom domain on WordPress.com. That starts with the Personal plan at $4/month billed yearly.
- You need a specific premium feature. Saved form entries, redirects, mega menus or backups to several places are common reasons people upgrade.
- You sell online. WooCommerce is free, but store-ready hosting, payment fees and paid extensions add up.
- You want business email or outside help. Budget about $84 per person per year for Google Workspace. Developers, designers and maintenance plans are often the biggest cost of all.
Is WordPress cheaper than Wix or Squarespace?
Usually, yes, for a basic site. Wix’s paid plans start at $17/month billed yearly, and Squarespace starts at $19/month billed yearly, as of October 2026. A self-hosted WordPress blog costs about $48 in year one and about $152 in year two. The trade-off is that you handle more of the setup and upkeep yourself. See Wix vs WordPress, WordPress vs Squarespace, or our three-way WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace comparison for the full picture. Writers choosing a newsletter platform can compare costs in Ghost vs WordPress.
FAQ
Is WordPress really free?
The software is completely free under the GPL license, for personal and commercial sites. What costs money is hosting, a domain and any paid themes or plugins you choose. WordPress.com’s free plan shows ads and uses a wordpress.com subdomain.
Is WordPress.org free?
Yes. Everything you download from WordPress.org is free: the WordPress software, the themes in its directory, which WordPress.org says number over 15,000, and the plugins in its directory. WordPress.org does not host your site, though. You need a web host, which typically starts around $48 for the first year on a cheap shared plan.
Can I use WordPress for free forever?
Yes, in two ways. The WordPress.com free plan has no expiration date, with ads and a subdomain. Or you can run the WordPress software on your own computer with free tools like WordPress Studio, though only you will see that site. A public site on your own domain always needs some paid hosting.
Can I make money with a free WordPress site?
On self-hosted WordPress, yes: you can run ads, sell products or use affiliate links however you like. Amazon affiliates often add a paid plugin such as AAWP; our AAWP review explains what it costs and when it is worth it. On the WordPress.com free plan, WordPress.com shows its own ads, and you cannot install plugins, which limits how you can earn. Paid WordPress.com plans add more monetization tools.
How much does a WordPress site cost per month?
For a small blog, about $4 a month in year one and about $13 a month after renewal on cheap shared hosting, including the domain. A small business site with a premium theme, a paid form plugin and business email runs about $20 to $33 a month. A small online store runs about $37 to $55 a month plus payment fees.