WordPress.org and WordPress.com are different things
This is the source of most of the confusion about whether WordPress is free. Two things share the name.
| WordPress.org (self-hosted) | WordPress.com (hosted service) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The free, open-source software, which you install on hosting you choose | A company (Automattic) that hosts WordPress for you on subscription plans |
| Cost of the software | Free | Free tier with adverts and a wordpress.com address; paid plans in tiers |
| You own the site? | Yes, entirely; move it anywhere | You can export content; the paid plans allow plugins and a custom domain, the free one does not |
| Plugins and themes | Any, including your own | Restricted on lower plans |
| Who maintains it | You, your host or your studio | Automattic, within the plan’s limits |
| Right for | Almost every business site | Personal blogs; a business that wants a builder-like experience and accepts the limits |
Source: wordpress.org and wordpress.com published documentation and plan pages; plan prices not restated because they change.
When a web studio says “we build on WordPress”, it means the first column. When a friend says “I made my blog on WordPress for free”, it means the second, on the free tier, with adverts.
What costs money on a self-hosted WordPress site
| Item | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress software | Free | Always |
| Domain name | Roughly £5–£30 a year | Registered in your own name, always |
| Hosting | A few pounds a month shared, tens of pounds managed | Shared is slow; managed is what a business needs |
| Theme | Free to a few tens of pounds a year for a premium one; a bespoke theme is part of the build | Multipurpose premium themes are the usual cause of slow sites |
| Plugins | Most free; a few premium ones at tens of pounds a year each | Fewer is faster and safer |
| Build | Your time, or a studio: from £500 with us | Design, structure, content, speed, search basics |
| Care | Your time, or a monthly: £50 with us including hosting | Updates, backups, security, monitoring, small fixes |
Source: Cybrial published pricing, correct at 5 September 2026, and the shape of registrar, host and plugin pricing as published by those vendors.
The honest three-year total
Doing everything yourself on shared hosting: perhaps £100 to £200 a year in hosting and domain, plus a premium theme, plus every evening it takes and the risk of nobody updating it. With a studio, on our published prices: £500 to build and £50 a month, so roughly £2,300 over three years for a site you own outright, hosted, kept current and fixed when it breaks.
A builder subscription with e-commerce or without adverts over the same three years is often in the same region, for a site you cannot take with you. WordPress.com’s business-grade plans land similarly. The difference is not mainly price; it is whether the money buys an asset.
Should you use WordPress?
- Yes, if the site is a business asset: found in search, growing, possibly selling, and yours to keep. It runs around two-fifths of the web and any developer can work on it.
- Yes, if you want full control of what Google reads: structure, speed, schema, redirects, feeds. A 17,000-product WooCommerce store went from 672 to 7,781 organic clicks a month with that control.
- Perhaps not, if the site is a brochure you will edit yourself and never need more from; a builder is simpler and nobody has to maintain it.
- Not on shared hosting with a multipurpose theme and thirty plugins, which is how “WordPress is slow and gets hacked” became a reputation. Those are choices, not properties of the software.
