Key takeaways
- WordPress.com is a hosted product. WordPress.org is the software you install on a host.
- Their export gives you posts, pages, and comments. It does not give you the theme, the plugins, or a site you can drop onto another server.
- Our WordPress Basic plan is $2.99, then $7.99. Their WordPress.com Personal plan is $4 a month on annual billing. Those numbers buy different contracts.
A plumber in New Britain googles WordPress, clicks the first result, and signs up on WordPress.com. The dashboard looks like WordPress. The pages look like WordPress. A year later a designer in Connecticut asks for the files so the site can live on a host the shop actually rents. There are no files to hand over. There is an export of the words.
That mix-up is not on the plumber. The names are almost the same on purpose.
| WordPress.com | WordPress hosting (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| What you bought | Automattic’s hosted product | Disk and a WordPress install on a host you pick |
| Where the site lives | Their servers, their rules | The host on the invoice |
| Can the whole site move | The words can. The live site is rebuilt. | Files and database can move to another host |
| Entry price we can print | WordPress.com Personal plan: $4/mo billed annually, 6 GB | WordPress Basic plan: $2.99, then $7.99, 10 GB |
The software is free. The login is a different product.
Two websites, one name
WordPress.org is where you download the software. It is free. It does not include a server. You still need a host, a domain, and someone who will keep the install updated. That stack is what people mean when they say WordPress hosting.
WordPress.com is a company product from Automattic. Hosting is in the plan. You do not pick a data center. You do not get a second host. Their own help page says the software is the same and the difference is hosting. Read it on WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, last reviewed August 11, 2026. That is their document, not ours.
They recorded the same split. The clip below is theirs. We did not rehost it.
If a salesperson says “we use WordPress” and the login is on wordpress.com, you bought the product in that video, not a box of files.
What their export actually hands you
WordPress.com will let you leave. They say so. The fine print is in Export your website’s content, reviewed September 18, 2026. Tools, then Export. You get an XML file of posts, pages, and comments. Theme design does not come. Customizations do not come. Plugins do not come. Photos are not inside the file. The file has links, and the new site copies the images while the old site is still public.
That is why a “migration” off WordPress.com feels like a rebuild. The copy comes. The site you had in the browser does not. We already covered the worse version of this lock with Wix and Squarespace in you do not own that website. WordPress.com is kinder than Wix. It is still not the same as copying a WordPress folder off a host.
Paid WordPress.com plans now allow plugins
Older comparison posts said you needed their Business plan for plugins. Their current help page says plugins and custom themes work on any paid plan: Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce. They still block plugins they consider risky. Free sites still do not get plugins. If a 2022 blog told you otherwise, the product moved. The export still does not pack those plugins for you.
The prices are not the same purchase
On their Personal plan page (reviewed September 30, 2026) the WordPress.com Personal plan is $4 a month billed annually, with 6 GB of storage and a free domain for the first year on annual terms. The monthly sticker on their pricing page is $9. Staging, SFTP, and a database tool sit on the WordPress.com Business plan, which their comparison page lists at $25 a month billed annually. The WordPress.com Commerce plan is $45 a month billed annually if you want their store bundle.
On WordPress hosting the WordPress Basic plan starts at $2.99 a month and renews at $7.99. You get 10 GB, one WordPress site, two mailboxes, SSL, staging, and backups on the plan. That is not Automattic. That is us, on shared US infrastructure, with tickets and email answered by a person in Connecticut. We do not watch the site at 3:00 AM. We already argued why the second number matters in compare hosting on the renewal price, not the intro rate.
Do not pick us because $7.99 is smaller than $25. Pick the contract. If you need their all-in-one login and you will never hire a local developer who wants SFTP, their Personal plan can be the quieter life. If you need the files, a Connecticut designer, and mail on the same account, you are shopping hosts, not WordPress.com tiles.
When WordPress.com is the right call
Stay there if you want one vendor for the software and the server, you will not install odd plugins, and you are fine rebuilding if you ever leave. A personal blog, a church bulletin, a student site: that is a fair use. You are paying them to hide the server.
It is also fair if you already live in their editor and you do not have anyone in town who will touch a self-hosted install. Convenience is a real feature. Pretending the export is a moving van is not.
When WordPress hosting is the right call
Use a host when a designer or an agency will log in, when you want the plugin directory without their blocklist, or when you may change hosts in two years without rewriting the site. The files sit on the account you pay for. Another host can take them. That move is still work. It is not a new brand from screenshots.
Most Connecticut service shops we see belong here. Hours, a form, a few photos of the truck. Maybe a booking plugin. Mailboxes on the domain. They do not need Automattic’s Commerce plan. They need WordPress on a plan they can explain to the person who built it.
If the problem is that nobody will click Update, that is the managed aisle, not WordPress.com. On Managed WordPress hosting we run the update cycle. The files are still yours. We covered the labor split in what managed WordPress hosting is for.
If you want the software on a host you can leave, start on WordPress hosting. If you already have a WordPress.com export and you are not sure what came with it, open a ticket from the client area and say so. Bring the XML. That is enough to tell you whether you have a site or a stack of posts.
