About WordPress.com
WordPress is a content management system (CMS). WordPress is primarily associated with blogging, which was the original purpose of the platform at its launch, but has evolved over time to include hosting of other types of websites including mailing lists, forums, media galleries, membership-based sites, learning management systems (LMS), and e-commerce sites such as online stores. Founded in May of 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, WordPress hosts more than 60 million websites including 33.6% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2019.
A free version of WordPress exists, with URLs that include wordpress.com in the address, hosted on WordPress servers. However, users may also sign up for a paid recurring subscription plan that allows the use of WordPress software with a custom URL domain name on other servers. Paid plans come with a free domain name for the first year of membership. Four paid subscriptions exist for various purposes. Personal plans come with 6 Gb of storage space and no WordPress ads on the website for $5.00 per month billed as one yearly payment of $60.00. Premium plans have 13 Gb of storage space, additional themes and additional monetization tools for $8.00 per month billed annually in a single payment of $96.00. Business plans have 200 Gb of space and add additional features such as additional plugins and removal of the WordPress branding for $25.00 per month billed annually in a single payment of $300.00. Finally, eCommerce plans have the same 200 Gb of space and include commerce tools such as the ability to accept payments in more than 60 countries, shipping carrier integration, and marketing tools for $45.00 per month, billed as a single annual payment of $540.00. All plans will renew automatically at the end of the year but can be cancelled at any time. Refunds may or may not be available for plans that are cancelled before the end of the currently paid year. More information on how to cancel your account can be found on this page.