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Is WordPress Blog Free? [Detailed Breakdown]

About 37% of all websites in the world right now use WordPress. In essence, about 455 million sites use WordPress. These stats are staggering and then you’re moved to ask; Is WordPress blog free?


Well, to answer the question, WordPress as a software is free to download, use, and modify. Also, you can have a free WordPress blog.

However, there could be some costs associated with owning free WordPress software.

Stay glued to reading as I’ll trash out all these later in the article.

Read Also: When Website Changes Are Not Showing – Fix It

What is WordPress?

In the context of this discussion, WordPress is actually a Content Management System that makes building a website easy.

Before now, only technically skilled developers could build a website or blog. Also, it requires a lot of technical skills to manage or modify a website.

Hence, people resorted to hiring developers to do all of these and it cost a lot of money.

But now, almost anyone could create and manage a basic or technical website or blog thanks to WordPress and other Content Management systems.

Long story short, WordPress is a software that makes building websites easy without having any skill as a developer.

How and why is WordPress Free?

To start with, WordPress as a software (wordpress.org) is free and not owned by any one person. In fact, anyone could be part of the WordPress development team.

WordPress is an open-source project for the public, which volunteers around the world can be part of.

Although there is a team of lead developers, any other developer can voluntarily contribute to the project.

The lead developers of WordPress created it for themselves in the first place to solve a need and not for the purpose of selling it. Gradually, more people liked it and volunteered for the project.

In reality, it would not make sense, if WordPress as a software is sold because it is NOT owned by an individual or a company.

Other Free Aspects of WordPress

Apart from the software itself, there are many other free things around WordPress. These are some examples:

  • Plugins: There are so many free plugins on WordPress that gives users extended functionality on their sites.
  • Themes: WordPress itself comes with its own themes. However, many other developers have created so many WordPress themes for free. All you have to do is download and use it.
  • Support: On the WordPress forum, you can get help to fix any WordPress-related issues. You can even contact the developer of any plugin or theme and they’d help you out all for FREE.
  • Security: WordPress offers security at no cost. The WordPress core file itself is very secure and almost impossible to infiltrate. However, the loopholes are always from plugins and themes. WordPress ensures that there are regular updates on the software to enhance security.

How is WordPress funded?

It may seem unreal to you that all these services plus the WordPress software itself are free. Of course, all these services cost time and money.

You may be wondering how then do they get the money to do all these since WordPress is free to download, use, and modify.

In truth, WordPress doesn’t get funding from anywhere.

Remember that WordPress is not owned by any one person or company.

Developers all around the world work on the software. All these developers work on WordPress voluntarily.

Hence, even if there could be some costs around some things they may be doing, they bear it themself.

Is WordPress.com free?

Oftentimes, many users confuse WordPress [Wordpress.org] with WordPress.com. So, they ask if WordPress.com is free too.

Well, to answer the question, WordPress.com is not free to use and it is not the same as WordPress.org.

Wait, let me explain.

WordPress.com is a WordPress hosting company that is profit-oriented. On the other hand, WordPress.org is the official website for the free WordPress software that we all use.

In essence, WordPress.com is not free because it is a profit-making organization and is different from WordPress.org – which offers WordPress free as software.

Read Up: How To Get Professaional Email Address

How people make money from WordPress Software

WordPress is free but many people are making money because it exists.

Here are the main examples of people making money off WordPress:

1. WordPress Hosting Companies

WordPress hosting companies are making a lot of money just because the software exists and is used by millions of people around the world.

If you must use WordPress, you must host your website files somewhere. Hosting companies today offer just that service for a fee.

Granted, you can get free WordPress hosting if you do not have the money, however, it is always better to get paid hosting from a trusted company.

I always recommend Cloud hosting instead of the traditional web hosting company as it offers more security and better performance.

In my experience, CloudWays offers the best cloud hosting service. Read my review on CloudWays to help you make a better decision.

cloudways WordPress hosting
  • Host your websites on a super fast, dedicated and independent server.
  • Break free from cheap and slow Shared hosting service.
  • Enjoy Pay as you use Cloud hosting service for a token.
  • Get $25 FREE after signup.

Anyways, the point here is that hosting companies make money a lot of money off the existence of WordPress. The fact that hosting payment is recurrent makes the business very profitable.

Premium WordPress Plugins

Although there are many free WordPress plugins, there are also premium ones that you must pay for.

Most of the premium plugins have their free versions that offer limited service.

However, some other WordPress plugins are straight-out premium with no free version.

Some examples of premium plugins are Malcare, Object Pro (both of which CloudWays includes in their hosting service), Link Whisper, WPLasso, etc.

All the same, none of these businesses or services would be possible if there was no WordPress.

Premium WordPress Themes

Just like plugins, WordPress themes have both free and premium versions. [Learn how to delete a WordPress theme here].

Developers of these themes are in business because WordPress exists.

How much does it cost to have a blog on WordPress?

If you want to use WordPress software to create and manage your blog or website, there there are some inevitable costs you must incur.

Here is a breakdown of how much you’ll spend to own your own custom domain WordPress blog:

  • Domain name: To own a WordPress blog, you must buy a domain name. The cheapest place [I know] to buy a domain name is Cloudflare. With as low as $9 per year for .com domains.
  • Hosting: You need to host your WordPress blog and in most cases, this is not free. You can host your sites for as little as $3 per month on NameCheap and scale up to as low as $10 per month on Cloudways.
buy domain on Cloudflare
Buy cheap domain names on Cloudflare.

So, even though WordPress as a software is free to use and download, there are other costs that will be incurred if you choose to use the software.

How to make money from a WordPress blog

There are many ways to make money from a WordPress blog. Two common ones are display ads and affiliate marketing.

For display ads, I strongly recommend Ezoic because you’ll make more than double most other ad networks. Read up Ezoic requirements here.

All in all, learn more ways to make money from your blog.

Final Thought

WordPress is free to download, use, and modify. The reason why WordPress is free is that it is not owned by one individual or company.

It is a public software owned by developers all around the world who volunteer their time and resources. And anyone can be part of the project.

While WordPress is free, owning a custom domain WordPress blog may is not free.

Nonetheless, it does not cost too much and it is way cheaper and better than starting a physical business in most cases.

Why not start a WordPress blog now and host it on Cloudways?

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