Originally created for blogs, but now widely used for websites, WordPress is a platform that enables non-web developers to publish online. WordPress.com or WordPress.org – which should you use?
WordPress facilitates businesses getting a website online. Text, images, event calendars and more can be easily updated in-house.
There are two very different platforms, both calling themselves WordPress: WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Not sure which is the best to use or why? We’re here to explain the advantages of each.
WordPress.com
WordPress.com is the hosted version of WordPress and the easiest for a non-web developer to get set up initially. It is free to get going.
To start with, you don’t pay a thing. WordPress is already installed for you – you just sign up, log in, and you are ready to start your website design. A fantastic way to get online fast.
Free Plan, WordPress.com
WordPress.com provides a free plan which is easy to set up and brings with it most things you need for a simple website:
- A number of free themes to choose from.
- Automatic WordPress core updates.
- Security.
- No need to buy hosting.
- No setup fee, nor pains.
- Paid for upgrades
As a business, though, once you delve into WordPress.com, you will definitely need to use the upgrades. There are three paid plans: Premium, Business, and E-Commerce.
In the FREE plan, Display Ads from the Google Network will be shown on your site. They should mostly be relevant to your site content, but sometimes they are not.
You’ll need to pay for the PREMIUM plan at £7.00 per month to have Text Ads removed from your site. So, as a serious business, you should do this instantly.
Let’s look at the second plan, the Premium Plan, which looks cost-effective for bloggers.
The WordPress.com Premium Plan
Premium Plan
£7.00 per month
“Build a unique website with advanced design tools, CSS editing, lots of space for audio and video, and the ability to monetise your site with ads.”
Within the Premium Plan, you can choose from 200 premium themes – a theme controls the design and layout of your site, such as menu and logo position.
Using the WordPress.com Premium Plan, the Text Ads will be removed. The site will, however, still carry the WordPress branding – usually quite a small “Powered by WordPress” caption in the footer.
A disadvantage of the Premium Plan is the inability to utilise powerful WordPress plugins that equip a website with features such as contact forms, event calendars, booking systems, and improved search engine optimisation.
So small businesses will need to upgrade once more. On to the next plan, the Business Plan.
The WordPress.com Business Plan
Business Plan
£20.00 per month
“Power your business website with custom plugins and themes, unlimited premium and business theme templates, Google Analytics support, 200 GB storage, and the ability to remove WordPress.com branding.”
The WordPress.com Business Plan means no Text Ads, and additionally, the WordPress branding is removed from the footer.
The real draw, though, is the ability to use plugins, of which there are thousands.
Third-party themes purchased outside the platform can now also be uploaded, including bespoke themes. So WordPress.com is now looking a lot more attractive.
Purchasing the Business Plan provides extra storage for images and videos and removes the WordPress branding.
You are also walked through the setup with a handy wizard.
The Business Plan is twice as much per year as a stand-alone hosting account (which you’d need for the non-hosted WordPress.org) – but on the positive side, the WordPress.org team handle core updates, ensure the website is running smoothly and manage security.
You can even set plugins to upgrade automatically (be careful though as updates can sometimes conflict – be sure to always have a backup).
The Business Plan provides search engine optimisation tools – which, with assurance from WordPress.com on their blog, “takes care of 80-90 per cent of the mechanics of SEO for you”.
Be that as it may, we cannot see any mention of OpenGraph generation, so you may need a plugin like YOAST SEO as well.
WordPress.com eCommerce Plan
eCommerce Plan
£36.00 per month
“Sell products or services with this powerful, all-in-one online store experience. This plan includes premium integrations and is extendable, so it’ll grow with you as your business grows.”
Interestingly, looking at the eCommerce Plan, website owners pay £432.00 per year – £192.00 more than the Business Plan. And since you would still need to pay a commission to a payment gateway like Stripe or PayPal, you are basically only paying to use WooCommerce.
If you don’t have many products or feature requirements, my advice is to stick with the Business plan and install WooCommerce there, which WordPress.com says you can do on their “Monetise your website” page, under “Selling Physical and Digital Products or Requesting Donations and Tips”.
The advantage of the eCommerce plan is that you have premium WooCommerce plugins installed, such as UPS Shipping and Product Add-Ons. But until you need that kind of thing, the basic WooCommerce package will do nicely.
Free Domain Name
In all of the above plans, one domain name is provided free for one year, but it is then renewed each year at about 30% above industry prices.
The real problem we foresee with WordPress.com domain names is email. If it is reserved with WordPress.com, you can use their forwarding service, which lets you forward any email address ([email protected]) to any email address ([email protected]).
Forwarding addresses, however, are unprofessional. When you reply, you use the free email address (Gmail, for example). This confuses clients.
Our advice? Buy your domain from a hosting company, point the MX records to Google Workspace, and point the hosting to WordPress.
Importing to WordPress.com from Wix and Squarespace
Another convenience I’ve spotted on WordPress.com is the ability to import data from other website builders, such as Wix, Blogger, and Squarespace.
Don’t be fooled – your website won’t look the same as the one you’ve imported, but you will have your precious content (posts and pages). Let’s assume it will need some major organising though.
We’re excited to see this tool, as many small businesses start on Wix or Squarespace and then want to move. We put WordPress a category above in terms of functionality, pixel-perfect layout and optimisation.
Conclusion About WordPress.com
WordPress.com initially looks free and easy but soon starts to add up for a business that wants to grow. A good point though is that you will need to put money into your business, full stop, so however you build your site there will be outgoings.
The costs are business costs that you would likely pay to a WordPress website designer anyway.
When they expand, small businesses tend to outsource more and more web development, realising that it is a time-consuming job. Someone with skill and experience can do the job better, and much faster.
Is WordPress.com suitable for graphic designers who supply websites? Or those providing websites that want to avoid involvement with hosting services? Yes, we think the new Business Plan is a really good way to set your clients up, and relatively easily. Just be aware of the email issue covered above.
A disadvantage we can see is that if you choose to monetise the website through Ads, you can only use WordAds, and you must pay a commission fee to WordPress.
WordPress.org
As a non-website designer, the initial setup of WordPress.org seems complicated.
You have to purchase a domain name and hosting. Then install WordPress on the server.
The advantage of self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org) is that once you are set up, there are no ongoing fees to WordPress. WordPress.org is free, open source software.
What you pay for using WordPress.org is:
- Your own hosting per year.
- Domain name renewal.
And optionally:
- Professional email addresses.
- Third-party premium themes.
- Third-party premium plugins.
You would also pay for a payment gateway such as Stripe or PayPal if you have an eCommerce shop. But you’d pay gateway fees on either platform.
Many third-party themes and plugins can be used for free – there is no need to pay extra unless there is a specific purpose. If you have a web designer on board, they often offer premium packages for developer-level use.
As the owner of a WordPress.org site, you, or your website designer, are responsible for security, backups and updates.
This can become costly because major upgrades can break a site, and out-of-date plugins and themes can create security vulnerabilities. It’s advisable to keep the site up to date at all times.
The Advantages of WordPress.org
For a knowledgeable WordPress website designer, there are many advantages to using WordPress.org.
They mainly involve control, monetisation, retargeting, membership, and expansion.
Maximum Control on a WordPress.org Site
- Access to a hosting account plus email addresses.
- Access to the database.
- FTP access to the server.
- Customise the site as much as we like.
- Access to PHP and HTML files which can be edited.
- Add code to header and footer.
Monetising
Using WordPress.org, you can freely include paid-for adverts without sharing profits with WordPress or risking having a site taken down for breaking the rules.
Re-targeting
On WordPress.org, it is easy for a website designer to include the Facebook Pixel in the header code, so that visitors to the site can be tracked for retargeting. That is, advertising to them on different platforms.
Migrating from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
My experience migrating a site from WordPress.com to WordPress.org has not been seamless or inexpensive for my client, but since then, WordPress.com has made significant changes.
Migrating content is usually fairly simple, depending on the original theme and the plugins used to position text.
Just do not expect your beautifully designed website to transfer over in its entirety. There will most definitely be some organisation and tweaking to be done.
Conclusion WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
WordPress.com is pretty enticing now that it offers more freedom with the Business Plan, and it is so easy to set up.
Having said that, we believe there would be constraints for companies that want to expand and eventually use a web developer.
We know of no WordPress developer who would prefer to use WordPress.com, so if you’d like to expand the site within two years, there’s no point starting with WordPress.com, since you would end up paying for a migration.
WordPress.com, the hosted version, would be really good for people who are happy to continue to develop their own content without too much technical know-how. Be sure though that you’d be in that position for a number of years to make it worthwhile.
