How many pages does your website have?

Count pages from your navigation menus, landing page to free offer forms, and all pages in your funnel such as a sales page for an offer (Required)

  • 5 or less
  • 6 to 10 (most common)
  • 11 to 15
  • 16 to 20
  • 21 to 30
  • 31+

Do you need to process payments? (Required)

  • No
  • Yes - A simple payment form is sufficient (1 to 3 offers or name your price payment form)
  • Yes - I need a comprehensive checkout for multiple products, services or courses and I have 5 or less offers
  • Yes - I need a comprehensive checkout for multiple products, services or courses and I have 6 to 15 offers
  • Yes - I need a comprehensive checkout for multiple products, services or courses and I have 16 to 30 offers
  • Yes - I need a comprehensive checkout for multiple products, services or courses and I have 31 or more offers

Do you sell online trainings, courses, a membership or group programs with recordings? (A course is an online program where users log in to access one to ten lessons. A lesson is a recording or learning materials displayed on a single page within a course.) (Required)

  • No
  • Yes - 5 Courses or less
  • Yes - 6 to 10 Courses
  • Yes - 11 to 20 Courses
  • Yes - 21 to 40 Courses
  • Yes - 41 or more Courses

Do you have articles, podcast show notes, video pages or other blog posts on your website? (Required)

  • No
  • Yes - 1 to 10
  • Yes - 11 to 30
  • Yes - 31 to 100
  • Yes - 100+

Pricing Estimate

Based on the information you provided, we can build you a new website for:

Main Difference Between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

Read the final article in our comparison guide to learn which platform is best for your operations online.

This article is Part 3 of 3 in our guide to WordPress.com vs WordPress.org: Which is best for your business website?.

“WordPress.com is similar to your WordPress.org website with the exception that you’re settling for a slower host with limitations that will hurt your leads and sales efforts.”

As we mentioned, the key difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com is who’s actually hosting your website. With wordpress.com, you don’t need to buy and host your website, while with wordpress.org, you benefit from a self-hosted website.

Cost Comparison

For any business owner, budget is key. There are cost options associated with both wordpress.com and wordpress.org, however, we recommend investing in good hosting through wordpress.org since it will far outweigh the prices you might pay with wordpress.com.

WordPress.com Costs

While you can explore the pricing options in full here for wordpress.com, know that your monthly bill will range anywhere from $0 dollars for basic plans with limited functionality, to about $59 a month for business services that include SEO tools, eCommerce options, and increased access to usability plugins.

WordPress.org Costs

“A really great host and maintenance service should only cost you about what a coffee a day would cost. At The Digital Navigator, our most comprehensive plans run at about $347/ month.”

The WordPress.org software itself is 100% free; however, if you want to make your website public, good web hosting and a domain name comes at a reasonable price. With our plans for example, a year’s worth of managed web hosting will run about $4100.

Which is the best fit for you?

Now that you’ve seen the results of our comparison between wordpress.com vs wordpress.org, which one do you think is the best fit for your business?

We recommend choosing WordPress.com for your business if you…

  • Are a hobbyist who is not focusing on a for-profit venture
  • Want to create a blog to share your thoughts and creative expressions without ad monetizing
  • Want to make a local website for organizations close to home
  • Are looking for an extremely simple website (about one to five pages total) to test whether you have a minimum viable product or service, before you start your sales stream

We recommend choosing WordPress.org for your business if you…

  • Operate a business and have sales income
  • Plan to scale your business in the future
  • Want to offer courses or membership services online
  • Want to monetize your website with ads or affiliate marketing
  • Want to collect leads for your business through website forms or grow your email marketing list
  • Plan to run digital marketing campaigns
  • Plan to include specific functionalities on your website such as chatbots, special pop-up tools or events listings and calendars

I need help with WordPress.org!

For those who fall into the wordpress.org category, who may not have a ton of experience running a hosted platform, we recommend finding a trustworthy website hosting service to streamline operations.

Make sure when you’re shopping around for a website management service that you look for options that provide speed optimization and security as well.

Until then, we hope you found this article helpful, and that you feel confident in understanding the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.