Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
I
Automattic also makes money by hosting blogs through WordPress VIP Hosting. This is an exclu-
sive service for big name customers and well-supported startups; you have to apply to join. CNN's
Political Ticker site is one of their customers; the Official NFL Blog is another. Pricing begins at
$500 per month per blog. We don't discuss WordPress VIP Hosting as a separate topic in this topic.
So the summary of charges for most users is as follows: Google AdSense ads on your site, which is
not a direct cost; domain name fees; additional or audio storage; specialist video storage; super-
PollDaddy. If you had your own domain name and one chunk of extra storage, for either graphics
and audio or for video, you'd still be paying less than $100 per year.
Large sites might pay for these services plus others: Akismet for corporate blogs and blog net-
works, Support Network access, listing as a WordPress software host, and WordPress VIP Hosting.
The charges here can easily be thousands of dollars per year, but the people paying these fees have
many choices, including hiring people and buying equipment and software to do it themselves.
The free or very low-cost services that most users enjoy contribute to the willingness of many
WordPress users to contribute to the WordPress community. In turn, all this community work helps
keep the costs to Automattic of routine operations for WordPress low. The result is a virtuous circle
that benefits all involved.
The impression most people, including long-time participants in the WordPress community, have is
that Automattic keeps costs free as far as possible, and as low as they can in most areas where
they do charge. There might or might not be a soak-the-rich aspect to a few of the charges for big
sites, but only for customers who have plenty of capability to analyze the fees and decide whether
the charges are a good value for them.
It's hard to make a case that Automattic is charging anything like what it could get if short-term
profit or revenue growth was its main goal. WordPress's early success was significantly due to a
competitor trying to monetize the asset they had in the form of bloggers dedicated to their platform.
When the charges went up, though, the asset—that's people like us—went elsewhere. It seems
Automattic keeps this in mind and works hard to avoid the same fate.
What does this mean for you? You can go very far indeed with free WordPress services and online
support, and a lot farther with a few investments in, for example, a domain name, an independent
hosting service, and a few learning resources, including topics like this one. If you then really want
to go large, the sky's the limit, and you might have to invest a lot more money—but only after
you've reached a point where you are likely to be able to afford it, and to have many other options
as well.
What If You Want to Make Money?
WordPress.com has a strongly noncommercial ethos. As such, most of its bloggers don't seem to
mind that they aren't allowed to integrate their own Google AdSense ads, multiple Amazon links
(which can generate revenues), and other money-generating add-ons. Such ads, and much more,
are available via plug-ins or custom coding if you run WordPress software on your own host and
such blogs have a non-WordPress.com domain name.
This stance seems to make sense for WordPress.com users who don't have their own domain
names. If your blog is at
yourname
.wordpress.com, you're getting just about everything free, and
