Can I do this with WordPress.com or do I need WordPress.org?

  • Unknown's avatar
    highstreetsolicitors · Member ·

    I’m looking to set up a cost effective, simple to maintain business website that promotes my services as a website, allows me to blog about my practice areas, and allows me to sell digital downloads.

    WordPress.com is advertising itself as the perfect solution for business websites as well as blogs, and with WordPress.com handling all the backend security and updates etc.. it sounds ideal.

    However, the digital downloads looks like it might be a problem? I can’t find that it’s part of the WordPress.com package, so I’ll need to sign up to a different service and have a digital download shop elsewhere, which isn’t cheap from what I’ve found. There are a mountain of plugins for WordPress.org that seem to integrate this functionality into a wordpress.org blog for free however, which would save me a lot of money.

    So my question is, for a business website, business blog, and digital download store, will WordPress.com serve my needs or do I need to go with WordPress.org?

    Thank you for your help 😊

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    ismaeliea · Member ·

    Hi @highstreetsolicitors — WordPress.com may be a good choice for you if you are looking for all the servers and maintenance to be done for you. WordPress.org may be a good choice for you, if you are looking to power your website, but you’d have to get a host, and manage your servers, and control all of your website features. You can use WordPress.com, for simplicity, speed and great support.

    WordPress.com Business is a great plan for you, based on the information you gave me, and it does seem a good fit for your goal. You can learn more about:

    — WordPress.com Business
    — WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
    — WordPress.com Plans
    Let me know if you have any further questions, and I’ll be able to help further :)

    Take care,

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi highstreetsolicitors,

    the digital downloads looks like it might be a problem? I can’t find that it’s part of the WordPress.com package, so I’ll need to sign up to a different service and have a digital download shop elsewhere

    The WooCommerce plugins supports downloadable products:

    https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/digital-downloadable-product-handling/

    Custom plugins like this are only supported on the Business plan so you would need to upgrade in order to use it.

    You could sell digital products with some of the other eCommerce options we have available on WordPress.com, but they don’t support directs downloads — this means you would need to send customers the digital files manually once they have paid.

    Please let me know if you have any questions.

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