free site vs. monthly fee
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I need to build a website for a book that won’t be out until 2018. I’m wondering if I can build it for free and then upgrade to a personalized domain name (with a monthly fee) once I’m ready to go public with it? Thoughts? Thanks.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Yes, you can start with a free site and upgrade at any time. There are no monthly payment plans and no bulk deal upgrades. We are billed annually. Also note that purchase orders are not accepted. We must pay for all upgrades in full at the time of purchase.
re: purchasing WordPress.COM upgrades
If you are migrating from a self hosted WordPress.ORG site to WordPress.COM please see: Moving from a Self-Hosted WordPress to WordPress.com
https://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-from-self-hosted-wordpress-to-wordpress-com/ https://en.support.wordpress.com/coming-from-self-hosted/Otherwise see: Importing Content from Another Platform
https://en.support.wordpress.com/import/#importing-content-from-another-platformWordPress.com provides free blogs and hosts them free of charge. There are no bandwidth charges. All WordPress.com blogs come with 3000 megabytes (~3 GBs) of space for storing uploaded files and images. Free features are listed here https://en.wordpress.com/features/
We have 4 different plans: free, personal, premium and business. All hosting is free regardless of which plan you choose. You can view all wordpress.com plan features here https://wordpress.com/pricing/
Details:
There are no trial upgrades, no discounts, no promo codes, no monthly payment plans, no bulk deal upgrades, and no multiple year upgrades. Also note that proforma invoices are not issued and purchase orders are not accepted.
We are billed annually and we must pay for all upgrades in full at the time of purchase after selecting a plan.
Each upgrade bundle applies to a single blog only and is for a single year only when it is due to be renewed. (The only exceptions are one time upgrades for premium themes and guided transfers.)
Premium plan upgrades and Business plan upgrades include access to all premium themes found here https://theme.wordpress.com/themes/sort/premium/ as well as all free themes found here https://theme.wordpress.com/themes/sort/free/
Premium upgraded sites and Business upgraded sites are automatically accepted into the WordAds program.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/monetize-your-site/
https://wordads.co/The Business upgrade includes:
• Google analytics
• Footer Credit Options https://en.support.wordpress.com/footer-credits/
• SEO Tools https://en.support.wordpress.com/seo-tools/
• The ability to install most plugins including woocommerce and the ability to install third party themes. Read more at https://en.support.wordpress.com/business-plan/and at WordPress.com Business SEO https://wpbizseo.wordpress.com/If and when you upgrade from Personal to Premium or from Premium to Business you pay the difference between the two plans. If you have a site with a custom domain and then upgrade to a plan, you’ll receive an automatic discount for the domain, but you will need to buy the plan using the same username account that already owns the domain.
You can also downgrade to a cheaper plan, but that requires staff assistance. Also note that if you downgrade outside the refund period of a plan, we might not be able to give a refund anymore for the difference in cost, so downgrading is best done when a plan is about to renew.
How domain mapping works
Registering an underlying .wordpress.com URL first is required for domain mapping. That underlying URL does not have to match the domain URL when you are domain mapping. What domain mapping does is providing a seamless redirect to the very same content under the new domain URL when a person clicks the old URL .wordpress.com to the original content. It can take up to 72 hours for domain propagation to take place throughout the internet but it doesn’t usually take that long. https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/
There are 3 ways to add a custom domain to your blog. Please note that an active WordPress.com plan is required to add a custom domain to your site. https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/#getting-started
WordPress.com does not accept domain transfers but mapping an existing domain is possible. http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/ The domain or mapping of any existing domain URL is included in the pricing for a personal upgrade, a premium and a business upgrade. The WordPress.COM upgrade for mapping a domain must be renewed annually.
WordPress.com does not provide an email service for blogs on their sub domains or on custom domains. Please see these support docs
https://en.support.wordpress.com/add-email/
https://en.support.wordpress.com/email-forwarding/Before you upgrade
Make sure you read the comparison very closely do you know exactly what the restrictions and limitations on WordPress.COM blogging are: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
Also read Important Notes Before Upgrading http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/#important-notes-before-upgrading
How to upgrade
You must be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog’s dashboard, select a plan.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/Your billing history will be at Dashboard > Store > Billing History https://en.support.wordpress.com/billing-history/
Your only options for payment are found here Payment Methods http://en.support.wordpress.com/payment/
Canceling and refunding purchases
There are no prorated refunds. Refunds https://en.support.wordpress.com/refunds/ are time limited.
• WordPress.com provides a 30-day refund from date of purchase on all upgrades except Domain Registrations, Domain Renewals, and Guided Transfers.
• The refund period for Domain Registrations and Renewals is 48 hours.
• It takes from 1 – 2 weeks or 7 – 10 business days for the refund to be received after canceling an upgrade and requesting one.You have to be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog’s dashboard, cancel any upgrades, claim a refund for any qualified upgrades, and disable auto-renew. Dashboard > Store > My Upgrades. You can also disable auto-renew there. Canceling and refunding purchases http://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/#canceling-upgrades
Canceling domains
It is important to know that cancelled domains are not released by the registrar immediately. Also note that here’s no guarantee you’ll be able to use a domain again as it may be sold to someone else. Therefore you should cancel a domain, if and only if, you are sure you do not wish to use it again.If you have any unanswered questions type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for a Staff follow-up. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Also subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond and be patient while waiting. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.
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