Free WordPress.com Plan

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  bradborland · Member · May 7, 2020 at 11:33 pm

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  I had a few questions about the free WordPress.com plan.

  1. Am I able to have a custom domain name without .wordpress included.

  2. Can I use a HTML widget to put a Mailchimp signup form on my site?

  3. Can I put an Amazon buy button on it? Or maybe a link to my book on Amazon?

  4. Does it have access to all of the basic Jetpack widgets?

  Thanks so much!

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  justjennifer · Member · May 8, 2020 at 8:36 am

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  Hi there,

  1. In order to use or register a custom domain on a WPcom site requires a paid upgrade to at least the Personal plan. https://wordpress.com/support/domains/

  2. You can use the Mailchimp widget rather than the code that Mailchimp gives for newsletter signups:
  https://wordpress.com/support/mailchimp/
  https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/mailchimp-block/

  3. You can certainly link to your book on Amazon, but their Buy button probably has code in it that will be stripped out. More information on restricted/allowed code here: https://wordpress.com/support/code/
  Also may be of interest: https://wordpress.com/support/adding-amazon-com-affiliate-links-to-your-wordpress-com-site/

  4. Jetpack is integrated on all sites on WPcom regardless of plan. You can learn more about this here: https://wordpress.com/support/plugins/ If there is a specific Jetpack module you’re interested that you don’t see in that list, let us know which one.

  Let us know if you have other questions.

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  justjennifer · Member · May 8, 2020 at 8:44 am

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  Also mentioning that you don’t need to register a .wordpress.com subdomain address as a free site. Last year WPcom opened up a huge number of free .subdomain.blog addresses as well.

  You can learn more about that here https://wordpress.com/blog/2018/11/28/announcing-free-dotblog-subdomains/ and register any of those .blog subdomains by typing out the full address in the domain address line on the “Give your site an address” page.

  Hope that helped.

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  bradborland · Member · May 8, 2020 at 11:19 am

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  Great! That answers all my questions. Thanks so much!

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  bradborland · Member · May 8, 2020 at 2:45 pm

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  Do you know of many who go from WP.org to WP.com paid plans? I’m pondering a switch.

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  justjennifer · Member · May 8, 2020 at 3:35 pm

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  Hello again. You’re welcome.

  I do not know the numbers involved. Which is the better option IMO really depends on what you need in a website and the cost of running that website. Over the years, WPcom has grown and expanded from free websites with a few paid upgrades (not plans like today) to full-fledged business and ecommerce websites, although those choices are certainly not inexpensive for most personal users compared to running a standalone WP install.

  The tradeoff here is what is taken care of for you in the background and that is common to every WPcom site from free on up. The comparison chart at https://wordpress.com/support/com-vs-org/ does a good job of summing it up.

  Hope that helps.

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  bradborland · Member · May 8, 2020 at 7:12 pm

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  Thanks!