Unsure Financial Situation

  • Unknown's avatar
    tlharper1 · Member ·

    I want to stay with WordPress, but because of a decrease in my finances, I need to downgrade from Premium to Free for now. Is that possible? How will this affect my Domain? (Hopefully, at a later time when my finances improve I can return to Premium.)

    I tried following instructions for downgrading/cancel plan/turn off automatic renewal (I think I have a renewal coming up soon?), but there was nothing there to complete these actions. I may not have paid in 2022? Was I canceled already for non-payment?

    Thank you for helping me figure this out!

    WP.com: Yes
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)

  • Unknown's avatar
    tlharper1 · Member ·

    I think I’ve figured out what happened. Earlier this year I was without a computer for several months. It may have been during this time that I received the email notice to renew my plan. In looking at my plans/billing history, my last payment was for 2021.

    So now, my question still is- can I hop onto a Free Plan to start over (upgrade later) and still have my domain of terryharperedenart? – although I understand functions will be limited and the site will have “wordpress” stamped on it.

    Thank you for helping me confirm my theory and understand what I can do now!

  • staff-zinnia · Staff ·

    Howdy –

    Thanks for writing to us. After looking at the account I believe you’re asking for help with the hosting plan on terryharperedenart.com. Is that right?

    There’s some really good news here which is that your site is still active and working on the free version at https://terryharperedenart.wordpress.com/. We want folks to always have a voice online regardless of their ability to pay.

    More good news, is that you can register the domain terryharperedenart.com again, and you don’t need to have a hosting plan. That is an $18 fee for the year. The reason I’m suggesting this is because terryharperedenart.com actually expired a while ago, and it is available for registration again. You want to register that domain before somebody else does since it is tied to your business and art.

    To register the domain, click on this link:
    https://wordpress.com/domains/add/terryharperedenart.wordpress.com

    In the mean time, you can still work on the free version of the site, and you will have secured the domain for your art work and business with out having to pay for a hosting plan.

    When finances improve, you can then add a hosting plan to your site at that point, and use the custom domain of terryharperedenart.com as your primary address. That’s what will show for people in their browser bars and on search engines. The different plans are at https://wordpress.com/pricing/ and we do also have the ability to pay for them monthly instead of for the full year. I wanted to mention that in case it’s more approachable.

  • Unknown's avatar
    tlharper1 · Member ·

    Thank You, Thank You, THANK YOU!!! SO MUCH for your response and helpful info! It WAS REALLY GOOD NEWS!

    I WAS able to re-register & secure my domain, however, the cost was $29/year – which is FINE with me! (probably due to inflation) I am SO relieved. Everything updated & I got green lights all around! It said it will renew in Oct. 2023 and my site is now terryharperedenart.wordpress.com. I also was able to update my personal email address.

    Thank You again staff-zinnia. You are AWESOME!

    So now all I have to do is go back & find those other 2 threads I had opened & mark them as resolved – or do you do that? They were titled “help to start over” and “live chat”. I think I understand that with the Free Plan I will no longer have Live Chat but will need to go through these Public Forums for any future issues I need help with – Is that correct?

    I’ll wait for your response on that before I do anything more. Thank you again!

  • Unknown's avatar
    tlharper1 · Member ·

    Sorry. You were correct – the fee in U.S. dollars WAS $18 + change!

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Glad to hear you were able to spot the correct price. For reference you can always check on your billing history here: https://wordpress.com/me/purchases/billing/

    On free sites you are not able to set a custom address so for the time being it your site will be found at terryharperedenart.wordpress.com. The good news is that terryharperedenart.com will redirect automatically so no traffic is lost. If you have terryharperedenart.com on your business cards, for example, people will still get to your site without issue.

    If you wish to set a custom address, and cost is an issue, you may want to consider our Personal Plan, which is our lowest cost plan (with a monthly option if you prefer) and in addition to being able to set terryharperedenart.com as your site address, this upgrade will also turn off the ads we show on free sites to help cover our costs.

    If you opt for the yearly option on the Personal Plan, it includes a free domain for the first year, so let us know and we can refund or credit the cost of your domain since it will be “bundled” with your plan.

    Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.

  • staff-zinnia · Staff ·

    Awesome. I am happy to hear that you were able to get the domain secured.

    So now all I have to do is go back & find those other 2 threads I had opened & mark them as resolved – or do you do that? They were titled “help to start over” and “live chat”. I think I understand that with the Free Plan I will no longer have Live Chat but will need to go through these Public Forums for any future issues I need help with – Is that correct?

    Our team will handle the duplicate threads. You don’t need to worry about that. Yes, you’ll use these public forums to reach out to for help when needed.

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