WordPress.com offers a range of plans to suit different needs and budgets. In this guide, you’ll learn how to change your plan to a lower tier and what to expect when you do.
When you downgrade, your site loses access to features exclusive to your previous plan, but your content is retained. WordPress.com has four paid plan levels. From highest to lowest, these are Commerce, Business, Premium, and Personal.
If you want to revert to a free site instead, see Downgrade to a free site.
Your site keeps its pages, posts, and media files. If your media (images, audio, video) exceeds your new plan’s storage limit, existing files won’t be deleted, but you can’t upload new media until you free up space or upgrade.
Your domain remains active after downgrading. On free sites, your site uses a .wordpress.com address as its primary address unless you upgrade to a paid plan.
If your site’s theme is exclusive to your previous plan, it may be replaced with a theme available on your new plan. Your content remains.
If you downgrade to a plan that doesn’t support WordAds, you’ll stop earning revenue, but past earnings remain.
To downgrade to a lower-tier paid plan, follow these steps:
- Visit your Purchases page.
- Click on the plan you want to downgrade.
- Under Subscription Renewal, turn off the automatic renewal setting.
- Your plan remains active until its expiry date, then it will be removed. You can also remove the plan instantly without waiting.
- Once the plan is removed, purchase your desired lower-tier plan.
Sites on the Business or Commerce plan have access to developer tools and advanced hosting features. When you downgrade to Premium or Personal, your site retains many features but loses access to others.
- Installed plugins and their data
- Uploaded themes
- Custom code (such as JavaScript)
- Backups
- Jetpack Scan
- Partner themes
- SFTP/SSH
- Database access
- Staging environment
- Site monitoring and logs
- Built-in SEO tools
- And other advanced tools
If you cancel your paid plan entirely and revert to a free site:
- Your site loses access to plugins, and any installed plugins will be removed along with their data.
- Your site will be reverted to the point before hosting features were activated.
- Any uploaded themes will be removed and replaced with a theme available on free sites.
- Your site will be set to private so you can review the changes before making it public again.
- Your pages, posts, and media remain, but content added through plugins will be lost.
To cancel your plan and revert to a free site, see Cancel a purchase.
You can cancel a plan within the refund window to receive a refund. If you want to change to a lower-tier plan and receive a refund for the difference in cost, contact us to discuss your options.
Outside of the refund window, we cannot issue a refund for unused time on the plan you downgraded from.
