Student plan

The Student plan gives eligible students a full WordPress.com hosting plan, free for the first year, with the same developer tools as the Business plan and 6 GB of storage. WordPress.com makes the first year free, so cost is never a barrier to learning real web skills. After the first year, the plan renews at a low annual price, allowing students to keep their full-featured website and custom domain name they own.

WordPress.com offers the Student plan free, so cost is never a barrier to learning web skills. The goal is for students of any subject to create and share their thoughts and work online, and to own their online presence from the start.

The Student plan gives you the following:

• WordPress hosting.
• Everything included in the free version of WordPress.com.
• Everything included in the Personal plan (ad-free experience, install plugins, Activity Log, extra themes, and Styles to change colors and fonts).
• Everything included in the Premium plan (premium themes, earn money from ads, Google Analytics, and SEO tools).
• All the features listed below in this guide.

The Student plan includes the same developer tools as the Business plan. You can build, test, and deploy your site with:

• Credentials for SFTP and SSH access.
• MySQL database access via phpMyAdmin.
• PHP version switching.
• GitHub deployments.
• Auto-updates of plugins, themes, and WordPress software.

The Student plan includes staging sites. Test product and design changes in a separate environment, then sync your updates to and from your live site when you are ready.

The Student plan lets you install plugins and upload custom themes. You get access to the widest collection of themes available on WordPress.com, plus the full plugin directory.

The Student plan offers 6 GB of storage for your images, audio files, and documents. This is the same storage allotment as the Personal plan.

If you need more space for media, the Business plan offers 50 GB of storage.

Student plan customers receive support from our Happiness Engineers. For account, plan, and hosting questions, see your support options.

The Student plan is designed for students enrolled in a participating educational institution who want to learn WordPress with professional hosting and developer tools. This plan is a good fit if you want to:

• Learn web development: Practice with SFTP, SSH, GitHub deployments, and staging sites in a managed environment.
• Build a portfolio: Publish your work on a real WordPress.com site with premium themes and custom styles.
• Own your presence early: Start a site you control while you study, and keep it as your skills grow.

A teacher requests the Student plan on behalf of their students using their official school email address. Students do not sign up on their own. To get the plan, follow these steps:

1. Ask your teacher to apply to the WordPress.com Education program using their official school email address.
2. Once the school is approved, your teacher shares a validation code with you.
3. Redeem the validation code during signup on the WordPress.com Education program page.

Once your code is validated, the Student plan is available to activate at no cost for the first year. You know the process is complete when the Student plan appears as active on your site.

The application goes through the teacher, but each student signs up for their own Student plan under their own WordPress.com account. This keeps the process straightforward for everyone:

• Students share no information in advance. Each student creates their own account, accepts WordPress.com’s terms of service, and activates their own plan.
• Teachers set up no sites. Each student owns and builds their own site, so there is no setup work for teachers.
• Teachers manage nothing after the free year. Because each site belongs to the student, teachers do not manage or migrate student sites at the end of the free year.

To follow a student’s progress and help along the way, a teacher can ask each student to invite them as an administrator on their site. Students can send this invitation from their Hosting Dashboard (see invite people to your site for instructions). Once a teacher accepts these invitations, every student site appears in the teacher’s Hosting Dashboard, so the teacher can switch between them from one place.

Your teacher must use an official school email address to request the plan. Personal email addresses are not eligible.

Your first year on the Student plan is free, and your content stays with you no matter what you choose afterward. Here is how the plan works over time:

• Your first year is free. You pay nothing for the first 12 months. This includes a free .blog or .art domain for the first year.
• Other domains are available for a fee. To register a domain with a different extension, you pay for that domain. See domain pricing and available TLDs for current prices.
• Renewal costs $24 per year. After your first free year, the Student plan renews at $24 per year, plus the cost of any domain you registered.
• Your content is never deleted. If you choose not to renew after the first free year, your site is not deleted. Your site continues on the free WordPress.com plan, and you keep your content.

You can renew the Student plan to keep your developer tools and premium features, or continue on the free plan and upgrade again later.

The Student plan has the following restrictions:

• One active plan per account: Each WordPress.com account can have only one active Student plan at a time. If a previous Student plan has expired, you can activate a new one with a new validation code.
• No assisted migrations: The Student plan does not include our assisted site migration service. To move an existing site yourself, see Migrate to WordPress.com.
• Limited free domain credit: The free first-year domain covers only .blog and .art domains. Other domain extensions are available for a fee.

Have questions about the Student plan or the WordPress.com Education program? Contact the WordPress.com Education team, and we’ll help you get started.