WordPress review: Pros and cons in 2024

WordPress overview

WordPress has long been one of the most popular website builders and blogging platforms. The company claims to host more than 43% of all websites. Much of WordPress’s success is due to its free blogging service, which offers unlimited pages and supports basic online sales and donations, charging a 10% commission fee on top of the standard processing fees.

SMBs are best served by WordPress’s premium Creator and Entrepreneur plans that feature customizable site themes and page templates, as well as hundreds of free and fee-based plugins to support online sales. However, only the company’s Entrepreneur package builds in the features required to create a complete e-commerce solution.

WordPress pros and cons

Pros

Users can choose one of the hundreds of free and fee-based site themes that they can customize by adding the features and design elements they prefer. The theme categories include business, store, health and wellness, restaurant, travel and lifestyle, podcast and magazine.

With the Entrepreneur plan, you can sell an unlimited number of products with no fees above the standard transaction fee for all payments. The Creator plan adds a 2% commission fee for payments made without using the WooCommerce payment gateway.

Businesses can also optimize their sites and add new functionality by applying free and fee-based third-party add-ons that include SEO, product shipping, subscription sales, booking and scheduling, events and marketing. Among the free plugins are Google Listings and Ads, Facebook for WooCommerce and Squirrly SEO.

Cons

All WordPress plans except Enterprise cap your available storage: 1 GB for the free plan, 6 GB for Starter, 13 GB for Explorer and 50 GB for Creator and Entrepreneur.

While the Starter, Explorer and Creator packages support online sales, only WordPress’s Entrepreneur and Enterprise plans provide full e-commerce capabilities such as inventory management, premium store themes, store design tools, support for selling an unlimited number of products and the ability to display products by brand. Creator’s e-commerce features are available only through plugins.

WordPress’s site-editing tools can’t match the customization options and ease of use available with competing website builders. For example, Wix lets you customize your site using standard JavaScript and Velo APIs.

WordPress pricing and value

WordPress also offers a Cloud plan in partnership with Bluehost for $65 per month, but this option links directly to Bluehost for purchase through them.

The prices of WordPress’s Creator and Entrepreneur packages are in the midrange of the plan, with comparable features sold by competing vendors. For example, Squarespace’s Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced have features similar to Creator and Entrepreneur, respectively:

• Commerce Basic is priced at $40 per month (monthly) or $28 per month (annually) and includes more built-in e-commerce features than Creator without Creator’s commission fee for product sales.
• Commerce Advanced costs $72 per month (monthly) or $52 per month (annually) but lacks Entrepreneur’s inventory management and international selling features.

Note that when you choose WordPress’s WooCommerce service as your payment gateway, the Creator plan’s commission fees are waived.

Website editor features

Creating a WordPress site begins by selecting a theme from the company’s library of free and fee-based site templates. After activating the theme, you’re prompted to customize the design by dragging and dropping premade elements in five categories:

• Navigation
• Styles
• Pages
• Templates
• Patterns

Site components available as templates include a shopping cart, checkout, index, order confirmation, product archive and search results. Among the elements offered as patterns are about pages, forms for lead capture and other purposes, blog posts, image and video galleries, newsletters and stores.

Blogging features

WordPress began as a blogging platform in 2003 and continues to serve as the host for millions of blogs. The company’s blogging tools include themes, block editors, pre-built blocks and customization options for color schemes, typography, borders and CSS. 

You can upload photos, videos and audio to your blog, and take advantage of SEO tools, social media links, newsletters and form blocks for contacts, appointments and events.

Blog monetization features available from WordPress include the ability to collect payments and donations, links to Google AdSense and other ad networks, paid content blocks and paid newsletters. You can post to your blog through email, schedule posts, and backup and restore your blog using the Jetpack tool. 

Other features include automatic content recommendations, spam protection and blog search tools.

E-commerce features

While WordPress’s Starter, Explorer and Creator packages let you use your site to sell products and subscriptions and accept donations, the company’s Entrepreneur plan provides the e-commerce features that most businesses need for their online stores:

• Premium store themes and store design tools.
• The ability to display products by brand.
• Add-ons such as gift wrapping and personalized messages.
• The ability to set minimum and maximum order quantities.
• Back-in-stock notifications sent to customers over email.
• Automated up-sell and cross-sell recommendations.
• Customizable marketing automation tools.
• Inventory management that includes POS integration and real-time tracking.
• The ability to sell in more than 60 countries and accept 135 different currencies.
• Real-time shipping rates, tracking codes and label printing.

These and other e-commerce features are available with WordPress’s Creator plan through free and fee-based third-party add-ons. Other monetization options available in all paid WordPress packages are paid content gating, Stripe payment buttons and payments collected through PayPal.

Marketing features

WordPress’s Entrepreneur plan features automated upsell and cross-sell recommendations that appear as customers browse products. It also supports a customer referral program that rewards customers with coupons and gifts. Automated email marketing lets you target specific groups of subscribers and apply advanced analytics to your marketing efforts. 

Entrepreneur also lets you connect your site to online ad networks, such as WordPress’s own WordAds. You can automatically post to social media and sell access to premium content on your site. 

Among the free marketing add-ons available for your online store are MailPoet for crafting marketing emails, the HubSpot CRM platform and the Contact Form 7 extension for MailChimp.

Security features

All WordPress plans include an SSL certificate for your site that applies strong encryption to data. All accounts are protected by firewalls, and site traffic is monitored to identify suspicious activities. 

WordPress packages come with site activity logs that allow administrators to monitor their sites in real-time, as well as automated malware scanning and one-click fixes. They also include Akismet spam protection, DDoS attack prevention and protection against brute-force attacks on account passwords.

The Creator and Entrepreneur packages add isolated site infrastructure and a web application firewall that blocks SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) and other malware attacks. All WordPress sites are backed up regularly and protected by four levels of role-based user access: contributors (most restricted), authors, editors and administrators (no restrictions).

WordPress vs. top competitors

WordPress plans are priced lower than many competing services, but WordPress caps the storage available with its Creator and Entrepreneur packages at 50 GB, among other limitations. 

Businesses signing up for WordPress’s Starter, Explorer and Creator plans must pay a commission fee of 8%, 4% and 2%, respectively, on top of the standard transaction processing fees charged by payment services. (Creator waives the commission fee when sales are processed using WordPress’s WooCommerce payment service.)

One advantage WordPress offers over competing website builders is the company’s extensive library of free and fee-based plugins that add functionality to your site. Businesses are also able to choose from a variety of site themes that are easy to customize using the service’s drag-and-drop editor.

WordPress vs. Strikingly

Strikingly sells three pricing plans that are priced from $12 a month to $59 a month when purchased monthly. 

The company’s low-end Limited plan comes with 1 GB of storage per site, while Pro supports three sites with as many as 100 pages and 20 GB of storage each, and VIP supports five sites with as much as 100 GB of storage per site. By comparison, WordPress’s similarly priced Creator and Entrepreneur plans cap storage at 50 GB.

However, Strikingly’s Limited plan supports only two sites with up to five pages each, and it lets you sell only a single product. The package charges a 5% transaction fee, and the Pro plan charges 2% per transaction (VIP applies no transaction fees for non-recurring payments). 

Pro lets you sell up to 300 products, and VIP supports an unlimited number of products. The VIP plan adds a live chat widget, phone support and a dedicated account manager.

WordPress vs. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels emphasizes its ability to “funnel” customers to your site from Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other major platforms. The company’s three pricing plans are priced from $147 per month for Basic to $497 per month for Funnel Hacker. Positioned between Basic and Funnel Hacker is the Pro plan, which costs $197 per month.

ClickFunnels offers three types of funnels:

• Sales funnels are designed to attract site visitors from popular internet sites and “funnel” them to the products they’re most likely to purchase.
• Countdown funnels convince customers who are on the fence to click the “buy” button by offering them incentives to act quickly.
• Store funnels let you create an online store that combines marketing, selling, shipping and fulfillment right out of the box.

WordPress’s pricing plans don’t offer the marketing and e-commerce support available from ClickFunnels, but the WordPress packages are priced much lower, so firms could apply their savings on costs to their own marketing, CRM and fulfillment operations. 

However, many businesses will appreciate the all-in-one approach that ClickFunnels takes to creating and operating an online store.

WordPress vs. Wix

Wix offers pricing plans for businesses of all sizes, from its Light package that supports two collaborators and costs $23 per month to the Enterprise plan for an unlimited number of collaborators. 

Most SMBs will be best served by one of the company’s three midrange packages:

• Core: This plan costs $34 per month and supports five collaborators. It includes 50 GB of storage and basic e-commerce features, marketing and site analytics.
• Business: This plan is priced at $38 per month. It allows up to 10 collaborators and comes with 100 GB of storage, as well as standard e-commerce, marketing and site analytics.
• Business Elite: This costs $172 per month and supports 15 collaborators. The plan includes unlimited storage and advanced e-commerce, marketing and site analytics.

WordPress’s Creator and Entrepreneur packages are comparable to Wix’s Core and Business plans, but the WordPress products allow unlimited users and products (plugins are required for unlimited products with Creator), while Wix’s Core and Business cap collaborators at five and 10, respectively, and products at 50,000. 

However, the two mid-priced Wix plans include more marketing tools and payment-processing options.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Is WordPress a good website builder?

The WordPress website builder makes it easy to customize the service’s many free and fee-based themes to add the features and functionality your business requires. You can also design your site from scratch by selecting elements for your home page and other pages from WordPress’s library of patterns. 

These are the available page and site elements:

• Header.
• Intro.
• About page. 
• Services. 
• Store.
• Blog posts.
• Newsletter.
• Gallery.
• Contact.
• Footers.

Customizable theme elements include the following:

• Site identity.
• Colors.
• Fonts.
• Header image.
• Menus.
• Widgets.
• Home page settings.
• Additional CSS (available only with premium plans).

The site builder lets you preview your site as it will appear on desktops, tablets and phones.

How much does WordPress cost?

In addition to its free plan, WordPress sells five premium pricing plans:

• Starter: This costs $9 per month when purchased by the month. The plan charges an 8% commission fee in addition to the standard transaction processing fee for credit card and debit card purchases.
• Explorer: This is priced at $18 per month. It provides access to premium themes and lets you customize your site’s style. Purchases on your site are subject to a 4% commission fee above the standard transaction processing fee charged by payment gateways.
• Creator: This is $40 per month and adds performance and security features as well as access to plugins and themes. Its e-commerce capabilities are available via free and fee-based plugins. The package applies a commission fee of 2% for sales processed by payment gateways other than WordPress’s own WooCommerce.
• Entrepreneur: This costs $70 per month and supports the sale of an unlimited number of products. The package includes marketing and inventory management features and the ability to sell in more than 60 countries.
• Enterprise: This plan starts at $25,000 per year and is designed to meet the security and performance requirements of large firms.

Is WordPress free?

The free site plan offered by WordPress supports an unlimited number of pages and users. It includes access to a few site themes and patterns, as well as 1 GB of storage, visitor statistics and a contact form. 

The free plan doesn’t provide direct support or e-commerce features, but you can gate paid content and sell subscriptions to your site. WordPress charges a 10% commission fee in addition to the standard transaction processing fee for purchases on its free sites.

Is WordPress good for SEO?

WordPress’s Creator and Entrepreneur packages give you access to SEO tools that let you optimize elements of your site to improve its ranking in Google and other search engines.

• Page title structure ensures your site is described accurately in the text that appears with its search engine results.
• Front page meta description summarizes your site’s content and purpose in 160 characters or fewer. The description also appears when your site is shared via social media.
• Page and post meta lets you customize each page’s title and description to improve the page’s search ranking and attract visitors.

You can also use the SEO tools to hide pages from search engines or install the free Yoast SEO plugin that automates many SEO functions and improves your site’s page-load speeds.

Is WordPress good for eCommerce?

While you can add e-commerce functions to WordPress’s Creator plan, the company’s primary e-commerce package for SMBs is Entrepreneur, which builds in the features necessary to create an online store:

• Store themes and design tools.
• Support for an unlimited number of products.
• The ability to display products by brand.
• Inventory management, including POS integration and real-time tracking.
• Minimum and maximum order quantities.
• Email notifications to customers when products are back in stock.
• Referral and loyalty programs.
• Automated email marketing.
• Bulk discounts.
• Support for multiple payment methods.
• Direct links to shipping services.
• Sales in more than 60 countries.

By comparison, Wix’s Business website plan is priced lower than WordPress’s Entrepreneur package and offers similar e-commerce features and twice the storage of Entrepreneur. However, the Wix plan limits the number of collaborators to 10 and the number of products to 50,000.

Is WordPress worth it?

WordPress’s prices are slightly higher than those of competing website builders, but the company has garnered a reputation for reliability and value as a leading vendor of blogging and other web services since 2003 when it first published its open-source blogging platform. 

However, it’s worth noting that while demand for WordPress increased by 11.3% in 2023, according to SEO firm Ellipsis, WordPress’s WooCommerce payment solution saw demand increase by only 1% in the same period. WordPress gives businesses the option of using WooCommerce alternatives for processing their online payments, including PayPal, Stripe, Square and Amazon Pay.

Does WordPress provide hosting?

WordPress gives businesses the option of hosting their WordPress site on their own servers by downloading the software for free from WordPress.org or having WordPress host the site for them. You can also pay a third party to host your WordPress site. 

WordPress’s hosting services promise high performance that includes a content delivery network (CDN) and automated burst scaling, as well as high reliability, scalability and top-flight security.

Self-hosting your WordPress site saves your business the cost of the software itself, but you’ll either have to pay for another hosting service or manage your site’s servers yourself. This is a viable option for businesses that have the requisite equipment and expertise to configure, secure and maintain their site in-house.