Downgrade your plan

Downgrade your WordPress.com plan to move to a lower-tier plan while keeping your content. How you downgrade depends on your plan’s status, so this guide covers each option and what changes when you switch.

How you downgrade to a lower-tier paid plan depends on your plan’s current status. These steps cover plan tier changes, such as Business to Personal. If you want to change your billing term, learn how to change your payment frequency instead.

If you’re within the refund period of a plan’s first purchase, or your plan has expired but hasn’t been removed yet, you can downgrade to a lower-tier plan yourself:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Plans.
3. On the lower-tier plan you want to switch to, click the Downgrade button:

What happens next depends on your plan’s status:

• Within the refund period of a new plan: A confirmation box appears. Click the Downgrade button. Your site switches to the lower-tier plan immediately, and the price difference is refunded to your original payment method.
• After your plan expires: A confirmation box appears. Click the Downgrade button. Then you’ll be taken to checkout to pay for the new plan. Complete the purchase, and the new plan replaces the expired one.

You can also downgrade from the Active Upgrades section of your Billing by selecting your plan and clicking the “Change plan” button.

For an active plan that is past its refund period, you can schedule a downgrade. Your current plan stays active until its renewal date, then your site moves to the lower-tier plan, and you’re charged the new plan’s price. To change your billing term instead, learn how to change your payment frequency.

To schedule a downgrade, follow these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Purchases.
3. Click the plan you want to downgrade.
4. Click the “Change plan” option.
5. Click the Downgrade button on the lower-tier plan you want to switch to.

6. Review the confirmation box for the features your site will lose and the date your downgrade takes effect, then click the “Schedule downgrade” button.

Your downgrade is now scheduled. 30 days before your plan renews, you’ll receive an email confirming your plan will be downgraded and listing the new renewal price. On the renewal date, your site moves to the lower-tier plan, and you’re charged the new plan’s price. You’ll get a separate confirmation once that charge completes.

To cancel a scheduled downgrade:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Purchases.
3. Click the plan with the scheduled downgrade.

4. Click the “Cancel downgrade” option at the top of the screen.

Scheduling a downgrade applies to the Premium, Business, and Commerce plans and changes your plan tier only, such as from Business to Personal. To change your billing term instead, learn how to change your payment frequency. To move from any plan, including Personal, to a free site instead, turn off automatic renewal. Your plan stays active until its expiration date, then your site becomes a free site.

You can cancel your plan entirely and revert to a free site. Keep in mind the following consequences of removing your site’s plan:

• 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 displays WordPress.com ads again, which any paid plan removes.
• 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.

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.

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 theme controls the site design. Your content (pages, posts, and media) is stored separately and therefore is not lost when the theme changes.

If your site has plugins installed, they will remain when you downgrade to a lower-priced plan. If you remove your plan completely (i.e., downgrading to a free site), this triggers a site revert that removes plugins, plugin data, and other customizations made through plugins.

If you downgrade to a plan that doesn’t support WordAds, you’ll stop earning revenue, but past earnings remain.

Sites on the Business or Commerce plan have access to developer tools and advanced hosting features. When you downgrade from these plans, your site loses access to the following features:

• Backups
• Jetpack Scan
• Partner themes
• SFTP/SSH
• Database access
• Staging environment
• Site monitoring and logs
• And other advanced tools