Is WordPress Good for a Contractor Website?

What does a WordPress website cost?

It depends which WordPress you mean. Two products share the name and are priced completely differently.

• Self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org): the software is free to download under the GPLv2 (or later) license^[1]. WordPress.org describes it as the option "for anyone comfortable getting their own hosting and domain"^[5].
• WordPress.com: Automattic’s hosted service, with plans from free to $70 a month^[8].

For self-hosted WordPress, WordPress.org publishes no hosting price. It lists recommended hosts, including Pressable, Bluehost and Hostinger, some of which donate part of your fee back to WordPress.org^[7]. We did not research hosts’ first-year or renewal prices, theme prices or a typical all-in cost, so this page quotes none.

Premium plugins are the other recurring cost. One example: Yoast SEO Premium, which includes Local SEO, is $118.80 a year before VAT^[6].

2-year and 3-year terms are up to 63% and 69% off and renew lower than the yearly plan, for example $27 or $23 a month for Business^[8]. The transaction fee applies to standard payments taken through the site, on top of the payment processor’s own fee^[8]. Every paid plan includes a custom domain free for the first year, and Business adds a business email account free for one year; the pricing page does not show what either costs after that^[8]. The intro prices were the same in an archived copy of the page from December 31, 2025^[13].

On WordPress.com, the first-year price is not the real price. Business is $300 for year one on annual billing and $420 a year after that; Personal doubles from $4 to $8 a month^[8]. Budget at the renewal rate.

WordPress.com’s built-in SEO tools, including custom title structure and a front-page meta description, need the Premium plan or higher^[14].

Do you own your WordPress site if you leave?

On self-hosted WordPress, yes, more completely than on any builder. The files and database sit on hosting you pay for, so the whole site can move to another host. The software itself carries no vendor lock-in: WordPress.org treats themes and plugins as derivative work that inherits the GPL license^[1]. Paid plugins, themes and hosts can still bring their own licenses and requirements, so check those before a move. Your domain is registered wherever you bought it, independent of WordPress.

The built-in Tools > Export screen creates an XML file of your posts, pages, custom post types, comments, custom fields, categories, tags, taxonomies and users^[15]. Themes and plugins are not in that list, so moving the full site takes more than this export; ask your host or developer for a full backup instead.

WordPress.com is the same at the content level. Its export gives posts, pages and comments, but "will not include your theme design, customizations, or plugins"; moving the whole site takes a migration plugin^[16].

Can AI search engines read a WordPress site?

On self-hosted WordPress, yes, by default. The robots.txt WordPress generates only disallows /wp-admin/^[17]. There is no AI-bot setting in core; you change robots.txt through a developer filter, an SEO plugin such as Yoast, or by uploading your own file, so rules for GPTBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot are in your hands^[2][17]. An llms.txt file is one click away: Yoast SEO’s free version generates and refreshes one automatically^[18].

If AI bots cannot reach your WordPress site, check your CDN, not just WordPress. Cloudflare announced on July 1, 2025 that it was changing its default to block AI crawlers unless they pay^[19]. We did not verify whether that default covers existing sites or only new sign-ups.

WordPress.com is different, and the default matters. A setting called "Prevent third-party sharing" (Settings > Reading) opts your site out of Automattic’s third-party content licensing and adds known AI bots to your robots.txt disallow list^[20]. It is an opt-out: you have to tick the box yourself^[20]. Automattic says it works "with various third-party partners who license content, including companies and researchers looking to understand content across the web"^[20]. Even when ticked, it is up to the AI platforms to honor the robots.txt request^[20].

Decide on purpose. Ticking the box also stops AI bots reading your site for AI search answers; leaving it unticked lets your content go to licensing partners. Check Settings > Reading on any WordPress.com site you run.

WordPress.com also lets outside AI agents such as ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor read and edit your site through MCP tool access, managed in the privacy settings^[21].

How fast are WordPress websites?

Fewer WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals than builder sites do. In August 2026, 48.7% of WordPress sites passed all three Core Web Vitals on mobile and 53.3% on desktop, against 53.0% and 60.2% across the whole web^[10][11]. WordPress was the only one of the six platforms in this series below the web-wide average.

The average hides a wide spread. The HTTP Archive’s Web Almanac notes that self-hosted systems vary far more than builders, because speed depends on the theme, plugins and third-party scripts each owner adds^[27]. A lean WordPress site on good hosting passes easily; a heavy theme with a dozen plugins often will not. Loading is the weak spot: 55.8% of WordPress sites pass mobile largest contentful paint, against 90.8% for interaction speed^[10].

How many AI-recommended contractors use WordPress?

Nearly half. In our study of 511 local contractor websites named by ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews, 49.3% ran on WordPress (95% confidence interval 45.0–53.6%)^[9]. The next platforms were Duda at 6.8% and Wix at 6.5%^[9].

One possible reason is how common WordPress is, though we did not test that and have no representative baseline for contractor sites: W3Techs counts it on 40.2% of all websites, a 58.8% share of sites whose content management system it can identify^[28].

Correlation only. The platform with the lowest Core Web Vitals pass rate in our comparison also runs the most AI-recommended contractor sites. Our study cannot show that any platform helps or hurts a contractor’s chance of being recommended.

What SEO controls does WordPress give you?

All of them, but most come from plugins, not core. On self-hosted WordPress:

• Titles and meta descriptions: edited through an SEO plugin. Yoast SEO, free, has over 10 million active installs and lets you "view and edit titles, descriptions, and schema live"^[4].
• Canonical tags: core outputs rel=canonical on single posts and pages^[29].
• 301 redirects: no redirect manager in core. The free Redirection plugin manages 301s and logs 404 errors^[3].
• Schema (JSON-LD): added by plugins or themes; Yoast SEO outputs Schema.org structured data^[4].
• XML sitemap: built in since WordPress 5.5, at /wp-sitemap.xml^[30].
• Custom code: full access to themes, plugins and PHP. WordPress 7.0 added custom CSS per block inside the editor^[31].

What local business features does WordPress have?

• Booking: none in core; added by plugins such as Simply Schedule Appointments^[32].
• Forms: none in core; WPForms Lite is one widely used free plugin^[33].
• Click-to-call: not automatic. Have whoever builds the site put your phone number in a tel: link so it dials on mobile.
• LocalBusiness schema: Yoast Local SEO, part of Yoast SEO Premium at $118.80 a year, turns your business details into schema automatically^[6].
• Multiple locations: Yoast Local SEO gives each location its own page with address, hours and map^[6].
• Blog: native. Posts, categories and tags are core features and export cleanly^[15].

Every plugin is software someone must keep updated. One well-maintained plugin per job; do not stack several. WordPress does update some things on its own: minor core updates are automatic by default, and new installations since WordPress 5.6 also get major core updates automatically by default, unless disabled by configuration or a version-control checkout. Older installations keep the earlier behavior unless major auto-updates are switched on, and plugins and themes still need attention^[34].

What changed in WordPress in 2025–2026?

• WordPress 7.0 shipped May 20, 2026 with an AI Client in core that lets WordPress talk to generative AI models, managed from one hub in the dashboard^[31][35].
• WordPress 7.0.2, July 17, 2026, fixed a critical security flaw; because of its severity, WordPress.org forced the update onto affected sites^[36].
• WordPress 7.1 shipped August 19, 2026 with responsive styling controls, followed by the 7.1.1 maintenance and security release on September 17, which included 11 security fixes^[37][38]. Updates come often: five 7.0.x releases, 7.0.1 through 7.0.5, landed between July 9 and September 17, 2026^[35].
• Patchstack counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, up 42% on 2024. 91% were in plugins, 9% in themes, and only six in WordPress core^[12].
• The WP Engine v. Automattic lawsuit was still active in February 2026, when WP Engine filed an amended complaint claiming Automattic planned to target 10 other hosting companies with royalty fees^[39].

Should a contractor use WordPress?

• Yes, self-hosted: you want to own the site outright, plan to grow past a handful of pages (service and city pages, a blog), and have a developer, agency or host that handles updates, backups and security.
• No: nobody will log in to update plugins. Unpatched plugins are where WordPress sites get hacked, and speed drops as plugins pile up. Pick a hosted builder instead.
• WordPress.com: only if you want WordPress without managing hosting. Budget at the renewal price, confirm it at checkout, and if you will take payments through the site, compare plan cost against the transaction fee (2% on Business, 4% on Premium) before choosing; set the third-party sharing box on purpose.
• Either way: test your site in Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Under half of WordPress sites pass all three Core Web Vitals on mobile, so check yours rather than assume.

Frequently asked questions

Is WordPress free for a contractor website?

The software is free: self-hosted WordPress from WordPress.org is released under the GPL license. You pay separately for hosting, a domain and any premium themes or plugins, at prices set by each provider. WordPress.com, the hosted version, has a free plan with ads and a 10% transaction fee, and paid plans from $4 a month for the first year on annual billing.

What is the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

WordPress.org is the free, open-source software you install on hosting you choose, with full control over code, robots.txt and plugins. WordPress.com is Automattic’s hosted service with its own plans, priced from free to $70 a month billed monthly, with first-year discounts that rise at renewal.

Does WordPress block AI crawlers like ChatGPT?

Self-hosted WordPress does not; its default robots.txt only blocks the admin area, and you can edit it freely. WordPress.com has a "Prevent third-party sharing" setting that adds known AI bots to robots.txt and opts out of content licensing, but it is an opt-out you have to tick yourself. A CDN such as Cloudflare can also block AI bots independently of WordPress.

Are WordPress websites slow?

Fewer pass Core Web Vitals than builder sites. In August 2026, 48.7% of WordPress sites passed all Core Web Vitals on mobile, against 53.0% across the web and 71–86% for the builders we compared. Speed varies widely by theme, plugins and hosting, so an individual WordPress site can be fast.

Do AI engines recommend contractors with WordPress websites?

Yes. In a BaaDigi study of 511 contractor websites recommended by AI engines, 49.3% ran on WordPress, the largest share of any platform. That is correlation only: WordPress is also the most common platform on the web, and the study cannot show the platform causes recommendations.

Related reading

• Best website platform for contractors
• What platform do AI-recommended contractors use?
• Is Wix good for a contractor website?
• Why Next.js beats WordPress for contractor sites
• AI crawlers and your contractor website’s robots.txt
• What is an llms.txt file?