Automattic, the company behind the popular blogging and CMS platform WordPress.com, just announced the launch of WordPress.com Enterprise, the company’s latest paid service. For $500 per site per month, the hosted service will give its users a feature set that’s comparable to WordPress.com VIP (the same service we use to host TechCrunch). VIP service, however, starts at $3,750 per month for up to five sites, making the Enterprise service far more palatable for companies that just need to get one site up and running quickly.
Automattic notes that this new service is mainly geared toward brands and businesses that need to “quickly create custom sites that can handle high traffic, are mobile and tablet ready, and can host rich media including videos, photos and more.” Currently, the company says, Enterprise is already being used by brands like ESPN Digital, JackThreads, Moonfrye.com and The 4-Hour Chef.
The key features of WordPress.com Enterprise, according to Automattic, are the fact the users can fully customize their sites (or use one of more than 200 themes to get started), WordPress.com’s ability to handle virtually any amount of traffic you can throw at it and the company’s analytics and “white glove” support services. Just like with WordPress.com’s VIP service, users on the Enterprise platform get unlimited bandwidth, storage and traffic.
“At Automattic our goal is to continue innovating on the WordPress.com platform to expand to more people and organizations,” said Automattic’s CEO Toni Schneider in a canned statement today. “We saw a need with many of our customers – from individual users to large corporations – to create high-profile custom scalable websites on a tight deadline, and WordPress.com Enterprise makes that possible.”
At $500 per month per site, the Enterprise service is WordPress.com’s most affordable paid offering so far. It’s worth noting, however, that it competes with other WordPress hosting services like WP Engine, which generally offer lower prices. Unlike WordPress.com Enterprise, however, these services typically don’t offer unlimited bandwidth and storage.