Sanity vs WordPress.com Pricing 2026: Real Costs at Every Scale
By Nayan Kyada · · 7 min read
Part of The Sanity + Next.js Guide
Sanity CMS and WordPress.com are two of the most common recommendations developers pass to clients who ask 'what should I build on?' — and the pricing logic for each is almost completely different. Sanity charges per seat plus metered API usage and bandwidth; WordPress.com charges a flat plan fee that bundles hosting, storage, and features. Comparing them by headline plan price alone will mislead you.
What you actually get on the free tier
Sanity's free tier (Free plan) gives you up to 20 seats (Administrator and Viewer roles only), two public datasets, 10k documents, 250k API requests and 1M API CDN requests per month, 100 GB bandwidth, and 100 GB of asset storage (per sanity.io/pricing at the time of writing). There is no watermark, no domain restriction, and no expiry. You can ship a real production site on the free plan if your traffic is modest.
WordPress.com's free tier gives you a yoursite.wordpress.com subdomain, 1 GB storage, WordPress.com ads served on your pages, and no plugins. It is not viable for a client-facing site without upgrading. The ads alone make it a no.
| Feature | Sanity Free | WordPress.com Free |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domain | Yes (your own hosting) | No |
| Ads on your content | None | Yes (WP ads) |
| Plugin support | Full (it's an API) | None |
| Storage | 100 GB assets | 1 GB total |
| Users | Up to 20 (Admin/Viewer roles) | 1 |
| API requests/month | 250k API + 1M CDN | N/A |
| Staging viable | Yes | No |
Paid plan structure and where costs jump
Sanity has two named paid tiers: Growth ($15/month per seat) and Enterprise (custom). Growth adds the Editor, Developer, and Contributor roles, private datasets, up to 50 seats, and 25k documents; the usage quotas match Free (250k API requests, 1M API CDN requests, 100 GB bandwidth, 100 GB assets), but beyond them Growth bills pay-as-you-go instead of stopping: $1 per 250k API CDN requests, $1 per 25k API requests, $0.30/GB bandwidth, $0.50/GB assets (per sanity.io/pricing at the time of writing).
WordPress.com has four self-serve paid tiers at the time of writing (monthly price when paid monthly; annual billing is cheaper):
- Personal — $9/month ($4/month billed annually): custom domain (free for a year on annual plans), no ads, 6 GB storage.
- Premium — $18/month ($8/month annually): 13 GB storage.
- Business — $40/month ($25/month annually): 50 GB storage.
- Commerce — $70/month ($45/month annually): 50 GB storage, built for stores.
WordPress.com's pricing page says plugin installation is available on every paid plan; check wordpress.com/pricing for the current feature split, which has changed several times.
| Plan | Monthly cost | Plugins | Storage | Custom domain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sanity Free | $0 | N/A (API) | 100 GB | Yes (self-host) |
| Sanity Growth | $15 per seat | N/A (API) | 100 GB + overages | Yes (self-host) |
| WP.com Free | $0 | No | 1 GB | No |
| WP.com Personal | $9 ($4 annual) | Yes | 6 GB | Yes |
| WP.com Premium | $18 ($8 annual) | Yes | 13 GB | Yes |
| WP.com Business | $40 ($25 annual) | Yes | 50 GB | Yes |
| WP.com Commerce | $70 ($45 annual) | Yes, store-focused | 50 GB | Yes |
The inflection points for WordPress.com are storage and store features rather than a single plugin gate. Check the current plan comparison before committing, because WordPress.com has moved plugin access between tiers more than once.
Hosting cost is apples to oranges
WordPress.com includes hosting — that is the product. Sanity is a content API; you still need a front end hosted somewhere. For a Next.js project, that is typically Vercel (Hobby free for non-commercial use, or Pro at $20/month including one seat, with extra developer seats at $20) or a VPS.
So a fair apples-to-apples comparison for a small client site:
- Sanity Free + Vercel Hobby: $0/month. Fine for personal, low-traffic sites; Vercel's Hobby plan is restricted to non-commercial use, so a client site needs Pro.
- Sanity Free + Vercel Pro: $20/month — the realistic floor for a commercial client site.
- Sanity Growth (one seat) + Vercel Pro: $15 + $20 = $35/month before usage overages.
- WordPress.com Business: $40/month paid monthly ($25/month billed annually), hosting included.
At that level they are roughly equivalent in price. But what you get is very different. Sanity + Next.js gives you a decoupled architecture, full control over rendering (SSR, ISR, PPR), and no platform lock-in on the front end. WordPress.com Business gives you a managed monolith with the WordPress editor and plugin ecosystem — zero infrastructure overhead, but you cannot deploy your own rendering layer.
What actually triggers an upgrade on each platform
On Sanity, the triggers are almost always traffic-driven:
- Exceeding 1M API CDN or 250k API requests/month (this is easier to hit than it sounds if you are not caching GROQ responses at the edge)
- Exceeding 100 GB bandwidth (large image libraries, un-optimised Sanity image URLs)
- Needing Editor or Contributor roles, private datasets, or more than 10k documents
On WordPress.com, the triggers are feature-driven:
- Needing a custom domain, no ads, or plugins → Personal ($9, or $4 billed annually)
- Needing more storage → Premium or Business
- Needing store features → Commerce ($70, or $45 billed annually)
WordPress.com's model gates capability behind price. Sanity's model gates capacity behind price. These are fundamentally different lock-in vectors.
Which one is actually cheaper over two years
For a content-only marketing site with a competent developer:
- Sanity Free + Vercel Pro → year one: $240. Year two: $240. Unless traffic grows past included limits ($0 on Vercel Hobby if the site is genuinely non-commercial).
- WordPress.com Business → $300/year billed annually ($480 if paid monthly). Flat, predictable, no surprises.
For a site that needs plugins and is run by a non-technical editor without a developer on retainer, a WordPress.com Business plan is genuinely good value. You are paying for managed infrastructure, automatic updates, and a familiar editing interface.
For a site being built by a developer who will own the front end, Sanity wins on total cost at every traffic level until you hit enterprise scale. The free tier is real, a single Growth seat at $15 is cheaper than WordPress.com Business, and you are not paying for hosting twice.
Egress and API costs at scale
This is where WordPress.com's pricing model actually becomes an advantage for some buyers. WordPress.com has no egress or API call charges — you pay a flat rate regardless of traffic. Sanity's Growth plan charges $0.30/GB over 100 GB bandwidth and $1 per 250k API CDN requests over 1M/month (at the time of writing).
If you are running a high-traffic editorial site with millions of monthly visitors, Sanity overage costs can accumulate. The fix is aggressive edge caching of GROQ responses and serving all images through next/image with a CDN prefix rather than direct Sanity CDN hits — but that requires developer time WordPress.com does not.
For non-developers or small teams without a developer on retainer, WordPress.com's flat pricing removes an entire category of infrastructure anxiety.
The honest recommendation
Choose Sanity if you have a developer, want a custom front end, and need full control over performance and rendering. The free tier is genuinely usable, a Growth seat at $15 is cheaper than WordPress.com Business, and the architecture will not paint you into a corner when requirements change.
Choose WordPress.com Business or Commerce if the buyer is non-technical, does not want a developer relationship, needs the WordPress plugin ecosystem, and values a single flat monthly bill with no infrastructure decisions.