Does anyone know what will happen if you choose NOT to renew your paid WordPress plan? Will you go back to the free version and still be able to post and see past posts, or will you lose it all? When I started on WordPress, it was free, except for the fee I paid annually (about $20) to get my own domain name.
I still pay the domain name fee. However, I was considering letting my Personal WordPress plan expire next month (the one that costs $4 a month). I started using an upgraded plan because I wanted a chance at getting ad money, but it just isn’t worth it as the ads don’t pay much of anything and I spend more on the membership plan than the ad revenue I get back.
Have any of you recently cancelled a paid WordPress plan and went back to a free blog? If so, how did the transition go. Did any important changes happen I should be aware of?
Maranda Russell 
You will revert to a free plan, and everything will still be there. HOWEVER… I lost a domain name when I reverted to free and I played hell accessing my site for over a week as WP tried to force me to renew. If you’re using a “premium” theme that only comes with paid plans, you’ll lose that as well. That situation was also a mess for me. I had to go through and set up a new theme and re-arrange my site to make it readable again.
*IF* I’m ever crazy enough to go premium again, it will only be for the increased media storage capacity and I won’t use a domain name purchased via them nor a premium theme.
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Thanks for the heads up. So if I lose the domain name it will just go to the free domain name right? So I would lose marandarussell.com, but it would instead be marandarussell.wordpress.com or whatever, right?
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Yes.
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Just checked, I AM using a free theme, thank goodness.
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I have the experience: if don’t choose to renew your subscription, you will go back to the free plan and lose your domain, likely forever
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Well that part sucks 😦
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it sucks, especially when one of my top articles lost the number one position (in 28 countries) on the first page on Google. another article of mine that was always between the third and first position on Google’s first page, was replaced by someone else’s post which was a reblog/share of my same post on their blog. and the person was using a subdomain name, not a domain name.
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😦
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I think you’ll revert to the free plan.
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Seems like I may lose my domain name though, which doesn’t make sense since I pay for that separately, does it?
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I don’t think you would. Why don’t you email the “happiness engineers” at WordPress and ask them.
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Maybe I will. I didn’t know they were called happiness engineers lol.
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Yes, for some sadistic reason, they are! 🤣
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Good read!. new follower here.
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Thanks and welcome!
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