Automattic has officially launched WordPress.com Education, a new program designed to bring professional website-building tools into classrooms.
The centerpiece of the program is a free Student Plan that gives students access to a full WordPress.com environment, including website hosting, custom domains and plugin support, while they learn how to build and manage websites.
The program was officially launched at WordCamp US 2026 after being quietly tested for the past year. Automattic says more than 5,000 students across 27 countries have already participated in the pilot program, and the company is now opening the program to more educators and schools.
Teachers can apply for the program through WordPress.com Education and provide every student in their class with a Student Plan. The first year is completely free, and students do not need to provide a credit card or sign up for a traditional trial.
Unlike a limited classroom version of WordPress.com, the Student Plan provides many of the same tools available to professional users. Students receive 6GB of storage, backups, staging sites and plugin support, along with access to SFTP/SSH, phpMyAdmin and Studio Sync.
Students can also register a free domain using either a .blog or .art domain during the initial phase of the program. This allows them to create an actual website rather than working with a temporary classroom project that disappears when a course ends.
After the first year, students can continue using the full Student Plan for $2 per month, or $24 per year. Automattic says students who decide not to pay will not lose the websites they created. Their sites will simply move to a free WordPress.com plan using a free subdomain, while their pages, posts, comments and media remain intact.
Automattic says this approach is intended to give students ownership of the work they create. A website built during a course can continue as a portfolio, be included in a job application or eventually be used for freelance work, even after the class has finished.
The company says the program was created in response to challenges educators often face when teaching website development. Setting up student accounts, configuring websites and dealing with technical infrastructure can take time away from teaching, while students can also lose access to their work when a course ends. WordPress.com Education is designed to handle much of that infrastructure while allowing students to work with a real web platform.
Automattic also says the program could help address differences in access to technology. Students at under-resourced schools and in countries with fewer opportunities can receive access to the same professional-grade platform, custom domain options and website-building tools as students elsewhere.
The company sees the program as part of a broader effort to prepare students for the open web. WordPress powers more than 40 percent of websites on the internet, and Automattic says students can gain practical experience with the same platform and tools they may encounter in professional web development.
Results from the pilot program have also been encouraging. According to Automattic, 88.9 percent of participating educators said WordPress knowledge combined with the program improves their students’ employability, while 81.5 percent said it improves their students’ entrepreneurial capacity.
WordPress.com Education is also being connected to the wider WordPress community. Automattic is supporting WordPress.org initiatives such as WordPress Credits, which helps educational institutions involve students in open-source contributions, and WordPress Campus Connect, which brings local WordPress communities into higher-education institutions through student-led events.
The education program will also include initiatives focused on AI-assisted website creation, microcredentials and professional certifications aimed at helping students develop practical skills and demonstrate their knowledge.
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Teachers, department heads and program coordinators can apply to bring the WordPress.com Student Plan to their classrooms through the WordPress.com Education program.
