Our Payments features allow site owners to offer recurring subscriptions for products, services, memberships, access to premium content, and donations. If you purchase something on a website that uses WordPress.com payments, this guide provides information about your payments and how to manage your subscription.
In this guide
When you start a recurring payment, you’re automatically charged at regularly recurring intervals. You will be charged once a year or once a month until you cancel the subscription.
The interval, whether it’s a month or a year, is called a renewal period. Your subscription automatically renews for the same amount at the end of each renewal period. For example, if you buy a $5/month subscription on January 17, you’ll be charged $5 on the 17th of every month until you cancel.
The site owner determines the renewal period, so different sites will offer subscriptions of various lengths and frequencies. The amount you pay and the renewal period are displayed prominently during the subscription process, so you know what you’re spending and how frequently you’ll be charged.
Once someone makes a purchase using Payments, the renewal period and amount will not change. To continue our example from above, your subscription will always be charged $5 and charged monthly until canceled.
Payments features enable purchasing a subscription or becoming a subscriber on any WordPress.com site. You’ll be able to use the same payment information and manage all your subscriptions in one place. For that, you need a WordPress.com account.
During the checkout process, you’ll enter your email address. If you already have a WordPress.com account associated with that address, we will associate the purchase with that account. If you don’t, we’ll create an account for you during checkout. When you complete the purchase, you’ll receive an email with more info and login instructions for your new account.
If you just bought something (or are about to) from a WordPress.com site offering recurring payments, the transaction is between you and the site owner. WordPress.com only facilitates the processing and management of the subscription.
We don’t save your credit card information either, as it is stored by Stripe (the payment processor) so that the charge can renew, and you can purchase other subscriptions with your WordPress.com account.
When you make a purchase, the site owner will be provided with some information regarding the payment. Site owners can see the WordPress.com username and email address of the purchaser as well as the product or donation purchased and amount.
You can see the payment history and recurring subscriptions in your WordPress.com account by taking the following steps:
- Log in to your WordPress.com account.
- Click on your profile icon in the top right corner:
- On the left side, click on the “Purchases” menu:
Your Purchases will display all your account purchases organized by each site the purchase is associated with. You can find each site you have made payments to, with all corresponding payments and subscriptions for that site.
Click on any of the purchases to see:
- The length of the renewal period
- Your next renewal date
To cancel a recurring payment subscription:
- Visit your Purchases as described in the previous section of this guide.
- Select the product or subscription you wish to cancel.
- Click on the “Cancel” link to cancel the payment.
Your subscription will be canceled immediately so you will no longer have access to the product or service you subscribed to. You won’t be charged again.
The transaction is between you and the site owner, so you must refer to their refund policies or contact them directly via their website.
