$38,000

That’s what WordPress.com is asking for web hosting, domain ownership, and support for a hundred years. They are essentially saying they’ll be helping your anointed heir with the /wp-admin/ password after you die.

Pretty cool. Mostly, I love the strong marketing play: you can trust us to be around for the (very) long haul.

Is it “worth it”? We could start with some math.

• Domain names vary quite a bit, but a typical .com is gonna be around $12/year, so call that $1,200.
• They are saying “Top-Tier Managed WordPress Hosting”, so let’s say it’s like the Business Plan at $25/month, so that’s $30,000.

So that’s only $31,200, but…

• That assumes no inflation, which, of course, is ridiculous. It’s a reasonable assumption that a comparable service is $2,500/month 100 years from now.
• It sounds like you’ll get a lot more hand-holding than a typical $25/month customer is going to get. The fact that they deal with renewing the domain name alone is pretty big, let alone deal with all evolving web technology for you.

It’s going to get weird over those 100 years. What we think of the web right now is very definitely not going to be the same then. There is every chance the web just isn’t really a thing anymore by then. And there is some chance that the web is such an excellent idea that it does still exist, is just as valuable as ever, and has just evolved as our digital needs and possibilities evolve. If the latter is true, anybody who bought this will be sitting pretty.

And honestly, if you have 38 grand sitting around you can toss at WordPress hosting for one website, you’re also sitting pretty, so good for you.

A few months later:

Sales of the 100-year plan so far: 0. Hundreds of people filled out the form, though. I think we really messed something up in the follow-up, including not making it self-serve to start. Will review and try again. It’s an important promise to us.

Matt Mullenweg

He’s probably right, there is something weird with the flow. But I would have done it the same way probably. Personally, I want some hand-holding when I’m about to spend $38,000 on anything.