WordPress.com Enterprise, announced on the WordPress.com VIP blog, combines the two aspects of WordPress.com hosting that we’re familiar with: the paid upgrades of WordPress.com with the vetted plugin selection (70 count) and support of WordPress.com VIP. Enterprise is now available for $500 per site per month.
To put that $500 per month in perspective, WordPress.com upgrades (domain name, space upgrade, custom design, etc.) comes it at $99/year and WordPress.com VIP starts at $3,750/month. Enterprise, like WordPress.com upgrades, will cover just one site at a time, while VIP will cover up to five websites.
The Enterprise option does limit users to 70 approved plugins, so full control of sites shouldn’t be expected.
Credit: WordPress.com VIPThe special dashboard available to Enterprise customers.
On his blog, Matt Mullenweg said he thinks Enterprise fills a gap between WordPress.com Pro and VIP:
You get 90% of the benefit of VIP — scalability, security, upgrades, 70+ audited plugins, full Javascript access — for 10% of the cost, or about $500 a month. I think Enterprise is a perfect fit for many higher-end and business sites. Full speed ahead, number one.
Ranaan Bar-Cohen said the new service has seen success with their beta customers, which include Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Chef and ESPN’s Digital and Print Products.
Initial reactions
This new offering edges closer to more economical hosting options from dedicated WordPress hosting companies. In the beginning of Bar-Cohen’s announcement he said: “As the saying used to go: fast, cheap, good — pick two. Now you can pick three.”
It’s a lofty proposition. Only time will tell whether he’s right.
What is your first reaction to WordPress.com Enterprise? Would this work for you or any of your clients?
Anybody know how to see what the 70 pre-approved plugins are?
While many of them are similar to the ones you can download yourself (like the Facebook plugin, for example), most of them are pretty customized to WordPress.com and their servers. I’m not aware of a list anywhere, but I’ll look into it.
Here’s the list:
http://vip.wordpress.com/plugins/
Hard to believe that for $500 a month you can’t upload your own theme. You can customise the CSS in a standard one, but if you have any custom functions running, you’re out of luck. Sad!
Did you not mean plugins? Sucks if there is a restriction on themes too.
Doesn’t seem like a good deal to me lol
For $500/month you can get an extremely beefy dedicated server and put whatever you want on it.
Wow, a bit ridiculous pricing for losing all that control over your own website and its looks and features. I would say stick to dedicated hosting if you need the power and uptime, and go with a host that has a lot of WordPress expertise. I stick with http://www.thetemplehost.com for all of it. Very good prices and stability, and help with wordpress issues all the time, just ‘caus!