WORDPRESS
vs
FormeFORME

WordPress charges 2–10% of your newsletter revenue.
Forme charges 0%.

Most people don't know Jetpack takes a cut of every paid subscriber payment — up to 10% on the free plan. And before your first reader can subscribe, they have to create a WordPress.com account. forme doesn't take a cut. Readers subscribe with just their email.

The cut nobody talks about

Jetpack Newsletter takes 2–10% of every paid subscriber payment. Always. On top of Stripe fees.

On the free WordPress.com plan: 10%. On the Business plan: 2%. Percentages vary, but the cut doesn't disappear. Stripe adds ~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on top of that.

forme charges 0%. Your subscription revenue goes through your own Stripe account. We never see it, and we never take a piece of it.

WordPress.com Free
10%
+ Stripe fees
WordPress.com Personal
10%
+ Stripe fees
WordPress.com Premium
10%
+ Stripe fees
WordPress.com Business ($25/mo)
4%
+ Stripe fees
WordPress.com Commerce ($45/mo)
2%
+ Stripe fees
Forme Journalist ($19/mo)
0%
Always. No exceptions.
The friction problem

To subscribe to a WordPress newsletter, readers must first create a WordPress.com account.

Every potential subscriber hits a wall: “Sign up for WordPress.com.” Most leave. The ones who stay now have a WordPress.com account tied to their inbox, receiving WordPress marketing, regardless of whether they wanted one.

On forme, readers subscribe with their email address. That's it. No account. No third-party registration. Your subscriber belongs to you, not to a platform.

Subscribe to WordPress newsletter
WordPress
Create a WordPress.com account first
Forme
Enter your email → Done
Subscriber data ownership
WordPress
Managed via Jetpack/WordPress.com cloud
Forme
Yours. Export any time as CSV.
Custom "from" address
WordPress
Not supported
Forme
Set any from-name and reply-to
Email template design
WordPress
Fixed blue Jetpack template
Forme
Your brand, fully controlled
Send standalone newsletters
WordPress
Post notifications only — no standalone sends
Forme
Full newsletter editor, any time
Welcome email
WordPress
Basic only
Forme
Configurable per publication
Free stock photos + GIFs in editor
WordPress
Requires Jetpack or a plugin — no native stock library
Forme
Search Unsplash, Pexels, Klipy directly in editor
What WordPress actually costs
WordPress.com — realistic blogger stack
WordPress.com Business plan$25/mo
Required for plugins
Email newsletter (MailPoet or equiv.)$10–30/mo
Jetpack is post-notifications only
Membership plugin (MemberPress)$15–49/mo
For paid subscriber tiers
Security plugin (Wordfence)$10–20/mo
WordPress is the #1 hacked CMS
Backup plugin$5–15/mo
Daily backups cost extra
SMTP plugin for deliverability$0–15/mo
Jetpack sends, but conflict-prone
Premium theme$60–200 once
Requires updates to stay compatible
Jetpack paid subscription cut2–10%
On every subscriber payment
Before the revenue cut$65–155/mo
Forme — everything included
Hosting, fully managedIncluded
Full newsletter editorIncluded
Paid subscriptions, 0% cutIncluded
Subscriber managementIncluded
Zero-knowledge draft encryptionIncluded
Custom domainIncluded
Automatic updates, alwaysIncluded
Full data export, anytimeIncluded
Everything, every month$19/mo
Plus 0% on every subscriber payment. Not 2%. Not 10%. Zero.
Already using WordPress just to blog?

If you're paying $8–25/month for WordPress and not using half of it — Forme is the better arrangement.

Millions of WordPress users never touch plugins, never configure themes, never call a developer. They just write and publish. If that's you, you're paying for a CMS and using it like a notebook.

forme at $19/month gives you a focused, beautiful writing environment, a public publication readers can browse, and a newsletter your readers will actually subscribe to — without the WordPress.com account requirement. If you ever want paid subscribers, the 0% cut means you keep significantly more.

WordPress.com Premium ($8/mo)
  • ·Basic blog hosting
  • ·Premium themes
  • ·Newsletter = post notifications only
  • ·Subscribers need WP account
  • ·No custom from-name
  • ·No standalone newsletters
  • ·10% cut if you add paid tiers
Forme Journalist ($19/mo)
  • ✓Beautiful publishing platform
  • ✓Clean editor, your brand
  • ✓Real newsletter editor
  • ✓Subscribers need only an email
  • ✓Custom from-name and reply-to
  • ✓Send newsletters any time
  • ✓0% cut on all revenue, forever
Build your actual stack

Enter your numbers. See the real cost.

We've pre-filled common estimates. Adjust to match what you actually pay.

Adjust the numbers to match your actual WordPress stack. We've pre-filled common estimates.

$
SiteGround, Kinsta, Flywheel…
$
MailPoet, Mailchimp, etc.
$
Wordfence, Sucuri, etc.
annual savings on Forme
$552
per year
Your WordPress stack
Hosting + plugins: $65/mo
Total: $65/mo
WordPress annual cost
$780
vs
Forme annual cost
$228
Forme includes hosting, email newsletters, subscriber management, and draft encryption. No plugins, no stack, no incidents.
Start publishing →30-day money-back guarantee
Security

WordPress powers 43% of the internet. That makes it the world's most attacked CMS by a wide margin.

The vulnerability surface is enormous: WordPress core, the active theme, every installed plugin, the hosting environment, the database. Each is an attack vector, and plugin conflicts are the norm after any major update.

formehas a single, minimal attack surface. No plugin ecosystem. Encrypted drafts that we cannot open even with a court order. Subscriber payment relationships run directly through your Stripe account — we never hold your readers' financial data.

✗~500K WordPress sites compromised annually
✗90%+ of hacked CMS sites are WordPress
✗Average breach detection: months after the fact
✗Draft content stored as plaintext in database
✗Every plugin is a potential vulnerability
✓Forme sites hacked: 0
✓Forme draft content server-readable: never
✓Forme plugin vulnerabilities: none (no plugins)
✓Forme subscriber payment data stored: none
The maintenance tax

WordPress works great. Until an update breaks something. Then you're debugging plugins at midnight.

Updates
WordPress
Weekly core, theme, and plugin updates. Skip them and you're exposed. Apply them and something breaks.
Forme
Automatic. You are never involved.
Backups
WordPress
Configure a plugin. Pay for offsite storage. Test restores. Hope you remembered before the crash.
Forme
Automatic. Not your problem.
Email deliverability
WordPress
Install SMTP plugin, configure it, monitor spam rates, troubleshoot plugin conflicts with Jetpack.
Forme
Built in, handled, done. Published to real inboxes.
Paid subscriptions
WordPress
Install MemberPress or WooCommerce Memberships. Configure Stripe. Handle failed payments. Update plugin quarterly.
Forme
Stripe Connect built in. Your account, not ours. 0% cut.
Newsletter
WordPress
Jetpack sends post notifications only — not standalone newsletters. No custom from-address.
Forme
Full newsletter editor. Send whenever. Complete control.
Draft security
WordPress
All drafts are plaintext in your database. A SQL injection or server breach exposes your unpublished work.
Forme
Zero-knowledge encryption. Locked before it leaves your browser. We can't open it.
What you keep, in real dollars

Self-hosted WordPress with Mailchimp vs Forme — fully managed.

Self-hosted WordPress with Mailchimp for 5,000 subscribers
WordPress stack
Managed hosting$30/mo
Mailchimp (5k subs, Standard)$75/mo
Developer maintenance (conservative)$100/mo
Total$2,460/yr
Forme — everything included
$228/yr
Fully managed. No plugins. No Mailchimp.
$2,232/yr extra — plus no plugin update risk, no email deliverability debugging
Math: Conservative WordPress stack ($205/mo) vs Forme ($19/mo). Excludes Jetpack revenue cut on paid subscriber payments.

Side by side

See the difference

WordPress
WordPress marketing page screenshot

WordPress block editor — plugins, updates, server config required

Formeforme

Built for writers,
not developers.

→No plugins needed — all publishing tools built in
→Free stock photos and GIFs searchable in the editor
→Email newsletters and web publishing in one dashboard

forme — publishing built for the reader era

Migrate from WordPress in about 20 minutes.

Your posts, subscribers, and custom domain arrive intact. No developer required.

Start publishing →See the migration guide