WordPress.org Software is FREE, and is run by a nonprofit called: WordPress Foundation and that hundreds of developers contribute to its codebase for free. If you’re creating a site with WordPress.org, you’ll only have to pay for a few things, like your hosting plan and domain name. You can install plugins to add extra functionality to your site and a theme for the design. Browse over 58,000 free plugins > wordpress.org/plugins
The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project.
WordPress is released under the GNU General Public License (or GPL), which means anyone can download, edit, customize, use, and even sell the code as long as they release it under the GPL license.
The software itself is free but you might end up paying for:
- Hosting
- Premium support
- Updates of premium plugins/themes
- Premium themes
- Premium plugins
