Automattic

What Automattic does

Automattic Inc. is the commercial entity behind WordPress, the open-source content management system that powers approximately 43% of all websites globally. Founded in 2005 by Matt Mullenweg and headquartered in San Francisco, the company operates with a distributed workforce of roughly 1,450 employees across 82 countries. Its core product portfolio spans WordPress.com (hosted publishing on tiered subscription plans from $4 to $25+/month), WooCommerce (the dominant open-source ecommerce platform), Jetpack (a plugin suite spanning security, performance, and growth), and WordPress VIP (enterprise-grade hosting used by CNN, Salesforce, Meta, and Slack). The company has expanded into adjacent verticals through acquisition, including Beeper (messaging), Texts.com, Mesh/Clay (personal CRM), Tumblr, Day One, Pocket Casts, and Newspack (local journalism).

The underlying technology is built on the open-source WordPress stack (PHP/MySQL/GPL), extended with proprietary services such as Akismet (ML-based spam classification), Jetpack, WooCommerce extensions, Big Sky (AI website builder), and a WordPress.com MCP server exposing AI-agent programmable functions. In 2026 Automattic launched an AI Assistant powered by Google Gemini and integrated with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Perplexity MCP clients. Revenue is generated through subscription SaaS (WordPress.com plans, Jetpack, WooCommerce extensions, Pressable, WP Cloud, VIP), transaction fees (WooPayments via Stripe, WooPay, domain registration, Blaze/WordAds advertising), and premium consumer subscriptions across acquired apps.

Go-to-market is hybrid: self-serve freemium for individuals and SMBs through WordPress.com and WooCommerce; direct enterprise sales for VIP contracts; an agency channel partner program; community-led acquisition via WordPress.org; and API-first distribution to AI agents through the MCP server. Annual revenue is stated by the company at approximately half a billion USD.

Name

Automattic

Legal name

Automattic Inc.

Website

https://automattic.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

Automattic operates WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and WordPress VIP, monetizing the open-source WordPress ecosystem that powers roughly 43% of the web. It serves individuals, SMBs, and enterprise customers (CNN, Salesforce, Meta, Slack) via hosted subscriptions, ecommerce extensions, and an expanding AI platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Web Publishing and Commerce Platforms

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Workflow Automation & No-Code Collaboration (BPAMAMAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

AutoML & Low-Code ML Platform Operations (HDAAABAL), Creator Commerce & Merch Platforms (Shops, Drops, Print-on-Demand) (MPACABAG), Marketing Automation Platforms & Services (BPAFAFAC), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) & Hyperautomation Platforms (HDAEAKAF), Mobile App Development Platforms (MADP) (HDAEAKAD), Blogging & CMS Content Platforms (BPAMAJAG)

Keywords

• Content management systems
• Open source publishing
• Ecommerce platforms
• Managed web hosting
• Enterprise content platforms

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription SaaS (WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, WP Cloud, WP VIP, Pressable, Newspack): Tiered subscription plans billed monthly or annually; freemium base converts to paid plans (Personal, Premium, Business, Commerce, Enterprise). Half a billion USD in annual revenue mentioned on company About page.
2. Advertising (Blaze / WordAds): Revenue share advertising program allowing WordPress site owners to monetize via targeted ads on Automattic properties and partner network; revenue split with publishers.
3. Commerce Transactions (WooPayments, WooPay, WooCommerce Shipping/Tax): Transaction-based revenue from payment processing (powered by Stripe) and commerce add-ons for WooCommerce merchants; takes a fee on payment volume processed.
4. Premium App & Content Sales (Day One, Pocket Casts, Longreads, Atavist): Premium app subscriptions, in-app purchases, and content/magazine subscriptions for consumer-facing apps (Day One journaling, Pocket Casts podcasting, Longreads/Atavist longform content).
5. Domain Registration: Domain name registration and management integrated into WordPress.com with transparent pricing and reseller margins.
6. Akismet Subscriptions: Paid anti-spam API subscriptions for commercial sites beyond the free tier for personal/non-profit WordPress blogs.
7. Professional/Agency Services (Automattic for Agencies, VIP white-glove): Managed services and agency-tier support for digital agencies and enterprise clients, including architecture, performance optimization, and multi-site management.
8. Marketplace/Plugin Revenue (WordPress.org Plugins & Themes, WooCommerce extensions): Commission or listing revenue from WordPress.org plugin/theme ecosystem and WooCommerce.com extension marketplace.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion6 records

Distribution channels7 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Automattic builds, hosts, and monetizes a suite of web publishing, commerce, and messaging software built around the open-source WordPress platform. Its flagship offerings include WordPress.com (hosted publishing), WooCommerce (open-source ecommerce), Jetpack (security/performance plugin), WordPress VIP (enterprise hosting), and a portfolio of acquired apps (Beeper, Day One, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Texts.com, Mesh, Harper).

Product overview

Automattic operates a sprawling platform-plus-modules ecosystem organized around its mission to 'democratize publishing, commerce, and messaging.' The flagship is WordPress.com — a hosted version of open-source WordPress serving individuals, businesses, and WordPress VIP enterprise customers (CNN, Salesforce, Meta) — paired with the open-source WooCommerce commerce engine that powers everything from artisan shops to multinational retailers, and the Jetpack plugin suite that extends WordPress.com's reliability to self-hosted sites. Surrounding these are publishing tools (Tumblr, Newspack for local news, Longreads and The Atavist for longform journalism, Gravatar for global avatars, Crowdsignal for polls/surveys, MailPoet for newsletters, P2 for team collaboration, Simplenote and Blocknotes for notes, Parse.ly for analytics), messaging and CRM (Beeper unifying 14 chat networks, Mesh (formerly Clay) as an AI-driven personal CRM, the Texts.com acquisition integrated into Beeper), commerce modules (WooPayments via Stripe, WooPay, Snapchat Ads for WooCommerce, MailPoet newsletters), infrastructure (VaultPress backups, VideoPress video hosting, Pressable and WP Cloud hosting, Sensei LMS, Big Sky AI website builder), monetization (Akismet anti-spam, Blaze and WordAds advertising, the E2E AI / MCP / Telex stack exposing AI capabilities), lifestyle (Day One journaling, Pocket Casts podcasts), AI (Harper grammar checker, the WordPress.com AI Assistant, the MCP server connecting to Claude/ChatGPT/Cursor/OpenClaw), and open-source contributions (Gutenberg editor, ActivityPub Fediverse plugin, BuddyPress, bbPress, WP Job Manager, Five for the Future). Mesh is positioned as Automattic's relationship-management entry into the messaging stack; WP Cloud and Pressable provide managed hosting that shares WordPress.com's backend; and Automattic for Agencies offers a unified dashboard for managing client sites across the portfolio.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• WordPress.com: Hosted WordPress publishing platform; primary product of Automattic.
• WooCommerce
• Tumblr
• Jetpack
• Day One
• Beeper
• Pocket Casts
• Akismet
• Gravatar
• Longreads
• Newspack
• WordPress VIP
• Pressable
• WP Cloud
• Simplenote
• Crowdsignal
• Cloudup
• MailPoet
• Sensei
• Parse.ly
• Harper
• Mesh
• The Atavist
• WPScan
• IntenseDebate
• BuddyPress
• bbPress
• Blocknotes
• Big Sky

Products and services

• WordPress.com Hosted WordPress publishing platform offering free and paid plans (Personal, Premium, Business, Commerce) for blogs, portfolios, and business sites. Powers 43%+ of all websites and 60.5% of the CMS market.
• WooCommerce Open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress that powers online stores of every size, with no vendor lock-in, plus WooPayments, WooPay, WooCommerce Shipping, and WooCommerce Tax add-ons.
• Jetpack Swiss-army-knife plugin bundling security, performance, backup, CDN, malware scanning, analytics, and marketing tools for self-hosted WordPress sites.
• WordPress VIP Enterprise WordPress hosting and services for high-traffic publishers, universities, and corporations (CNN, Salesforce, Meta, Slack) with scalability, security, white-glove support, and architecture/performance optimization.
• Pressable Managed WordPress hosting for agencies, freelancers, and businesses needing performance and reliability without enterprise-level pricing.
• WP Cloud Managed WordPress hosting built by Automattic with WordPress.com infrastructure, full SSH access, and git deployment for agencies and developers.
• Newspack WordPress-based publishing platform built for small and medium-sized news organizations, bundling reader-revenue and advertising tools with Google integration.
• Akismet Spam-filtering service that protects blog comments and form submissions, blocking billions of spam messages across millions of sites. Free for personal/non-profit use; paid commercial subscriptions available.
• Tumblr Microblogging and social networking platform focused on creative expression, fandom, and counterculture, now running on WordPress infrastructure.
• Beeper Universal chat app that unifies messages from WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Telegram, and other networks into a single encrypted, AI-enhanced inbox.
• Day One Premium journaling app for iOS, Android, and Mac offering private daily entries, photos, and life documentation with strong privacy.
• Pocket Casts Cross-platform podcast app for iOS, Android, and web with playlist automation, cross-device syncing, and open-podcasting standards support.
• Gravatar Globally recognized avatar service letting users upload one profile picture that follows them across millions of sites.
• Simplenote Minimal cross-platform notes app syncing across iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, and browsers.
• MailPoet Email marketing and newsletter plugin that lets publishers grow and communicate with their audience directly from WordPress.
• Parse.ly Content analytics platform that helps publishers and content marketers understand audience engagement and content performance.
• Harper Open-source grammar and language quality checker that runs locally on-device for privacy, returning suggestions in under 20 milliseconds.
• Mesh (formerly Clay) AI-powered personal relationship management app that automatically organizes contacts, conversations, and calendar activity from email, texts, and social media.
• Automattic for Agencies Unified dashboard where digital agencies manage multiple client WordPress sites, handle billing, and access Automattic products at scale with verified WooCommerce expert program.
• Big Sky AI content generation and editing suite integrated directly into WordPress for generating drafts, refining copy, creating full sites, and overcoming creative blocks.
• Longreads Publication and curation platform championing longform writing on the web with a curated daily feed and original commissions.
• Crowdsignal Polls, surveys, quizzes, and ratings that embed easily in WordPress or any website for audience research.
• P2 WordPress-based team collaboration platform offering threaded conversations, document sharing, and searchable history for distributed teams.

Quantifiable outcome

• Powers 43% of all websites globally and 60.5% share of the CMS market
• +6 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration20 records

AI capability7 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

14 partnerships are on record, tiered core, flagship and minor.

• Tech CoalitioncoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2026Joined the Tech Coalition, a global alliance of technology companies working together to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Montana Free PresscoreGTM or Marketing Partner · 9 April 2026Lead organization for National Local News Day on April 9, 2026; Automattic built the Local News Finder tool with Newspack and WordPress; partnership supports local journalism community engagement.
• AnthropicflagshipTechnology or Integration · 1 March 2026WordPress.com enabled Claude (Anthropic) AI agents to create, edit, and manage content via expanded Model Context Protocol integration with 19 new writing functions spanning posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, and media.
• OpenAIflagshipTechnology or Integration · 1 March 2026WordPress.com enabled ChatGPT (OpenAI) AI agents to create, edit, and manage content via Model Context Protocol integration alongside Claude and Cursor.
• KryterionflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 February 2026Strategic partnership to launch the Advanced Professional WordPress Developer certification; WordPress VIP led curriculum development drawing on 18+ years of enterprise deployment experience; Kryterion provides delivery infrastructure through Webassessor platform.
• Internet ArchiveflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 February 2025Unprecedented alliance to combat digital decay; integrated Wayback Machine directly into WordPress infrastructure to combat link rot. Plugin automatically scans WordPress posts for broken outbound links and redirects users to archived versions; also proactively archives WordPress content updates.
• Perplexity AIcoreTechnology or Integration · 1 August 2024WordPress.com partners with Perplexity AI for enhanced content discovery and AI-driven search integrations.
• Google (Gemini)coreTechnology or IntegrationWordPress.com's AI Assistant uses Google Gemini Nano Banana models for image generation; Local News Finder tool uses Google mapping technology.
• StripeflagshipTechnology or IntegrationPowers WooPayments and WooPay payment processing infrastructure for WooCommerce merchants; Automattic receives Stripe account info to process payments.
• Stratechery / Ben ThompsonflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-created Passport, a new publishing platform that lured The Ankler and other large publishers away from Substack, addressing custom brand presence, paywalls, and analytics for larger publishers.
• Press ForwardcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCoalition member for Local News Day initiative to spotlight trusted local newsrooms and strengthen local journalism.
• EverlitminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartners with Newspack and Automattic to revolutionize AI audio in newsrooms; co-developed AI-driven audio capabilities for local news publishers.
• Middle Tech Europe (MTE) CoalitioncoreGTM or Marketing PartnerMember coalition alongside Reddit, Discord, Pinterest, Patreon, and Dailymotion advocating for proportionate EU regulation for mid-sized platforms.
• BlueskycoreOthersToni Schneider (former Automattic CEO and True Ventures partner) named interim CEO of Bluesky; cross-company leadership relationship.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Wix: Wix is a hosted website builder targeting individuals, SMBs, and entrepreneurs — directly competing with WordPress.com's self-serve plans on ease-of-use, templates, and freemium SaaS monetization.
• Squarespace: Squarespace is a hosted website builder competing with WordPress.com for bloggers, creators, and SMBs, with a comparable freemium-to-paid subscription motion and strong brand presence in personal/portfolio sites.
• Shopify: Shopify is the leading hosted ecommerce platform and the most direct competitor to WooCommerce, competing for SMB merchants on storefront, payments, and app ecosystem economics.
• Ghost: Ghost is an open-source publishing and newsletter platform competing directly with WordPress.com and Newspack for professional bloggers, journalists, and creators running subscription publications.
• BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a hosted ecommerce SaaS competing with WooCommerce for mid-market merchants, with comparable subscription plus transaction-fee monetization and headless commerce capabilities.
• Substack: Substack is a subscription newsletter platform competing directly with Automattic's Passport, Newspack, and WordPress.com newsletter offerings for independent writers and paid publications.
• Acquia (Drupal): Acquia is the commercial sponsor of Drupal, the leading open-source CMS competitor to WordPress, with comparable enterprise hosting, agency programs, and open-source community models.

Emerging players

• Webflow: Webflow is an emerging no-code website builder targeting designers and SMBs; it overlaps with WordPress.com's premium/business tiers and competes for users who want visual design without managing hosting.

Broad incumbents

• HubSpot: HubSpot's CMS Hub competes in the broader content/inbound marketing space with WordPress VIP and Jetpack, offering integrated CRM, marketing automation, and hosting aimed at mid-market and enterprise customers.
• Adobe (Magento / Adobe Commerce): Adobe Commerce (Magento) is an established enterprise ecommerce platform competing with WooCommerce for larger merchants needing customization, complex catalogs, and B2B features.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat8 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/automattic
• GitHubgithub.com/Automattic
• YouTubeyoutube.com/c/automattic
• Facebookfacebook.com/AutomatticInc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/home

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Subsidiaries26 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds12 records

Investors23 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A30 records

Investments23 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Automattic