WordPress Jetpack Social Paid Plans
Posted on July 21, 2023 by Aywren
This apparently happened a while back based on the feedback threads I’m seeing here and here and the blog post here. So, this might not be news to some folks. However, since I’m somewhat out of the WordPress loop (so glad I am), I only found out about it today when Scopique posted about it on Mastodon.
Apparently, as your WordPress posts get shared to social media platforms, you have a limited numbers of shares per month as seen here:
Curious, I dug a bit into this on what this limitation was. Turns out, based on the official Jetpack plans page, this is per share – meaning, if one post is shared 3 times to different social media sites when you publish it, that counts as 3 shares.
Shares are calculated based on the number of social media platforms a blog post is shared on. Scheduled posts are also counted as part of your 30 share limit as soon as the share is scheduled rather than being counted when the scheduled share occurs.
Earlier this year, I took note that WordPress and Jetpack were breaking apart into separate apps, which smelled fishy to me and raised red flags. I didn't know this change to sharing was already taking place at that time. But here it is. The thing I was worried about.
On the plans page, Jetpack claims this change came about because the Publicize feature was previously in maintenance mode, therefore, they did not charge for it or set limits. Now, they plan on making updates to it again, so of course, it’s time to start monetizing it.
So, what exactly are the costs to this social service? It’s… kinda hard to tell because the pricing structure is a bit convoluted. I can’t quite tell how much of a discount I get for what amount of time and when the full price kicks in.
I just know that even discounted, the basic social plan costs more per month than a personal plan blog at WordPress.com. Once Social is no longer discounted, it costs twice as much as personal plan blog! What? You might as well just upgrade to the Premium WP.com plan, which has the feature baked in (not surprising – nudge, nudge – WP says to upgrade!) and costs far less overall.
Keep in mind, the social package prices are on top of what Jetpack charges for other features. Publicized was just a widely-used feature WordPress folks were used to getting for free (for like forever) and are now universally being limited on.
While 30 shares might be just fine for a smaller blogger who doesn’t post so much, for bloggers who have lots to say, this limit could be easily capped. Just think – write 10 posts, if you share with 3 social media networks with each post, you’re now capped for the month. That’s all it takes.