WordAds
If you’d like to make money with advertisements on your WordPress.com site, WordAds is the official WordPress.com advertising program for site owners. This program features ads from external ad networks such as Google, Facebook, AOL, and more. You can collect revenue through a PayPal account.
Applying for WordAds
WordAds is available for sites on our Premium, Business, and eCommerce plans that use a custom domain (for example, yourgroovydomain.com instead of yourgroovysite.wordpress.com.) You can opt into the program by going to My Sites → Tools and clicking the Earn ad revenue button, then clicking the Join WordAds button on the Settings tab. Your application should automatically be approved.
WordAds will not be available if your site is marked Mature.
Settings
After signing up and being accepted to WordAds, you can enter your PayPal email address and other ad settings by going to My Sites → Tools, clicking the Earn ad revenue button, and selecting Settings.
Ad settings you can configure include:
Ads Visibility: Determines who is served ads. By default, they are shown to everyone. You can choose to display ads only to visitors who are logged out of their WordPress.com account, or to pause ads altogether. Ads are served from our ad network and based on the browser history for that particular visitor. The ads you see may be different than those another visitor to your site will see. If you feel an ad is inappropriate or mature, please select Report This Ad on the advertisement itself to report it to us.
Display ads below posts on: Specifies which areas of your site should display ads on your posts.
Additional ad placements: Turns ads on or off for specific additional areas of your site. Please note that ad placement is determined by each individual theme and not every theme may have the same spaces for ads.
Privacy and Consent: Enables targeted advertising for site visitors located in California. For more information on this, please see our CCPA guide.
PayPal E-mail Address: Enter your PayPal email address here to receive payments for WordAds and indicate ownership status.
Who owns this site?: Indicates whether the site owner is an individual, a corporation, or some other legal entity.
US Resident or based in the US: Indicates the site owner resides or is based in the US.
Terms of Service: Indicates that you agree to the Automattic Ads Terms of Service. This checkbox is checked by default, indicating your agreement to these terms of service as a prerequisite of your enrollment in the WordAds program.
Consent Management
If you have WordAds enabled, visitors from a country covered by the GDPR will see a CMP (Consent Manager Provider) banner at the bottom of the page informing them of their rights, what data we collect, and the option to consent to the data collection.
Your visitors can click View Partners on this banner to customize their consent options. Providing consent to visitors is a legal requirement, therefore the CMP can’t be removed or its text altered.
Take into account that the CMP banner replaces the Cookies & Consents widget. If you are on a Business or eCommerce plan, you can also install a plugin like Quantcast to insert this CMP.
Earnings
Ad revenue is generated by how much advertisers decide to bid on your site each month. There are many factors that contribute to this amount, including views to your site and the site content itself. Revenue is not earned by the amount of clicks on ads.
You can see current earnings by going to My Sites → Tools → Earn → View Ad Dashboard → Earnings.
Total Earnings: How much total revenue has been earned while you’ve been enrolled in WordAds.
Total Paid: Total amount of earnings that have been paid out while you’ve been enrolled in WordAds.
Outstanding Amount: How much in earnings are still to be paid out.
Earnings Payout
- Earnings are paid out once the outstanding amount exceeds $100, to the attached PayPal account.
- Earnings are posted at the end of the month following the one in which they were earned. For example, earnings made in January will be made available at the end of February.
- If you are closing either your WordPress.com or WordAds account and have an outstanding amount that is less than $100, please contact support and we can pay out the remainder of your balance.
Frequently Asked Questions
You’ll find answers to the most common questions about WordAds here.
Versatile plans and pricing
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Free
Best for students
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Personal
Best for hobbyists
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Premium
Best for freelancers
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Business
Best for small businesses
