Every Public Revenue Figure I Could Find for WordPress Businesses
Care plans, hosting bundles, and plugins, organized by business model, with source quality ratings and the actual mechanics behind the numbers.
I’ve spent a few weeks tracking down every public revenue disclosure I could find across three categories of WordPress businesses: maintenance services, hosting bundles, and plugins. Some numbers come from founder transparency reports. Others from interviews, case studies, and acquisition coverage. A few have internal contradictions I’ll flag.
This is the complete collection, organized by business model, with notes on source quality and what each number actually tells you about the underlying economics.
Part 1: Productized WordPress Maintenance (Care Plans & Support Subscriptions)
These are businesses built around recurring maintenance—updates, backups, security, fixes—sold as a productized service rather than custom agency retainers.
WP Buffs
Model: WordPress maintenance plans sold as subscriptions, with a white-label program for agencies.
Revenue: $1,031,928 total revenue, up nearly 300% from ~$376,000 in 2018 (per Post Status coverage of their year-in-review).
Source quality: Industry publication citing founder disclosure. Solid.
Why it matters: This is the clearest example of “maintenance as the product”—not an agency that happens to offer care plans, but a business where care plans are the entire model.
WP Manager
Model: WordPress maintenance subscription service.
Revenue: $6,000/month (~$72K ARR).
Source quality: Self-reported via Starter Story case study. Directionally useful.
Why it matters: A clean “small but real” benchmark. This is what a straightforward solo maintenance subscription looks like without agency services bolted on.
ThriveWP
Model: Care plans including maintenance, hosting, malware removal, and support.
Revenue: $4,800/month (~$57.6K ARR).
Source quality: Self-reported via Starter Story. Treat as directional.
Why it matters: A realistic solo or small-team reference point for care plans as the core offer.
Work Hero
Model: WordPress support and maintenance subscriptions.
Revenue: Complicated.
- Starter Story case study header shows $35,000/month
- But another Starter Story page describes an earlier stage: 13 recurring clients at ~$1,470/month, with most customers paying $149/month
Source quality: Internally inconsistent across snapshots. The $35K figure may reflect a later update, but without access to the full timeline, these numbers don’t reconcile cleanly.
How to use this: Evidence that meaningful scale is possible, but don’t treat either figure as a reliable single benchmark.
Industry Baseline (Starter Story Aggregation)
Starter Story’s WordPress maintenance category pages report:
- Average revenue: ~$291K/year
- Range: $600–$100K/month
Source: Starter Story category rollup
Source quality: Aggregated self-reported data with survivorship bias. Use as “what successful cases look like,” not “what to expect.”
Part 2: Hosting as a Productized Service (Reseller + Maintenance Bundle)
These businesses don’t run their own infrastructure. They resell hosting from providers like Kinsta or WP Engine and layer maintenance services on top—creating a “handled for you” experience.
Anchor Hosting
Model: “Hassle-free hosting for WordPress professionals.” Resells infrastructure from managed hosts and bundles “the essentials of WordPress maintenance”—migrations, monitoring, DNS, security updates, fixes.
Revenue (conflicting sources):
- Indie Hackers post headline: $20,000/month (~$240K ARR)
- Latka database: $148,000 revenue (framed oddly around “January 2020”)
Source quality: First-party founder post vs. third-party database. The numbers don’t align perfectly—could be timing differences, could be methodology differences.
How to use this: Anchor is an excellent model example of hosting-as-productized-service (resell infrastructure + wrap with ops). The exact revenue number is fuzzy, but the shape of the business is clear.
Key insight from the founder: Growth comes primarily through word-of-mouth with agencies. One agency relationship can mean 20-100 site migrations. The customer is the implementer, not the end client.
Part 3: WordPress Plugin Businesses
Plugin businesses range from solo side projects to multi-million dollar operations. These are the ones that publish actual numbers.
Barn2
Model: Multi-plugin WordPress/WooCommerce product company.
Revenue: $1,517,009 in 2023 (from their own Year in Review transparency report).
For the full picture, here’s their three-year trend:
| Year | Revenue | Sales | AOV |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $1,699,326 | 18,410 | $96.53 |
| 2023 | $1,517,009 | 16,187 | $98 |
| 2022 | $1,376,026 | 13,386 | $105 |
Source quality: First-party transparency report. This is gold-standard data.
Why it matters: One of the most detailed public disclosures in the WordPress plugin space. They publish revenue, sales counts, AOV, refund rates, support ticket volume, and new vs. renewal splits.
WP Fusion
Model: WordPress plugin connecting sites to CRMs and marketing automation platforms.
Revenue: ~$800,000/year (referenced in cross-company transparency roundups; they publish their own detailed annual reports).
Their 2024 transparency report breaks down:
- Net revenue: $775,969
- Renewals: $582,795 (75% of total)
- New customer revenue: $256,796
- First-year renewal rate: 65%
- Monthly churn: ~2.7%
Source quality: First-party transparency report with exceptional detail.
Why it matters: Shows how a mature plugin business becomes a “renewal machine”—most revenue comes from existing customers, but acquisition weakness can still cause overall decline.
Sandhills Development
Model: Portfolio of WordPress products including Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, and others.
Revenue: $4,330,593 gross revenue in 2019 (from their year-in-review).
Profit: $232,440.
Source quality: First-party disclosure, though dated (2019).
Why it matters: The gap between gross revenue ($4.3M) and profit ($232K) is the real story. Support costs, payroll, affiliate commissions, and payment processing fees eat margin aggressively at scale. “Big revenue” and “big profit” are not the same thing.
FlyPlugins / WP Courseware
Model: WordPress LMS (Learning Management System) plugin.
Revenue: $24,000 MRR (~$288K ARR), per Indie Hackers interview.
Source quality: First-party founder interview. Reliable.
Why it matters: A strong “subscription-like plugin” example outside the usual caching/SEO/security categories. LMS is a defined niche with clear buyer intent.
WP Umbrella
Model: WordPress site management platform for agencies and freelancers (plugin + SaaS hybrid).
Revenue: $60,000 MRR (~$720K ARR), per their 2024 public year-in-review.
Source quality: First-party transparency report.
Why it matters: This sits between plugin and maintenance—it monetizes the operators who run maintenance businesses. They’re selling picks and shovels to the people in Part 1.
The Revenue Mechanics Behind These Numbers
Across all three categories, the same levers drive revenue:
1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA)
Maintenance/care plans grow ARPA by bundling: add hosting, priority support, unlimited edits, security monitoring. Each addition justifies higher pricing.
Plugins grow ARPA through tiering (personal vs. agency vs. unlimited), annual vs. lifetime pricing, and multi-site licenses. WP Fusion’s $338 AOV is notably higher than Barn2’s $96—different positioning, different customer.
2. Churn + Expansion
Hosting + maintenance bundles typically have lower churn because switching means losing the service layer, not just moving files. Anchor’s model (“we handle everything”) creates stickiness.
Plugins face churn pressure from competition and the annual renewal decision point. The Freemius benchmark of ~29% annual churn for plugin licenses explains why growth requires constant acquisition.
3. Acquisition Channel
Anchor Hosting emphasizes word-of-mouth through agency relationships. One agency can bring 20-100 sites. Growth is lumpy but efficient.
WP Umbrella attributes growth to community presence and organic momentum—they publish scale stats alongside MRR, showing how visibility compounds.
WP Fusion explicitly discusses moving lead capture off WordPress.org to their own site, reducing platform dependence and enabling direct follow-up.
Summary: All Revenue Figures in One Place
Maintenance Services
| Business | Revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|
| WP Buffs | $1.03M/year | Post Status |
| Work Hero | $35K/mo (conflicting) | Starter Story |
| WP Manager | $6K/mo | Starter Story |
| ThriveWP | $4.8K/mo | Starter Story |
Hosting Bundles
| Business | Revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Anchor Hosting | ~$20K/mo (or $148K—conflicting) | Indie Hackers / Latka |
Plugin Businesses
| Business | Revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Sandhills Dev | $4.33M/year (2019) | Barn2 roundup |
| Barn2 | $1.7M/year (2024) | Barn2 Year in Review |
| WP Fusion | ~$776K/year (2024) | Barn2 roundup |
| WP Umbrella | $60K MRR ($720K ARR) | WP Umbrella Year in Review |
| FlyPlugins / WP Courseware | $24K MRR ($288K ARR) | Indie Hackers |
What This Data Shows (And Doesn’t Show)
What it shows:
- WordPress businesses can generate real revenue across multiple models
- The range is enormous: $4.8K/month to $4.3M/year
- First-party transparency reports exist and are worth seeking out
- Renewals dominate mature businesses; acquisition volatility is the main risk
What it doesn’t show:
- Profit margins (Sandhills’ $232K profit on $4.3M revenue is a warning)
- Customer acquisition costs
- Support load relative to revenue
- How long it took to reach these numbers
The survivorship bias caveat:
Every business on this list is successful enough to either publish numbers or get covered. The WordPress businesses that failed, stagnated, or quietly shut down aren’t represented. These numbers show what’s possible at various points on the success curve—not what’s typical.
All Sources
Maintenance Services
- WP Buffs coverage (Post Status)
- WP Manager case study (Starter Story)
- ThriveWP case study (Starter Story)
- Work Hero case study (Starter Story)
- Work Hero early stage reference (Starter Story)
- WordPress Maintenance Services category (Starter Story)