WordPress.com's storage space is set by your plan, not by your server: 1 GB on free sites, 6 GB on Personal, 13 GB on Premium, and 50 GB on Business or Commerce. That number also doubles as a per-file limit: the official documentation states that your site's available storage limits file size.
One thing to settle before the numbers: this page is about WordPress.com, the hosted service run by Automattic. If you installed WordPress yourself from wordpress.org, none of this applies to you — there is no plan, and your upload ceiling comes from PHP settings on your host. WordPress's own documentation for the self-hosted Media screen says the maximum upload size is the one "as set by your hosting provider."
The storage table, plan by plan
This is the table WordPress.com publishes on its Get more storage space support page, reproduced exactly:
| WordPress.com Plan | Storage Space |
|---|---|
| Free sites (no plan) | 1 GB |
| Personal | 6 GB |
| Premium | 13 GB |
| Business or Commerce | 50 GB |
| Pro (legacy) | 50 GB |
The same page carries three footnotes that matter enormously if your account is old, and that almost nobody reproduces:
"Free sites created before 31 March 2022 include 3 GB of storage."
"Business or Commerce (formerly known as Creator or Entrepreneur) plans purchased before 1 August 2019 that do not have hosting access activated include unlimited storage."
"Business or Commerce plans purchased before 20 July 2023 include 200 GB of storage."
So an old free site can have three times the storage of a new one, and two sites on the identical Business or Commerce plan can show different figures depending on when the plan was purchased: 200 GB if it was purchased before 20 July 2023, and unlimited storage if it was purchased before 1 August 2019 and does not have hosting access activated. If the figure in your dashboard does not match the table, check those dates before assuming something is broken.
Your remaining storage is also a file size limit
This is the part people discover the hard way. WordPress.com's Accepted file types page states it directly:
"Your site's available storage also limits file size. You cannot upload a file that is larger than the storage space remaining on your site. Each plan includes a different amount of storage."
On a free site with 1 GB total, a 1.2 GB video is not rejected because videos are capped at some number — it is rejected because it does not fit in what is left. Separately, the same page gives a practical ceiling for uploads in general:
"You can reliably upload files up to 2 GB to your WordPress.com site."
Read the word reliably. That is not stated as a hard cap, and the page explains why it is phrased that way:
"A larger file can fail partway through the upload. The larger the file, the longer it takes, and many networks end an upload that runs for too long."
Failed uploads do not eat your storage
Here is the question everyone asks and hardly any article answers: if an upload dies at 80%, did those 800 MB come out of my quota?
No. WordPress.com's VideoPress upload page says it in one line:
"Note that a slow or unreliable internet connection can limit the size of your video upload. If you are having trouble, try uploading at a different time of day or from a computer with a faster internet connection. Failed attempts don't count against your storage space limit."
So retrying a large upload does not chip away at your quota. Note the qualifier the same passage carries: a slow or unreliable connection is described as something that can limit the size of your upload, which is why the fix it suggests is a different time of day or a faster connection rather than a bigger plan.
VideoPress carries its own storage figure
VideoPress is documented with a storage number of its own, quoted separately from the per-plan table. WordPress.com's Working with video page says:
"VideoPress includes 250 GB of dedicated video storage and features such as privacy controls, chapters, and video stats."
How that 250 GB figure interacts with the per-plan storage table is not spelled out on the page; check the official documentation before planning around it.
VideoPress also has its own upload ceiling — "The maximum upload size is 6 GB," per its documentation — and its own plan requirement, which is stricter than most people expect:
"This feature is available on sites with the WordPress.com Business and Commerce plans. For free sites and sites on the Personal and Premium plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature."
Worth flagging: the Accepted file types page recommends "Add videos with the VideoPress block, which supports files up to 6 GB" without repeating that plan condition. On a Premium site, that advice cannot be followed. Treat 6 GB as a Business/Commerce number.
What to do when you run out
WordPress.com's own list of options for a file that will not upload is short and specific:
"If a large file will not upload, try one of the following: Compress the file to reduce its size, then upload it again. Add videos with the VideoPress block, which supports files up to 6 GB. On the Business and Commerce plans, transfer the file with SFTP."
Compression is listed first, and it is also the only one of the three that works on every plan: the VideoPress option needs Business or Commerce, and so does SFTP.
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
This runs entirely in your browser tab — the file is re-encoded on your own machine and never uploaded to a server, so you are not spending bandwidth twice to fix a bandwidth problem. If you would rather understand the settings than trust a preset, see how to compress a video without losing quality.
If the file is in a format WordPress.com does not accept, the official troubleshooting page tells you to "convert them to a valid file type before uploading." For QuickTime files off a Mac or iPhone, MOV to MP4 does that step. If all you need from a video is its audio — for a podcast episode, say — extracting the audio turns a large file into a much smaller one.
To buy space instead, WordPress.com sells storage add-ons that "start at 50 GB up to 350 GB in 50 GB increments."
Gotchas worth knowing before you upgrade
Uploading is gated by plan, not just by space. Audio is the permissive one: "You can upload audio files with any paid plan on WordPress.com." Video is stricter — the Working with video page says "The Video block is available on the Premium plan and above," while VideoPress requires Business or Commerce. Buying storage does not unlock a block.
A lapsed plan does not delete your files. Officially: "If your paid plan expires or is canceled, your previously uploaded files will not be deleted and will stay accessible. However, you won't be able to upload new files until you upgrade to a plan with sufficient storage or clear some space in your existing storage."
Self-hosted sites have no plan quota at all. Their ceiling comes from upload_max_filesize and post_max_size in php.ini, and WordPress reports whichever is smaller. WordPress gives no default value for either — check the official documentation or ask your host.
FAQ
How much storage does a free WordPress.com site get? 1 GB, per the official plan table. Free sites created before 31 March 2022 include 3 GB instead, so an older free site may legitimately show more.
Does a failed upload use up my storage? No. WordPress.com states that "Failed attempts don't count against your storage space limit," so retrying a large file costs you time, not quota.
What is the largest file I can upload to WordPress.com? The documentation says you can "reliably upload files up to 2 GB," and separately that you cannot upload a file larger than your remaining storage. VideoPress lists a maximum upload size of 6 GB, and it is available on the Business and Commerce plans.
Is VideoPress storage counted against my plan storage? VideoPress is documented as including 250 GB of dedicated video storage, described separately from the per-plan table. For anything the documentation does not spell out about how the two interact, check the official documentation.
Can I buy more storage without changing plans? WordPress.com offers storage add-ons that "start at 50 GB up to 350 GB in 50 GB increments." Note that an add-on adds space only — plan-gated features such as the Video block or VideoPress still require the relevant plan.
More on platform ceilings and how to work under them in the limits guides, and the full set of browser-based converters and compressors is at all Clapr tools.
Figures cited from WordPress.com's official support documentation, checked 16 September 2026. Plan storage has changed before — verify against the official pages before relying on them.
