Pricing
BuddyNext Free is a complete community platform - feed, spaces, members, messaging, and moderation. Run a real community on it for nothing. Pro adds monetization, scale, AI, and priority support, from $149/year or a one-time lifetime licence.
Price at a glance: Free is $0 on unlimited sites. Pro is $149, $249, $399 a year for 1, 5 or unlimited sites, or $399, $599, $999 once. No per-member fees and no cut of what you charge.
$0forever
Unlimited sites
Everything you need to launch a real community on your own WordPress site.
$149/ year
or $399 once - lifetime
1 site
Everything in Free, plus the full Pro toolkit.
$249/ year
or $599 once - lifetime
5 sites
Everything in Free, plus the full Pro toolkit.
$399/ year
or $999 once - lifetime
Unlimited sites
Everything in Free, plus the full Pro toolkit.
Every Pro tier has the exact same features. Tiers differ only by how many sites you keep updated. Your licence is for updates and priority support, not a feature lock - every Pro feature keeps working even if a licence lapses. You own it. Annual renews yearly; lifetime is one payment. 30-day money-back guarantee. BuddyNext is live now.
Free and Pro in plain words
BuddyNext Free is the community. It gives you the activity feed, spaces, member profiles with a directory, direct messages, notifications, and the reporting and moderation tools. It runs on as many sites as you want. There is no key to enter, and nothing expires.
BuddyNext Pro is a second plugin you install on top of Free. It adds what a community needs once it starts to behave like a product: charging for access, email to your members, real-time updates, deeper moderation, analytics and AI features. Installing Pro never removes or changes anything you already use.
The licence key is for updates only. It never switches a feature on or off, and the three Pro tiers differ in one way: how many sites receive updates. Direct messages and photo posts run on WPMediaVerse, a separate plugin whose free version is enough to start. The full list is on the Free vs Pro page.
The real bill
The licence is one line on the bill. A community on your own WordPress site has a few more, and none of them grow with your member count.
Weighing this against a hosted platform? Our community platform cost guide walks through the cost model, and platforms with no transaction fees covers the cut question. Rival prices change often, so read them on the rival's own site.
Annual or lifetime
The features are identical. The choice is how you want to pay for updates and support.
Here is the arithmetic, using today's plan prices and the 30% renewal discount from the FAQ below. It is a made-up planning example, not a quote, and your cart shows the real renewal price.
| Tier | Annual, 3 years | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | $357.60 | $399 |
| Professional | $597.60 | $599 |
| Agency | $957.60 | $999 |
On every tier, annual is the cheaper route for the first three years, and lifetime comes out ahead in year four. If you expect to run the community that long, lifetime saves money. If you do not know yet, annual lets you start smaller.
Nothing breaks. Your community keeps running and every Pro feature keeps working. The site stops receiving plugin updates and priority support until you renew. We suggest keeping updates on, since they carry security fixes. Your members, posts and settings stay in your own database either way. Every purchase also has a 30-day money-back guarantee through Wbcom Designs.
Who needs Pro
Most communities do not need it on day one. Use this checklist to see whether you do now.
Moving up later is safe. Pro installs on top of Free, activates with your licence key under BuddyNext, Get Started, License, and adds to what you have. Not sure which side you are on? Open the line-by-line comparison or read how the membership plans work.
In every Pro licence
Want the line-by-line split? See Free vs Pro.
See Pro in action
Step-by-step tutorials for the Pro features: paid plans, members-only spaces, email campaigns, analytics and auto-moderation.
All 19 Pro tutorials, or the full video library.
Sandbox demo
One click builds a private copy of our demo community, with members, spaces and posts already in it. InstaWP asks for an email to create it, it lasts four hours, and nobody else sees what you change.
Prefer to watch first? See the tutorials.
What to try in the demo
Every Pro tier unlocks the exact same features. They differ only by how many sites the licence keeps updated: Personal is 1 site, Professional is 5 sites, and Agency is unlimited sites.
No. The licence is for plugin updates and priority support, never a feature gate. Every Pro feature keeps working if a license lapses. Updates and support stop until you renew. Your community stays yours.
Annual licenses include a year of updates and support and renew at 30% off. Lifetime licenses are a one-time payment and never expire. The features are identical.
No. BuddyNext Free is a complete community platform you can run forever at no cost. Pro adds monetization, scale, AI, and priority support on top.
No. Most communities launch and grow on Free. Move to Pro when you want to charge for membership, send campaigns, add AI, or run at larger scale.
Yes, and it is best planned as a real project rather than a one-click switch. If you are already on WordPress (BuddyPress, BuddyBoss, PeepSo) your data lives in your own database and we have migration guides in the docs. Coming from a hosted platform like Circle, Skool, or Discord, you export your members and content, rebuild on a staging site, then cut over. Our per-platform switch guides walk through it honestly.
Yes - a 30-day money-back guarantee through Wbcom Designs, no risk in trying it.
BuddyNext Free costs $0. BuddyNext Pro costs $149, $249 or $399 a year depending on whether you need 1 site, 5 sites or unlimited sites, or $399, $599 or $999 once for a lifetime licence. Hosting and your payment processor are separate and paid to them, not to us.
No. The licence does not change with the size of your community. A hosted platform may price by plan or by member, so check its own pricing page; BuddyNext prices by the number of sites you keep updated.
No. Pro sends payments through your own Stripe or PayPal account, so the money goes to you. Stripe and PayPal charge their own processing fees, and those are between you and them.
It depends on the host you choose, and we do not sell hosting. BuddyNext needs WordPress 6.9 or newer, PHP 8.1 or newer and pretty permalinks. We recommend a PHP memory limit of 512 MB once Pro and the media plugins are active.
Your community keeps running and every Pro feature keeps working. The site stops receiving plugin updates and priority support until you renew. We suggest renewing, because updates carry security fixes.
Only past your tier. Personal keeps 1 site updated, Professional keeps 5 and Agency keeps unlimited sites. Free has no site limit at all.
Pro ships Stripe and PayPal, plus a points gateway, an offline method you record yourself, and a test sandbox. Memberships and gated spaces need Pro and a connected gateway.
Some do. WPMediaVerse powers direct messages and photo posts, and its free version is enough to start. Group messaging, read receipts and real-time DMs need WPMediaVerse Pro, sold separately. Other companions are separate plugins, so check each product page for its own price.
Yes, two ways. The Free plugin has no trial limit, and the live demo builds a private copy of a community in one click. Pro also has a 30-day money-back guarantee through Wbcom Designs.
Pick by the number of sites. One site is Personal, up to five is Professional, and agencies or anyone with many sites should take Agency. The features are identical, so a bigger tier buys no extra capability.
WBCOM Designs has constantly updated and supported their plugins and themes. Recently the new BuddyNext project is Amazing! - and the new line of addons like Mediaverse, Jetonomy, Mediashield, and Listora.. are likewise Amazing! - and very well built. Today their online Chat solved a download…
WBComDesigns is amazing. The WP plugins and themes are of top notch quality with lots of features and updated very frequently. Supports are very responsive and helpful. I use Reign with TutorLMS, and the experience is surprisingly smooth. The recently launched BuddyNext Pro and MediaShield Pro are…
Fantastic 6 star support. I wanted to setup a membersite and tried many solutions. I contacted Wbcom for BuddyX and tried the theme with Buddypress. I am not a webdesigner or a coder, but had a requirement that was not standaard. I contacted WBcom and Pallavi helped me from start to finish with…
Great way of support! Thanks a lot! Direct responding, open for questions and very fast to the right solution!
Fast Respond & Troubleshooting With technical insight
Quick response. Solve my problem
just wanted to let you know how pleased I am with his work. Shasank was easy to work with and his communication skills were excellent. Please reward him for being a fine employee. Wayne Francis
I have already purchased themes and plugins worth over ₹65,000 from wbcomdesigns, and my experience has been nothing short of amazing. Their support is exceptional. Both Shivani Kashyap and Camilia Scott provide incredibly fast responses and have resolved any issues I encountered with my website…
These guys are absolutely amazing. Such a quick turn around. Their support is second to none.
Fast response (1 weekday day) for a simple customisation from Camilia, thank you very much!