CMS Vendors
WordPress VIP
Automattic
WordPress VIP is Automattic's managed hosting service for large, enterprise customers in general, with some major news organisations licensing the platform.
- WordPress VIP adds several 'enterprisey' features to core WordPress, such as advanced security, hosting, support, content analytics and personalisation
- Therefore, VIP is suitable for complex and large publishers willing to pay extra for this sophistication; small and mid-sized publishers may wish to look at the WordPress 'Newspack' distribution
- Large news organisations that use WordPress VIP include News Corp, Gannett, Al Jazeera, MediaNews Group and Bloomberg
Likely fit
WordPress VIP is suitable for larger publishers that possess deep technical resources to enable sophisticated needs (scalability, security, reliability, multisite management). While it bundles content analytics and personalisation, you will be dependent on additional plug-ins (Automattic's own or third-party) for newsletter management, CRM and paywall/subscription capabilities, along with substantial development/customisation effort.
The platform does become overkill and expensive for simpler use cases, where Automattic sells the Newspack offering.
At a glance
Primary customer fit
Large news organisation
Secondary fit
Mid-sized independent news organisations, mid-sized chain of news organisations
Most active geographies
North America
Official support hours
Email: 24x7
Phone: None
Officially supported languages for user interface
EN
Third-party language support available?
Yes
Licence model
The company says their minimum deal size is $25k and typical deal size is $100k–$500k/yr.
Scope summary
Content management system (CMS) that targets content production and website management for large enterprises in general; large publishers must deploy plug-ins for revenue generation and certain news functionality.
Tech base
WordPress, PHP
Cloud model
Managed service (PaaS)
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA, US
Head count
300
What customers report
- Enables you to run WordPress in headless mode so that you can build your own front-end using technologies of your choice
- Editorial experience is simple and usable, especially with the new Gutenberg editor
- WordPress itself provides lots of flexibility and extensibility
- Automattic presents as a very stable firm, with responsive customer support
- Lacks some key capabilities that large publishers may need, like multistep workflows and custom content types
- Many large publishers serve both digital and print but WordPress lacks print services or even native integration to print-oriented workflows
- A lack of any content planning tools makes it difficult to sort out schedules and content traffic
- Missing collaborative editing capabilities
Background
- Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, US Automattic is one of the larger vendors in this report, having raised $985m in VC funding since 2015. The WordPress VIP subsidiary holds about 300 of Automattic's 2,000 employees.
- Automattic sells at least three WordPress offerings. The most common one via Wordpress.com targets small businesses and consumers. The 'Newspack' offering (reviewed elsewhere in this report) is designed for smaller publishers. Automattic created WordPress VIP in 2006 to specifically address the needs of 'large media companies and enterprise brands'.
- Functionally, VIP's editorial services don't actually differ much from core WordPress. That means that you get a block editor for creating content and then basic capabilities around publishing. Large, complex publishers with more sophisticated needs — such as the ability to create different content types and workflows — will not find them here, and so Automattic will point you to the vast collection of WordPress plug-ins that you can vet and deploy with a developer's help.
- What makes Wordpress VIP special is the addition of several enterprise features to make it suitable for the needs of large customers. These include performance and availability, developer tooling, application management and monitoring capabilities. In addition, it bundles hosting and support along with content analytics, personalisation and the powerful Elasticsearch engine to the core offering.
- The content analytics and personalisation capabilities came to WordPress via its 2021 acquisition of Parse.ly. Since then, WordPress VIP has continuously improved its integration, and while Parse.ly continues to work with other CMS platforms, it's most tightly integrated with WordPress. This allows you to have access to some sophisticated content analytics as well as to perform A/B testing and show recommended content based on Parse.ly's personalisation engine.
- WordPress is getting old, especially its PHP-based core and front-end theming system. There have been efforts to modernise it (e.g. Gutenberg has improved editing and WordPress Headless allows you to build your own front-end). You might not notice some of the creaks when deploying a simpler version like Newspack but beware of technical debt as you customise and extend this version of the platform.
- WordPress VIP pricing follows a usage-based model along with levels of support. WordPress VIP says their smallest customers pay around $35K a year. Their large customers pay well into 'seven figures'. You then choose amongst three levels of support:
- Platform support for the standard software support
- Application support adds support for client-built applications, developer-to-developer support for all code and provides guidance as well as code quality inspection
- Premier support includes guidance, planning, training, consulting services across the full lifecycle of the customer's brand website development, deployment, maintenance and refinement
- Automattic does not get involved in implementations and will usually recommend an integrator or consultancy for WordPress VIP roll-outs. Automattic's own professional services team limits its offerings to things such as performance monitoring and improvements, launch support and migrations.
Package scope (as reported by vendor)
| Core platform - i.e., bundled in product (yes/no/beta) | Add-On (yes/custom/3rd party) | |
|---|---|---|
|
Content lifecycle: author / classify / edit / approve / publish / re-purpose / archive / dispose
|
Yes
|
|
|
Basic digital / voice / media asset management
|
Yes
|
|
|
Support print publishing
|
No
|
|
|
Simple social media re-publishing
|
Yes
|
|
|
Optional modules: forms / polls / social widgets / etc
|
Yes
|
3rd Party
|
|
Connector library (OOTB connectors, APIs, etc.)
|
Yes
|
|
|
Bundled CDN (with DDOS protection)
|
Yes
|
|
|
User registration
|
Yes
|
|
|
Subscription management and fulfillment - digital
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Subscription or membership
|
No
|
|
|
Personalisation
|
No
|
|
|
Ad management - digital
|
No
|
|
|
Ad management - print
|
No
|
|
|
Content management
|
Yes
|
|
|
Research
|
Yes
|
|
|
Content management
|
Yes
|
|
|
Video management / OVP
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Audio management / podcasting
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Data journalism and visualisation
|
Yes
|
|
|
Classifieds
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Commenting / community features/
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Newsletter production and management
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
Notifications and alerts
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
A/B testing
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
SEO
|
Yes
|
|
|
Multi-title management with variable inheritance
|
Yes
|
|
|
Complex layout and subsite / subsection cloning
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
AR- / VR- enhanced services
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Audience segmentation
|
Yes
|
|
|
Online user / partner forums
|
Yes
|
|
|
Regular user group meetings
|
Yes
|
|
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