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Prices checked on October 12, 2026. This guide is based on the published plans and documentation, not on long-term use by us.
Quick answer
For a hobby blog, yes. For any site that earns money, no. Jetpack Free has no backups and no automatic malware fixes. Jetpack Security adds both, and is 50% off in the first year at $9.95 a month.
Jetpack Free is one of the most installed plugins on WordPress, and for good reason: it costs nothing, needs no credit card, and adds useful protection on day one. But “free” also means it stops short in a few places that matter. The question is whether those places matter for your site.
Here is exactly what the free plan does, what it does not do, and the five signs that it is time to upgrade.
What Jetpack Free gives you
- Brute-force login protection, which blocks bots that try thousands of passwords.
- Downtime monitoring, which emails you when your site goes offline.
- A global image CDN and lazy loading, which make pages load faster.
- Basic site statistics for personal sites.
- Related posts, subscriptions and a simple newsletter.
- The Jetpack mobile app and community forum support.
For a personal blog, that is a solid set of tools for nothing.
What Jetpack Free does not give you
| Feature | Free | Jetpack Security |
|---|---|---|
| Backups | None | Real-time cloud backups, 10 GB, unlimited restores |
| Malware scanning | No automatic scanning or fixes | Real-time scanning with one-click fixes |
| Firewall | Manual rules only | Web application firewall |
| Activity log | Last 20 events | 30 days |
| Spam filtering | Not included | Akismet, 10,000 checks a month |
| Stats | Personal use only | Personal use only (commercial stats are in Complete) |
The first two rows are the ones that hurt. Without backups, a hacked site, a broken update or a hosting failure can mean starting again from nothing. Without automatic malware scanning, you may not know you have been hacked until Google warns your visitors away.
Five signs it is time to upgrade
- Your site earns money. If it sells products, collects leads or shows ads, a day offline has a price. Backups cost far less than that day.
- You run a WooCommerce shop. Orders arrive all day. A daily backup can lose a whole day of orders; real-time backups save each order as it happens.
- You could not rebuild the site from memory. Years of posts, products or customer data are not something to keep in one place with no copy.
- Your host does not back up your site for you, or you are not sure whether it does.
- Spam is filling your comments or contact forms. Akismet, included in Security, filters it automatically.
If even one of these is true, Jetpack Free is not enough on its own.
What the upgrade costs
Jetpack Security is $9.95 a month in the first year, billed yearly at $119.40. That is half the regular price. From the second year it renews at $19.95 a month, or $239.40 a year. Yearly plans can be refunded within 14 days, so you can try it with no risk.
Put that next to what you would lose without it. For most business sites, a single afternoon of lost sales costs more than a year of backups.
When Jetpack Free really is enough
Stay on the free plan if all of these are true:
- The site is a personal hobby and earns nothing.
- Your host already takes daily backups and you have checked that you can restore them.
- You could live with losing a few days of changes.
In that case, Jetpack Free plus your host’s backups is a sensible setup.
Is there a cheaper way to get Jetpack Security?
Yes, if you are choosing hosting anyway. Pressable includes Jetpack Security on every plan, from $250 a year, so you get backups and malware scanning as part of the hosting. If you are wondering whether you need the bigger Complete plan instead, read Jetpack Security vs Jetpack Complete.
Verdict
Keep Jetpack Free for what it does well: login protection, downtime alerts and faster images. But do not mistake it for a backup or security plan, because it is neither. If your site matters to your income, add Jetpack Security while it is half price in the first year.
Prices and plan features are set by Jetpack and can change at any time. Always confirm the final price at checkout.
