MainWP vs ManageWP vs InfiniteWP vs WP Umbrella: Real Costs
On this page, 8 sections
Pick MainWP if you want to host the dashboard yourself and pay a flat fee for unlimited sites. Pick ManageWP if you want a free hosted dashboard and will pay per add-on. Pick InfiniteWP if you want a free self-hosted panel with premium features licensed by site count, and WP Umbrella if you want one per-site price with everything in it.
That is the shape of the choice. The numbers underneath it are what move the decision, so I read all four vendors’ own pricing pages on 11 October 2026 and worked out what each costs at 25, 50 and 100 sites.
I did not install or test any of the four for this post. Everything below comes from the vendors’ pages and the WordPress.org plugin API, with the date I read each one.
Where the dashboard runs
This is the first split, and it changes who holds the data and who patches the dashboard.
- MainWP is self-hosted. Its homepage describes running updates, backups, security and reporting “from your own server”, and its pricing FAQ says you can download both the Dashboard and the Child plugin directly from WordPress.org.
- InfiniteWP is also self-hosted. Its install page is headed “Install on your own server” and offers an installer plugin, a cPanel install and a manual install. The installer-plugin route uses the WordPress site’s own database.
- ManageWP is a hosted web app. Its pricing page sends you to a signup on
orion.managewp.com, and says the free tier works on unlimited websites. - WP Umbrella is hosted too. Its FAQ says the company owns its servers in France and describes itself as EU-based.
Self-hosted means you carry the uptime and security of the dashboard site. Hosted means someone else does, and you pay for that in a per-site or per-add-on fee.
What each one charges
All prices below were read on 11 October 2026 from the vendor’s pricing page.
- MainWP: the Essentials tier is free and lists “Manage Unlimited Sites”. MainWP Pro is $29 a month, $199 a year, or $599 lifetime, and also lists unlimited websites. Pro adds the 30+ Pro add-ons.
- ManageWP: core features are free on unlimited websites. Premium add-ons are priced per site per month: Backups at $2, and Uptime Monitor, Security Check, Performance Check, Client Reports, White Label, SEO Ranking and Link Monitor at $1 each. A bundle covers up to 100 sites at $75 for Backups or $25 for each of the others, and an all-in-one package is $150. Vulnerability Protection is listed at $2, with no bundle price.
- InfiniteWP: the FAQ and the first price grid give Starter at $147 for 10 sites and Developer at $247 for 20 sites. The grid also lists Freelancer at $347 for 50 sites, and Agency at $447 and Enterprise at $647 for unlimited sites. The page says licenses auto-renew after one year.
- WP Umbrella: one plan at $2.19 per site per month, with a 14-day trial. Prepaying a year gives a 10% discount. Two optional add-ons are priced per site: Security at $2 and Hourly Backups at $2.49.
One thing I could not settle: the InfiniteWP page shows a second grid under “New to InfiniteWP?” with different numbers and a “Free” 10-site row. I used the first grid because it matches the FAQ, and I cannot say what the second one is. Check the page yourself before you buy.
The yearly cost, worked out
I computed these in Python rather than by hand. The method is in the line under the table.
| Sites | MainWP Pro (yearly) | WP Umbrella (monthly billing) | InfiniteWP (yearly licence) | ManageWP (all-in-one) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | $199 | $657.00 | $347 (Freelancer, 50 sites) | $1,800 |
| 50 | $199 | $1,314.00 | $347 (Freelancer, 50 sites) | $1,800 |
| 100 | $199 | $2,628.00 | $447 (Agency, unlimited) | $1,800 |
How I got them: WP Umbrella is sites x $2.19 x 12. ManageWP is the $150 all-in-one package x 12, which covers up to 100 sites; the same eight priced add-ons bought per site would be $9 a site a month, or $225 a month at 25 sites, so the bundle is the cheaper route at every count in the table.
InfiniteWP is the smallest tier that fits the site count. MainWP is the flat yearly price.
This is not a like-for-like comparison, and I want to say so plainly. The ManageWP column buys every priced add-on. The MainWP column buys its Pro extensions but not whatever you pay for hosting the dashboard.
WP Umbrella’s column excludes its two optional add-ons; prepaying a year would take 10% off, which is $591.30 at 25 sites. Treat the table as the price of a feature set, not the price of the same feature set.
Two crossover points are worth knowing, both from ManageWP’s own numbers. The $75 Backups bundle beats the $2 per-site price once you pass 37 sites, because 75 divided by 2 is 37.5. The $25 bundles beat the $1 per-site price once you pass 25 sites, which matches the page’s own “over 25 websites” wording.
MainWP is the flat-fee outlier. At 100 sites the yearly figure is $199 against $2,628 for WP Umbrella at monthly billing, and the gap is your own hosting and your own time.
How many sites each one runs on
Each tool installs a small client plugin on every managed site, so the WordPress.org active-install count of that plugin is a rough count of sites under management. I pulled all four from the WordPress.org plugin API on 11 October 2026.
| Client plugin | Active installs | Version | Last updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| ManageWP Worker | 1,000,000+ | 4.9.38 | 21 Aug 2026 |
| MainWP Child | 700,000+ | 6.2.2 | 5 Oct 2026 |
| InfiniteWP Client | 200,000+ | 1.13.10 | 19 Aug 2026 |
| WP Umbrella | 90,000+ | 2.28.0 | 8 Oct 2026 |
WordPress.org reports these as rounded floors, so read them as bands. WP Umbrella’s own page says it is trusted by 80,000+ sites as of October 2026, which sits under the 90,000+ band.
The “tested up to” field is the one odd value. The other three list 7.1.3; InfiniteWP Client lists 7.0.7. That field is the author’s own declaration, not a test result, so it tells you about release habits and nothing about whether the plugin works.
The pairwise posts
If you have already narrowed it to two, I have written the head-to-heads: MainWP vs ManageWP, MainWP vs WP Umbrella, ManageWP vs InfiniteWP and WP Umbrella vs InfiniteWP.
What I did not check
I did not test the dashboards, so nothing here says which is faster, which breaks fewer sites on update, or which has the better support. I also did not verify feature lists beyond what each pricing page states. If a feature matters to you, such as white-label reports or hourly backups, confirm it on the vendor’s page before you commit.
Do this today
Write down two numbers: how many sites you manage now, and how many you expect to manage in 12 months. Find both rows in the table, then ask one question of the cheapest column: am I willing to host and patch the dashboard myself?
If yes, start with MainWP Free. If no, start with the ManageWP free tier or the WP Umbrella trial and see how the bill grows.
Resources
- MainWP pricing, read 11 October 2026
- MainWP homepage, read 11 October 2026
- ManageWP pricing, read 11 October 2026
- InfiniteWP pricing, read 11 October 2026
- InfiniteWP install options, read 11 October 2026
- WP Umbrella pricing, read 11 October 2026
- WordPress.org plugin API, plugin data read 11 October 2026