Whether you’re an artist, maker, or creative business owner, the right theme doesn’t just display your work — it is part of your work.

Here are 10 creative WordPress themes for making a real visual impression.

How I tested these WordPress themes

Whenever I evaluate a theme, I always try it out on my WordPress staging site first.

For each theme, I customized the homepage layout (changing sections, images, and text), explored the templates and patterns libraries (pre-built page layouts and design blocks), and tested any built-in features and unique design elements. I then ran a few blog posts through each theme to see how they handled content.

My goal was to choose themes that make it easier for your website to feel uniquely yours:

1. Sankofa: Best for cultural organizations, museums, and archives
2. Memphoria: Best for fashion and design bloggers
3. Miko: Best for personal portfolios 
4. Kawaii-Chan: Best for beauty and style influencers 
5. Feelin’Good: Best for nostalgic creators and bloggers 
6. Roblog: Best for gamers and streamers 
7. Parr: Best for artists, gallerists, and visual portfolios
8. Punk: Best for musicians and bands 
9. Psychedeli: Best for groovy bloggers 
10. The Jazzers: Best for music bloggers 

Let’s look at each of them in detail:

1. Sankofa: Best for cultural organizations, museums, and archives

• Setup: Intermediate/advanced
• Who should use it: Museums, cultural organizations, archives, and institutions that publish rich editorial or historical content

Sankofa is a robust theme that draws on Afrofuturist design, with bold colors, original geometries, fractal patterns, and expressive fonts. 

The standout features are its angular image shapes, which appear across page templates, and its customizable About pattern. 

For best results, add your images at the block or archive level rather than replacing them one by one — this ensures the angular shapes display correctly across your site.

Sankofa includes seven unique page templates and two theme-specific patterns, including an organization manifest, which is especially useful if you want to include a company page.

The verdict 

With some customization, Sankofa offers all the tools you need to build a robust, visually striking website. To get the most out of this theme, you need to be comfortable with patterns, loops, and parent block functions. A word of caution: If you’re new to WordPress, this theme has a steeper learning curve than others.

2. Memphoria: Best for fashion and design bloggers

• Setup: Beginner
• Who should use it: Bloggers who want to show a lot of personality with a wild edge

Memphoria offers a quirky blog layout, with a feed that stacks posts like a layered collection of Polaroids. Together with its six candy-colored theme options, this WordPress theme has a wild, maximalist feel that’s hard to replicate. 

It comes with six-page templates and custom styling options for the feed, tags, and separators. 

I particularly liked the kooky separator options: wavy, dots, zig-zag, and wiggly, which add a playful vibe.

The verdict 

Memphoria’s Polaroid-style homepage and additional page templates make it easy to build a distinctive, personality-driven blog with minimal setup. 

However, that strong aesthetic means this theme offers limited customization for websites that require greater design flexibility.

3. Miko: Best for personal portfolios

• Setup: Intermediate
• Who should use it: Personal websites, writers, and other non-visual portfolios

Miko offers a split-page site design with a bold color palette and an unconventional approach to navigation — instead of a traditional header, the sticky panel on the right side of the screen keeps your primary photo and title visible on every page.

This layout is great for personal websites and portfolios centered on one strong image because it keeps your brand closely anchored to your content on the left.

The verdict 

Miko is a good option if you need a personal site with just a single strong image, such as a headshot or brand photo. It’s a great fit for resumes, project links, or writing samples. 

4. Kawaii-Chan: Best for beauty and style influencers

• Setup: Beginner
• Who should use it: Influencers, creators, and bloggers

Kawaii-Chan lives up to its name and inspiration: lively, sweet, and available in multiple pastel colors. 

The rounded headers and footers and bubble-style image frames create a cozy and playful atmosphere, and the built-in kawaii background pattern immediately sets the tone for the site’s aesthetic.

The verdict 

Kawaii-Chan is a fun theme if you want your lifestyle blog to express a cartoonish, childlike charm. 

If you feel the background pattern is a little too much, you can easily swap it out under Theme Design → Background — a handy option if you want a cleaner look while keeping the kawaii aesthetic.

5. Feelin’Good: Best for nostalgic creators and bloggers

• Setup: Beginner/intermediate
• Who should use it: Creators looking for a theme with a nostalgic, retro internet aesthetic

Feelin’Good opens to a colorful homepage image with a semitransparent blog feed. The default look is pure vaporwave, but you can easily swap the site imagery to create different moods.

The header lets you add a logo or a headshot to the right corner, while the footer includes a finger icon that fits the retro style.

The verdict 

If you want to add ’80s or ’90s stylings to your site, this theme works perfectly. You can also tailor the visual style with a different background image or color scheme. 

6. Roblog: Best for gamers and streamers 

• Setup: Beginner
• Who should use it: Gamers, streamers, and playful bloggers

Roblog is a nod to the iconic Roblox platform, featuring rounded block styling and a “Playful” logo style that tilts your icon in a mischievous reference to Roblox’s own branding.

It’s the only theme on this list with a two-column post layout. The sidebar gives you space for an About section, related categories, and a subscription block — making it easy to build your email list right alongside your content.

The verdict 

Roblog is a fun theme with useful functionality, such as sidebar subscriptions. The two-column layout is also a big advantage for blogging, but it might feel limiting if you plan to feature other types of content.

7. Parr: Best for artists, gallerists, and visual portfolios 

• Setup: Beginner
• Who should use it: Photographers, artists, or anyone needing an image-driven website

Parr is a curatorial theme that puts bold imagery front and center. The sideways text elements free up visual space, while the individual blog pages resemble spreads from an art magazine.

The “previous” and “next” buttons on each edge create the feel of turning the page.

Parr’s layout doesn’t offer any variation, but you can still modify the fonts and colors to create your own distinct look.

The verdict 

If you’ve got a visual site and want your images to shine, Parr is the perfect backdrop. It’s a great option for portfolios and photo journals.

You can play around with the theme’s style options to match your brand, but make sure that Parr’s bold, defined layout is a good fit for your vision.

8. Punk: Best for musicians and bands 

• Setup: Intermediate
• Who should use it: Alternative music bloggers, bands, and musicians

Punk leans hard into the zine aesthetic and commits to it fully. The halftone effect automatically converts your images into one of six two-tone color schemes for a raw, DIY feel. 

It’s one of the most customization-rich themes on this list. Beyond the homepage, individual posts and pages keep the aesthetic alive with doodles and other lo-fi design elements. 

The verdict: 

If you like the punk or zine aesthetic, this theme delivers a ton of character throughout your site from the start. 

However, if you have lots of content and site imagery, prepare yourself to spend some time making sure everything looks good in halftone.

9. Psychedeli: Best for groovy bloggers

• Setup: Beginner
• Who should use it: Bloggers who love a psychedelic, counterculture feel

Psychedeli channels the ’60s with neon tones, exaggerated fonts, and psychedelic patterns. 

The style variations are more than just color palette tweaks. The backgrounds and fonts also change, so each variation feels like its own distinct site.

Like Punk, Psychedeli automatically adjusts your images to match the theme’s color palette for a cohesive site-wide look. 

The verdict 

Psychedeli is a bold, vibrant theme that plays nicely with your blog content right out of the box. The color effects are part of the style. However, if you have high-quality images and want to preserve their original style, this might not be the right fit.

10. The Jazzers: Best for music bloggers

• Setup: Intermediate
• Who should use it: Music bloggers and reviewers

The Jazzers theme aims to recreate the feeling of browsing through a vinyl collection. 

The large-scale title text and background images evoke classic album sleeves — a perfect aesthetic for music lovers.

This theme makes it easy to curate an attractive blog feed and has enough character for a vibrant music blog. 

The verdict 

If you want your pages to feel like a much-loved vinyl collection, this theme is right up your alley. It does take work to manage the visual tweaks and lengthy titles, though, so make sure you’re willing to put in the effort every time you post.

Build something great with WordPress.com

I’ve given you my take on the top 10 creative WordPress themes, but you know your work better than any list does. The right theme will click the moment you see it.

The best way to find the right fit is to build a site on WordPress.com and explore the options for yourself. 

If you already have a vision, get a custom look fast with our AI website builder. Just describe the look and feel you want with a text prompt and launch your site with managed WordPress hosting.

Ready to find the right look for your website? 

Now you can. Jetpack Newsletter offers complimentary subscriptions that let you give any subscriber free access to your paid plans, right from your subscriber list.

How it works

From your site’s dashboard, navigate to Jetpack → Subscribers. Find the subscriber you want to comp, click the three dots (⋮) next to their name, and select “Comp a subscription.”

Select the newsletter plan you want to give them access to and click Confirm. 

They’ll get an email letting them know they have access to your paid content, and their subscription type changes to “Comp” on your Subscribers page.

You can also comp from the subscriber detail view: click on a subscriber’s name to open their profile, then click “Comp a subscription.”

You can comp free subscribers, email-only subscribers, and even people who aren’t currently subscribed (they’re added as a subscriber automatically). You can also remove a complimentary subscription anytime, and the subscriber reverts to free.

Reward your most important subscribers with free access

Once you have a paid newsletter, you’ll find plenty of reasons to comp people:

• Family and friends you’d never charge
• Fellow writers for cross-promotion
• Contest winners and giveaway recipients
• VIP readers you want to reward for loyalty
• Sources and collaborators who contribute to your work

If you’ve migrated from another platform, you can use complimentary subscriptions to give your VIPs paid access right away.

Running a paid newsletter on WordPress.com

Complimentary subscriptions are one piece of the Jetpack Newsletter toolkit that keeps getting better. If you haven’t explored paid subscriptions yet, here’s what you can do right now on WordPress.com:

• Create a paid newsletter on any WordPress.com plan, including free.
• Set your own monthly and yearly pricing.
• Collect payments through Stripe with creator-first pricing that doesn’t take a cut of your revenue.
• Manage subscribers, track email performance, and organize content with newsletter categories.
• Own your content and subscriber list. Export everything, anytime.

Keep more of what you earn

If you’re comparing paid newsletter platforms, pricing matters. WordPress.com takes 0-10% of your subscriber revenue based on your plan. Substack always takes 10%. That really adds up.

With 100 paid subscribers paying $10 per month, Substack’s cut is $100/month. With 1,000 subscribers, it’s $1,000/month. At 10,000, you’re handing Substack $10,000 every month.

On WordPress.com, your cost stays the same no matter how many subscribers you have.

The more you grow, the more you save. With 1,000 paid subscribers, you save $955 every month on WordPress.com. That’s the difference between a platform that scales with you and one that scales against you.

Get started

If you already have a paid newsletter on WordPress.com, complimentary subscriptions are available now in your Jetpack Newsletter subscriber list. No extra setup is needed.

If you’re on Substack or another platform and ready to make the switch, importing your newsletter takes just a few minutes. Bring your posts, your subscribers, and your paid plans with you.

Ready to try it? Head to your Jetpack Subscribers page to get started.

The upcoming WordPress 7.0 changes this by introducing a shared infrastructure that supports how AI works across sites.

AI tools can now discover what a site can do, access AI services through a consistent layer, and trigger actions across plugins without requiring custom integration code for every combination.

The Abilities API: Defining what a site can do

WordPress 6.9 introduced the Abilities API as one of the first foundational pieces of this infrastructure. It gives plugins a standard way to register their capabilities in one place.

Instead of each plugin building its own custom integration, it declares what it exposes: 

• Specific actions
• The inputs those actions need
• What they return
• Which permissions are required

Those capabilities become discoverable through REST endpoints or the Model Context Protocol (MCP) Adapter.

This means automation tools and AI assistants can interact with WordPress without needing custom code for every plugin. A tool such as Zapier or an AI assistant such as Claude reads what’s available and acts on it.

A practical example: WooCommerce can register capabilities such as updating stock status, retrieving order data, or modifying product attributes. An AI assistant connecting to that site discovers those capabilities automatically. It doesn’t need a bespoke WooCommerce integration — it works with what the plugin has declared.

The WordPress AI Client: One connection to AI models

Before the WordPress AI Client, every plugin that wanted to use AI handled its own integration. Authentication, request formatting, response parsing — all built from scratch, again and again.

The AI Client introduces a shared interface for interacting with AI models. Plugins send prompts through one consistent layer, regardless of the provider.

WordPress 7.0 introduces the Connectors API alongside it. This is a system for managing connections to external services. It also adds a Connectors screen where site owners can configure AI providers in one place. Once configured, those connections are available across plugins without needing additional setup.

This makes AI interactions composable across plugins. 

A workflow can span multiple tools, such as retrieving WooCommerce product data and passing it through an AI model to generate descriptions, without custom glue code holding it together. 

For developers, this means no more rebuilding the same integrations. For site owners, it means configuring AI once and using it everywhere.

The MCP Adapter: Connecting to external AI tools

MCP is an open standard for how AI assistants communicate with external tools. The WordPress MCP Adapter implements that protocol for WordPress, exposing registered abilities as tools that any MCP-compatible client can discover and call.

The adapter ships separately from WordPress core and was available prior to 7.0, but it becomes significantly more useful with the new AI infrastructure in place. 

Once connected, tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini can see what your site can do and trigger actions directly.

This opens up workflows that would have required significant manual work or custom scripting before, such as having to:

• Batch-update hundreds of posts with a single natural language command.
• Find all WooCommerce products with inconsistent attributes and standardize them at scale.
• Query order data to identify top-performing products or spot return trends.

How the pieces fit together

Each component handles a different part of the problem. The Abilities API defines what actions a site can perform. The AI Client connects plugins to AI models. The MCP Adapter exposes those actions to external AI assistants.

Here’s what it might look like in a real workflow:

1. An AI assistant retrieves posts from WordPress.
2. An AI model analyzes the content.
3. The assistant triggers an ability to update the metadata.

Each step uses shared infrastructure. This makes these workflows reusable and composable across the ecosystem rather than locked inside a single plugin.

How this works on WordPress.com

On WordPress.com, this infrastructure is already in place.

Site owners can use the AI Assistant directly in the editor and Media Library to create and rewrite content, adjust layouts, generate images, and more. You can also connect the WordPress site to Claude to analyze content, identify gaps, generate ideas, and push updates back to your site.

For development, WordPress Studio provides a local environment where you can use tools such as Claude Code to build and test plugins, themes, and custom functionality. Telex extends this further, letting you generate blocks and themes from prompts and add them to your site.

The bottom line

The AI infrastructure in WordPress 7.0 is making AI-powered plugins and workflows possible at scale.

The Abilities API and AI Client are at the core of that shift — a shared infrastructure that gives the entire ecosystem something consistent to build on. 

Together, they represent a meaningful step toward creating a world where WordPress doesn’t just support AI workflows but actively enables them.

1. Studio CLI as a standalone npm module
2. phpMyAdmin access

One is for the terminal devotee, the other is for anyone who dreads opening a separate database tool — both are for anyone who’d rather just get building.

Studio CLI on npm

Until now, using Studio meant needing to download the desktop app. That changes today.

If you work primarily in the terminal — whether you’re a Linux user or just prefer to keep your hands on the keyboard — you can now install Studio directly via npm and skip the GUI entirely.

The CLI fits naturally in automated test runs, deployment scripts, and AI coding agent workflows — anywhere you’re already working in the terminal and spinning up a WordPress site by hand would slow you down.

How to install

If you already have the Studio desktop app installed, the CLI is already available — just enable Studio CLI for terminal under Preferences. 

If you want to install the CLI as a standalone tool, simply run npm install -g wp-studio. Alternatively, if you just want to run it once without installing the command, run npx wp-studio.

From there, you can authenticate with WordPress.com, create and manage local sites, preview in the browser, and run WP-CLI commands. Sync with WordPress.com and Pressable, import, export, and more are on the way.

The CLI and the desktop app are companions, not competitors: you can switch between them freely and they stay in sync. And don’t worry: the desktop app isn’t going anywhere.

phpMyAdmin access

On the desktop side, Studio now includes phpMyAdmin access directly from the Overview tab, giving you a visual interface to manage your site’s database. 

Inspecting or editing your local database used to mean reaching for a separate tool and going through a setup you’d rather not bother with. Now you can start querying tables, checking data, and debugging schema issues in just one click.

More ways to build locally

These two updates push Studio further in the same direction: less friction between
you and building on WordPress. 

The CLI removes the GUI as a requirement, and phpMyAdmin removes the need to leave the app when you need to get into your database.

If you haven’t tried WordPress Studio yet, this is a good time to start.

Questions or feedback? We’re in GitHub — open an issue to share feedback, bugs, and feature requests.

Plugins are now available on all paid WordPress.com plans, starting with Personal. And that’s just the start.

Everything that’s now included

From now on, users on each paid WordPress.com plan can explore:

• Plugins: Access 50,000+ plugins from the WordPress Plugin Directory and extend your site with new features whenever you need them.

• Global Styles: Control your site’s fonts, colors, spacing, and visual design across every page at once. 

• Font uploads: Upload your own fonts, including Google Fonts, and make your site look exactly the way you want it to.

• Custom CSS: Write your own CSS and customize your site at the code level.

Together, these tools give you professional-grade design control and the full power of the WordPress ecosystem.

What this unlocks for WordPress.com users

Site owners can now build and fully customize their sites from day one. Whatever functionality you might need to achieve your goals, you’ll find it built in.

First, make your site look and feel more like your brand. Control fonts, spacing, and layout across the whole site, or go deeper with CSS if you need something specific.

Then, start attracting more visitors and leads with plugins that add forms, bookings, and pop-ups, improve SEO, deepen analytics, and integrate with other tools.

From here, keep adding new features as you grow.

Existing customers are already in

If you’re on a current paid WordPress.com plan, there’s nothing to activate or upgrade. These features are already available on your account. 

Head to the Plugins section of your dashboard and start exploring.

Already on Business or Commerce plans? You keep getting more value

You’ve always had access to the full stack — and that hasn’t changed. Business and Commerce plans include everything offered in Personal and Premium while still giving you more control, performance, and scale.

Here’s what sets your plan apart:

• Advanced SEO tools: Go beyond basic plugins with built-in SEO features and deeper insights.

• Free priority 24/7 support: Talk to a WordPress expert right away when something breaks, or you need advice.

• Staging and developer tools: Test changes before going live and manage your site directly with SFTP/SSH, WP-CLI, and GitHub.

• Eight times more storage and VideoPress: Host large media libraries and video without worrying about limits.

• Automated backups and uptime monitoring: Feel secure with built-in fallbacks that include daily backups, one-click restores, and continuous monitoring.

The Commerce plan also gives you more control over your store, with 0% transaction fees on standard payments and advanced e-commerce features fully baked in, so you don’t overpay for them.

The bottom line: The platform just got more inclusive. Your plan is still the most powerful one we offer.

Choose your path to growth with WordPress.com

You now have real design control, the full plugin ecosystem, and the flexibility to keep adding features as your site grows. 

Whether you’re just starting out or overhauling your site, everything you need is already there.

Social media strategy, CRM automation, brand positioning, WordPress sites — they do it all.

They’re now the first Automattic partners in Latin America and the first in Brazil.

Being an Automattic for Agencies partner allows us to deliver not just websites, but solid digital foundations for our clients. WordPress.com gives us the reliability and structure we need to build long-term digital ecosystems, not just isolated online presences.

Your website is your home. Social media is just a rental.

Julia spends a lot of time convincing clients to invest in their websites. Not because it’s a hard sell, but because the alternative is riskier than most people realize.

When you have a website, you have a strategy. It’s the start of your digital ecosystem.

She’s seen it play out firsthand. A client in Brazil was running her entire business through WhatsApp — no website, just a link in her Instagram bio. Then WhatsApp blocked her account. Everything she’d built there was gone overnight.

She lost everything that she had inside WhatsApp. After that, she finally understood why we told her to build a data center — to capture information about her followers. Because numbers are not clients.

Social media platforms are rented space. You build on someone else’s land, under someone else’s rules. A website is the one digital asset you actually own — and the foundation everything else should grow from.

You need to prepare your home before the visitors come.

WordPress.com is non-negotiable

Julia doesn’t leave hosting up to clients. Every contract Consultings Company signs requires WordPress.com.

Every client that we have — in our contracts, we say that we only build on WordPress.com, because we trust it.

That’s not a hard line for its own sake. It’s how she guarantees the work holds up. 

WordPress.com gives her clients the security, support, and stability that make a website worth building in the first place. And as an official Automattic partner, it’s a platform she’s willing to put her name behind with every client she takes on.

Building for people who need it most — with Telex

At a WordPress event in Rio de Janeiro, Consultings Company entered a competition and built an accessibility tool for people who are blind or hearing-impaired.

The most curious part: they did it using Telex, entirely through prompts.

They won.

If you are programming these parts, it’s so hard. And Telex did it just with a prompt.

It’s a good example of what the platform makes possible: not just faster development, but work that would have been out of reach before.

Better tools, same human instinct

Julia uses AI tools across her work — but she’s also watching what’s happening to content because of them.

Two years ago, the trend was using everything with AI. Now, when you do something handmade, it’s more valuable. It’s not an AI thinking — it’s your idea, your way to express.

For her clients, that means the strategy behind the content matters more than ever. Anyone can generate a post. Not everyone can build a presence that connects and sticks.

That’s the work Consultings Company does — and why the website, not the feed, is always where it starts. WordPress.com is the platform they trust to make it last.

Based on conversations with WordPress experts, a few clear shifts are already shaping how sites are built: from websites behaving more like apps to AI speeding up site creation.

To understand the WordPress design trends shaping 2026, we spoke with Allan Cole from the WordPress.com Special Projects design team, Pablo Moratinos, a WordPress.com brand ambassador, and other WordPress design experts.

1. WordPress development is moving from coding to prompting

Building a website feature used to mean opening a blank code file. Now it starts with a sentence.

AI tools generate working components, plugins, and themes — dramatically cutting setup time. Describe what you need, get a functional starting point fast, and iterate from there.

For example, Telex generates native WordPress blocks from prompts. Describe the block, refine it, download it as a plugin, and install it on your site.

As Cole puts it, “It’s great for merging design thinking with content.”

You can also go further with full plugin and theme builds. 

For instance, Claude Code paired with WordPress Studio lets you generate a plugin from a prompt in plain language — no deep technical knowledge required.

When the cost and complexity of building drops, more people can participate — and that’s where the most unexpected work comes from. The builders who combine these new tools with genuine taste and judgment are the ones who will stand out.

2. WordPress websites now behave like web apps

Most websites still work the old way: Click a link, wait for the whole page to reload. The WordPress Interactivity API changes that. 

It’s a native framework that lets blocks update and communicate dynamically. So only the relevant content refreshes, not the entire page, and browsing feels instant.

The result is, as Allan Cole states, “It allows WordPress to really feel like an app in a way that I don’t think was expected before.” 

For example, you can build interactive elements like tabs, accordions, or task lists that update instantly without reloading the page. This collection of demos shows what’s possible in practice.

This shift shows up in a few practical ways:

• Client-side navigation: You’ll just get content updates rather than the whole page.
• Shared state: Elements such as carts and filters update instantly across the site.
• Non-blocking interactions: Users can keep browsing while content loads.

For businesses, this means lower bounce rates, better checkout experiences, and app-like UX without the expense of custom development.

3. The block editor has grown up — and agencies are noticing

Before Gutenberg, agencies depended on third-party page builders to get flexible layouts without writing code. They worked, but they added complexity, dependencies, and maintenance overhead.

That’s changed. As Cole puts it:

What’s new now is that it’s mature and that you can be much more confident building with the block editor than you were in the past.

For WordPress design agencies, the practical gains are real:

• You’ll get reusable patterns for faster building.
• Locked layouts protect the structure while allowing clients to edit content.
• It includes native typography and layout controls without custom CSS workarounds.

What used to require custom code now lives in the editor. As Cole says, project timelines will keep getting a lot shorter.

4. Design systems are becoming standard in WordPress workflows

Traditionally, designers created layouts individually and developers manually recreated styles in code. This process often led to inconsistencies and became harder to maintain as sites grew.

Modern WordPress design solves this by letting teams define colors, typography, spacing, and layout rules once, then reuse them everywhere. 

In practice, this means setting up your design system in Figma, then exporting those decisions directly into a block theme’s theme.json file. When you open the editor, everything is already there.

As Cole puts it:

All the colors, the fonts, the sizing and spacing units — all those little subtle decisions you made in Figma are right there in the editor.

5. Getting started has never been easier — but the expertise and vision still matter

AI hasn’t replaced the need for good design. It’s removed the friction that used to stop people from trying. 

The gap between having an idea and having something real to react to has collapsed.

For example, WordPress.com’s AI website builder generates a full working site from a single prompt. And the AI Assistant, built into the editor, helps with content and keeps your site’s voice consistent. 

At the same time, WordPress.com’s Claude connector lets you ask questions about your site, dig into analytics, and get answers without leaving your workflow.

But what’s changed isn’t just how sites get built — it’s how clients show up. They now arrive with AI-generated references, stronger opinions, and ideas already half-formed. 

The conversation has shifted from “here’s a brief” to “here’s what I’ve built — now help me take it further.”

As Ajit Bohra, Founder and CEO of LUBUS, a full-service web agency based in India and a WordPress.com user, puts it:

AI is great at helping people get a kickstart and validate their idea — they try it, realize this is something I have in my mind, and now I need a human to take this forward. When the client comes to us, they already have something built. We now have a base idea of what we’re working with.

The best results still come from humans who know what they want — AI just makes it faster to get there.

6. Owned media is a top focus (again)

The explosion of AI-generated content online has made it harder to establish trust and credibility. As social platforms become less reliable for reach and discovery, businesses are rediscovering the importance of owning their websites, audiences, and data.

As Pablo Moratinos says,

You can’t build your house on rented land.

This shift shows up in a few ways:

• Email subscribers are more valuable than follower counts.
• Organic traffic to owned domains is a priority.
• First-party data replaces dependence on platform algorithms.

In other words, websites are more than a marketing channel: They are the central hub for brand authority and audience relationships. 

For designers and agencies, this defines what a successful website looks like. Sites need to be built with ownership in mind from the start: newsletter signups that convert, content that drives organic traffic, and experiences that bring people back. 

WordPress website design in 2026: Next steps

The biggest opportunity now isn’t chasing every new trend. It’s adopting the workflows and tools that make sites faster, easier to design, and built to last.

A few practical places to start:

• Build with block themes and design systems so your layouts are consistent, reusable, and easy to hand off.

• Use AI to move faster on content, layouts, and prototypes — but keep your design judgment in the driver’s seat.

• Design for ownership from the start: Sites that convert visitors into subscribers and bring them back.

• Lean into interactivity and smooth experiences, because how a site feels is now as important as how it looks.

The agencies and designers who will stand out aren’t the ones using every new tool. They’re the ones who know which tools make their work sharper, and which decisions only a human can make.

Welcome to the WordPress.com changelog!

We’re always working on making WordPress.com better for you — new tools, fixes, little things you might not notice but will definitely feel. We want to keep you in the loop. Every couple of weeks, we’ll share what’s changed and why it matters for your site or business.

In this edition, we’ll cover how you can now let AI agents create and manage content on your site, how to have more control over how newsletters are sent, and more.

Let’s dive in:

AI

Ask AI to handle the busywork and management on your site

You can now connect AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor to do more on your site — like drafting blog posts, updating image descriptions, organizing tags, or replying to comments.

Instead of clicking through your dashboard, just ask. Get Claude or ChatGPT to work for you by asking things like:

• “I just finished writing this post. Publish it as a draft, categorize it as ‘Travel,’ add relevant tags, and write me a meta description under 160 characters.”
• “Update my About page to show our winter hours and add a notice that we’re closed December 24-25.”
• “Find all images in my media library that are missing alt text and suggest some based on the filename or attachment context.”

And most importantly: you stay in control. New posts default to drafts, deletions are recoverable for 30 days, and every action is logged. You choose exactly what AI can and can’t touch.

These features are now available on all paid WordPress.com plans. Enable them at wordpress.com/me/mcp, and check out the full announcement post for more information and example prompts you can start with today.

Newsletters

Set your newsletter send default once, not with every post

You can now set a site-wide default for whether new posts are sent to your email subscribers. 

Head to Jetpack → Newsletter or Jetpack –> Settings –> Newsletter and toggle “Email new posts to subscribers by default” on or off. When it’s on, the editor defaults to sending new posts as email. Flip it on per post if you need to make exceptions.

Previously, there was no way to set this globally — you had to change the send setting manually every time you wrote a post.

As a reminder, Newsletter is a feature included on all WordPress.com sites, enabling you to send your new posts via email to subscribers without needing to use a separate tool.

Payments

WordPress.com now accepts UPI for customers in India

If you’re based in India, you can now pay for WordPress.com plans and products using UPI. No credit card needed — just pay directly from your bank account using any UPI app you already use, like Google Pay, PhonePe, or Paytm.

Editor

Editor bringing small-but-powerful updates

The editor was updated across all WordPress.com sites. Notable updates:

• You can now manage your site logo and icon from a dedicated screen in the Design panel.

• You can preview button states — like hover, focus, and active — under Appearance → Editor → Styles → Blocks → Buttons.

• You’ll now see a ⌘K (on Mac) or Ctrl+K (on Windows/Linux) button in the WordPress admin bar. Clicking it launches the Command Palette, which offers you a way to quickly navigate and manage your site.

Themes

Our theme showcase gets a new look

Check out the newly designed wordpress.com/themes page! It now features a cleaner layout and a more modern feel — making it easier to browse the thousands of free and premium themes we have available for you.

Fixes and improvements

We also shipped a handful of bug fixes and quality improvements across WordPress.com, including: 

• Fixing featured images in the Reader being heavily cropped when viewing a full post — images now display at their natural proportions instead of being squeezed and resized.
• Fixing videos in Reader posts that were showing as an unplayable bar — they now display with playback controls and at the correct dimensions.
• Pressing the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard now allows you to navigate between posts in the Reader, alongside the existing J and K keyboard shortcuts.
• Fixing the subscriber count chart, which was making small fluctuations in subscriber numbers look much more dramatic than they are. It’s now easier to spot and understand trends at a glance.
• Fixing several bugs where domain purchases weren’t showing up correctly in your cart — including an issue where multi-year registration prices showed the wrong total before checkout.

Then, in January 2024, she picked up her phone and started posting on TikTok.

I couldn’t contain my emotions, and out it came. I immediately found a community.

A year later, she had over 100,000 followers. Not bad for someone who describes her setup as “me and my phone.”

Barbara posts as Buzziebeeteacher — a nickname that’s followed her since her days as a bass player, a daycare teacher, and eventually a high school English teacher in Pennsylvania. 

Her content started as political commentary and evolved into satire. She’s funny, sharp, and completely herself on camera.

What she learned about growing on social media

A year in, 100,000 followers, and Barbara has figured out what works. A few things she’d tell anyone starting out:

• Watch before you commit. See what’s working for creators you admire, then start experimenting.

• Don’t obsess over quality early on. Be consistent first. The quality will follow.

•  Always tag your content with your name from day one. Barbara learned the hard way that untagged videos can be used by others — and monetized — without your knowledge.

• Pick a posting cadence you can actually maintain: starting at three videos a week makes it hard to drop to two without the algorithm penalizing you.

You’ve got to have tenacity like a bulldog hanging on to the mailman’s pant leg.

Why WordPress.com

Barbara had a WordPress.com account from years ago, set up after she retired from teaching. Life got in the way, and she forgot about it.

When TikTok took off, she came back.

She needed a place to send her followers. Somewhere she owned, where she could sell her books and build something more permanent than a social media profile.

TikTok could disappear tomorrow. Her website won’t. And having her own branded .com domain — buzziebeeteacher.com — was a big part of that.

TikTok has my whole portfolio at any moment. But my name — that’s my brand. What more can I say?

Barbara started building the site herself using the AI website builder, then discovered she could schedule a call with the WordPress.com team to get help.

I knew what I wanted, and you guys polished it off. It’s been great. If you’re thinking about buying WordPress, buy Premium — because you can schedule help at your convenience. It’s the greatest thing since soap.

What the website does today

buzziebeeteacher.com is Barbara’s hub — a place for her books, her music, her bio, and her social links. It’s where TikTok followers who want to go deeper can land.

The domain was a big deal for her. It gave her brand a proper home.

That’s like MickeyMouse.com. It’s right there. It’s not going anywhere.

She’s got more plans, too. A finished cookbook written in calligraphy she wants to digitize and publish, a kids’ book, music, and videos on the site.

Your story deserves a home, too

Barbara built an audience of 100,000+ people on a platform she doesn’t control. Her website is the one place that’s truly hers.

WordPress.com gave her the domain, the platform, and the team to help her pull it together. She brought the personality and the plan.

The rest? Still being written.

We’re talking per-platform post customization, a rebuilt preview modal, improved AI image generation, and more control over what goes live and when.

Here’s everything that’s new:

Let’s explore each update in detail.

Customize your content for each social media platform

You can now customize the message, image, and formatting separately for each social platform — all from the editor sidebar before you publish.

This way, your content fits the audience and format of each social media network, instead of being a one-size-fits-all compromise.

A detailed caption for LinkedIn, something shorter for X, a different image for Facebook — adjust your approach on the go.

Generate AI-powered images for your social posts

You can create more engaging images for your social posts directly in the editor using Jetpack AI. 

Type a description, pick a style, and generate something that fits your post and your brand. 

The template-based Social Image Generator is still available, too. Both options now sit alongside your media picker in a single panel.

Work with a cleaner, more intuitive sharing panel

The editor sidebar got a cleanup, too. The media picker, image templates, and AI generation now live in one unified section. 

It takes fewer clicks to configure your post, the layout is cleaner, and visual dot indicators on active connections show you which accounts are enabled at a glance.

Preview your posts before they go out

The link preview modal has been completely rebuilt. It now shows you an accurate rendering of how your post will appear on each social network before anything goes out, with improved accessibility throughout.

A few things worth highlighting:

• Threads and Tumblr previews now render accurately, including gallery posts and custom messages.
• The modal is shared with Jetpack SEO, so you can preview your post for both social networks and search engines in one place.

Review what’s going out before you hit publish

Jetpack Social now gives you an optional confirmation screen before you hit publish. 

It shows you exactly what’s heading to each platform so you can check the message, image, and formatting. 

You can turn it off anytime if you prefer a faster workflow.

Check your sharing history and scheduled posts in one view

Your sharing activity and scheduled posts now live together in a single view. See what went out, what’s coming up, and when, without jumping between screens.

Try the new Jetpack Social experience

All of these improvements are already available for you to explore.

If you’re on a WordPress.com paid plan, you already have access. If you haven’t tried Jetpack Social yet, there’s never been a better time to start.