Paid plugin

@t_ed

Akismet is still free for sites that are eligible and our paid plans have been in place for nearly a decade, so nothing has changed.

– https://docs.akismet.com/getting-started/free-or-paid/

Free keys are for personal, non-commercial sites only – no exceptions. If your site has advertising, selling products or services, affiliate links, or is in any way related to a business, non-profit, or educational organization – you’re required to have a paid plan for each site. Per our documentation and Terms of Service, we can suspend sites for noncompliance of those terms.

– https://akismet.com/tos/

I hope that clarifies things.

You force non-profits and educational organizations to pay?
I have always removed Akismet since I started doing WP sites in 2010, but I was actually considering using it now for a non-profit. I never imagined you would charge a non profit. So, I’ll be back to my old habit of deleting it.

And for the record, I agree that it should NOT be bundled with WP because there are now many other solutions to control spam.

@mariedi

You force non-profits and educational organizations to pay?

While we ask non-profits and educational organizations to pay for Akismet, we waive the API key limits under their plan if they let us know of their non-profit or educational status. We don’t force anything and rely on our users to select the proper plan for their site.

Waiving the API key limits means if they are a large organization that gets a lot of comments or contact form submissions or if they actively receive targeted spam attacks, we never ask those organizations upgrade to a higher plan level based on their usage like we would for another type of business or commercial site. We’ve also worked with organizations to give them a free Akismet plan in exchange for displaying our logo and link to our site on their website. Fighting spam isn’t free, which is why we have paid plans for sites that aren’t considered personal, but we’re always willing to have a conversation with non-profits.

I hope that clarifies things!

It certainly does clarify that small non profits are at a loss here. But hey, it’s your business.

It certainly does clarify that small non profits are at a loss here.

Not at all, which is why we’re always willing to have conversations with non-profits. If you reconsider your own use of Akismet for your non-profit projects, feel free to reach out to us at https://akismet.com/contact and we’ll be happy to have a chat.