Matt Mullenweg cited a Reddit thread on X to promote the idea that WP Engine makes it difficult to cancel accounts. Turns out that his own hosting company does the exact same thing.
“Money Grab” Post By Redditor
Someone posted that they cancelled a WP Engine account on Friday December 6th. They subsequently learned that WP Engine has a 30 day advance notice cancellation policy so they called customer service and was assured they wouldn’t be charged, despite not giving 30 days advance notice.
They wrote:
“On Dec 6th, I cancelled my WPEngine service that I’ve had since 2015. …That’s when I discovered that WPEngine requires 30 days notice to cancel. An obvious money-grab. A user should be able to cancel a single-site hosting environment instantly with one click of a button. In fact, this will be the law soon, created because of unscrupulous cancellation tactics like this.
WPEngine support informed me that my site would be cancelled on Jan 3rd. …Surprise, surprise… it’s Jan 5th. My account hasn’t been cancelled, and I was charged $300 today for another year of service.”
Hours after starting the Reddit post to complain about WP Engine they updated it to say that WP Engine had refunded their money.
They posted:
“UPDATE: WP Engine support got back to me, cancelled the account today, and initiated a refund that’ll take up to 10 business days.”
Mullenweg Dumps On WP Engine
Mullenweg posted on X to compare WP Engine to an unscrupulous gym, accompanying his post with a screenshot of the Reddit post:
“One way @wpengine juices its profits at the expense of its customers is by making it hard to export or cancel your plan, like one of those bad gyms.”
He followed that up with another post touting that WordPress.com has a flexible cancellation policy:
“The WordPress philosophy is to make it easy for people to leave, so they’re more likely to stay. Give freedom and choice.”
But the reality is that WordPress.com’s cancellation policy also requires 30 day advanced notice:
“You must cancel at least one month before the scheduled end date of any annual subscription…”