While the WordPress software is free, the company responsible for the primary distribution of the software is Automattic. Established by Matt Mullenweg, the original developer of WordPress, Automattic has several other products that have premium services that serve as their primary means of income.

You may recognize some of them, such as Akismet (a spam filtering service), WordPress.com (their hosting option for WordPress sites) or Gravatar (which allows an avatar and login of your choice across unrelated websites).

More importantly, Automattic also owns WooCommerce, one of the most popular e-commerce plugins. WooCommerce, along with its premium themes and extensions, can financially support the distribution of the open-source software it’s built on, which is how WordPress makes money.