Managing multiple WordPress sites can quickly turn into a juggling act. From software updates to plugin maintenance and daily tasks, keeping everything running smoothly takes time, unless you have the right tools.
In this guide, we’ll show you better ways to manage all your sites from one place, whether you’re running your own portfolio or looking after client projects.
Who needs to manage multiple WordPress sites?
It’s often professional web developers and agencies who manage multiple sites; however, it’s not uncommon for individual site owners to have more than one website.
For example, you might have a professional site (such as a freelance portfolio), a blog about a hobby (like food, travel, or fitness), and a site for sharing photos and keeping your friends and family updated on your travels.
Once your friends and family discover you’re good at creating sites, you might even be asked to make a few more for them.
While launching a new site can be relatively quick and painless, keeping them all running smoothly can be time-consuming: logins for the different accounts need to be remembered, domains will renew at different times, downtime needs monitoring, and plugins require updating.
And if the sites are hosted by different companies, managing multiple accounts, accessing various dashboards, keeping track of billing cycles, and adjusting to different levels of support and customer experience will be necessary.
All of the above can quickly lead to overwhelm…but there’s a better way.
If you’ve found yourself responsible for more than one website (professional sites or sites you’ve built for fun), this guide will show you how to manage multiple WordPress sites like a pro.
Benefits of using a tool or service to manage multiple WordPress sites
No matter where your WordPress sites are hosted, you don’t have to juggle them all manually.
There are several benefits to using an effective tool or service for managing multiple sites in one place. You can:
- Access all of the sites you’re managing from one place.
- Manage plugins in bulk without having to log into each site individually.
- Create additional new sites from a central location.
- Manage other features and functionalities such as backups, user access, security, email accounts, and domain registration centrally.
- Have one point of support for things like billing and licenses.
- Use client-focused features for multi-site management, including discounted pricing, referral commissions, and site migrations.
As you’ll see, not all options for managing multiple WordPress sites include the above benefits, but some provide more than others.
How to manage multiple WordPress sites
When it comes to managing multiple WordPress sites, there are a few different options to consider, including:
WordPress plugins and tools
If you want to centralize your site management without changing hosts, plugins, and third-party tools are an option. Several plugins and tools aim to help you handle your sites more efficiently, including Jetpack Manage, ManageWP, and InfiniteWP.
They’re available at a range of price points, and once set up, they give you the ability to add multiple sites to a centralized management dashboard.
From there, you can access your sites’ dashboards, update plugins, and manage backups. Some solutions have other helpful features like scanning for malware, monitoring uptime, and generating reports.
While these solutions can be rich in features, the setup process can be time-consuming and complicated for those new to managing multiple WordPress sites. They can also be relatively expensive if you want access to the most advanced or useful features.
Another drawback of these plugins and tools is that they don’t include hosting for your WordPress site—instead, they’re solutions used alongside your hosting package and domain registration provider.
So while these solutions can make it easier to manage your sites, you’re adding another service or product to your workflow.
WordPress Multisite
You can also use the native WordPress Multisite feature to manage multiple WordPress sites.
WordPress Multisite allows you to create a network of WordPress sites, all from a single installation of WordPress. The sites are created and managed from the same WordPress dashboard and share the same file system, database, and server resources.
One benefit of this shared approach is that updates to the WordPress software, themes, and plugins can be carried out once through a single dashboard, rather than on a site-by-site basis.
However, as all of the sites in the network use the same database, keeping them completely separate is challenging.
For example, removing a site from the network, such as transferring it to a client or different owner, wouldn’t be straightforward, as its content is stored in the central database. Keeping site database backups separate wouldn’t be possible either. If the database is damaged, all sites in the network could potentially go offline.
Because all sites in a Multisite network share the same server resources, a traffic spike on one site could slow down the others. Not only that, some WordPress plugins aren’t compatible with Multisite, limiting your options for adding new features to your site.
Multisite isn’t available on WordPress.com, and other hosting providers also have restrictions on its use. If you do want to use Multisite to manage your sites, check whether your hosting provider supports it.
Hosting dashboards and tools
It’s worth checking which site management features your web host provides out of the box or as an add-on.
Sometimes they’ll have a user-friendly dashboard that simplifies managing multiple WordPress sites, plus other tools like bulk plugin management and domain registration.
To take advantage of hosting dashboards and tools, you’ll need to ensure that all your sites are hosted by the same company, usually under the same account. Otherwise, you’ll still be juggling multiple accounts, each with its own ways of doing things.
Furthermore, if you’re purchasing premium plugins, email, or domain registrations for your WordPress sites, you may need to manage those purchases separately. These “extras” can all add up, increasing the number of providers you have to work with when managing your sites.
If that seems overwhelming, you’re in luck because WordPress.com provides a feature-rich and easy-to-use solution.
You can quickly start multiple WordPress sites under one WordPress.com account, and you can manage those sites through the WordPress.com Hosting Dashboard—get there by clicking the blue WordPress.com logo in the top-left corner once you log into your WordPress.com account.
As WordPress.com is a managed host, we handle many of the tasks associated with managing a WordPress website for you, such as WordPress software updates, plugin updates, and security.
You’ll also get a performance-focused hosting environment for each of your sites that uses high-frequency CPUs, global edge caching, a CDN with over 28 international locations, and automatic datacenter failover to keep your site online and accessible. In short, we make sure that your sites are fast, reliable, and secure.
You also get access to premium WordPress themes at no extra cost, priority 24/7 support from experts, and the ability to install plugins and themes on plugin-enabled WordPress.com plans.
If you’re not hosted on WordPress.com, you can easily migrate your sites to take advantage of managing your plugin updates, domains, and emails all from this singular, intuitive dashboard. Otherwise, sites hosted at any host can be managed from the dashboard by connecting them using the Jetpack plugin.
Managing plugin updates with WordPress.com
The Hosting Dashboard also lets you schedule plugin updates (for sites hosted on our Business plan or above).
The system will check for plugin updates at your chosen time and day of the week. It will then start the installation if any updates are found. You can create multiple schedules and choose which sites and plugins they apply to.
We always run a health check prior to making any updates, which assesses your site’s stability. As each plugin is updated individually, a health check is performed after each update to see if everything is functioning as expected.
If a health check fails, the system automatically rolls back the update, preventing downtime from breaking changes, and restores the previous version of the plugin. Should that also fail, the WordPress.com support staff will be notified to investigate the issue.
You can also enable email alerts that notify you after a plugin update.
If you’re managing sites that must be online at specific times, such as during business hours, being able to schedule automatic plugin updates outside of these times is very useful. The fact that updates are automatically rolled back if something goes wrong makes this feature even more valuable.
Bulk plugin updates
In addition to enabling scheduled plugin updates, you can update plugins across all of your sites through your WordPress.com Hosting Dashboard.
This feature lets you update, activate, and deactivate the plugins on all of your sites from one central location.
Domain management
Managing all the domains you’ve registered through WordPress.com in one place is another benefit of using the WordPress.com Hosting Dashboard.
WordPress.com is a domain registrar, and thanks to this, we have an intuitive domains area within the Hosting Dashboard where you can purchase, manage, and migrate all of your domains in the same place where you’re managing your sites.
Thanks to this, you have one less service to work with for managing the essential components of your website.
Email accounts
WordPress.com also offers an email service that you can manage independently for each of your sites through the Hosting Dashboard.
In addition to managing the email service through the same account, you can also add a custom, branded email address to your domain.
Automattic for Agencies
While the WordPress.com Hosting Dashboard is great for managing multiple sites, Automattic for Agencies is an option for agencies that offers even more tools and features.
Signing up for the free program gives you access to various benefits to help you and your team manage your agency’s sites more efficiently.
Whether WordPress.com hosts those sites or not, you can manage them through the Automattic for Agencies dashboard.
You can view key information directly from the dashboard, including WordPress and PHP versions and statuses for each of your sites.
You can also check the Jetpack VaultPress Backup and Scan statuses for your sites and access those tools directly from the dashboard. Activity logs for each site and detailed stats and uptime information can be found here, too.
If you want to move client sites to the platform, Automattic for Agencies provides free migrations. You can also earn money when migrating sites from specific hosts, with outstanding hosting fees covered until the contract with that host expires.
Another benefit is the ability to generate income by referring Automattic products and services (like WordPress.com hosting) to their clients. Buying products in bulk from the Marketplace and reselling them to clients is another way to earn money through the program.
For example, when recommending WordPress.com hosting to your clients, you can receive a 20% revenue share on the sale of hosting subscriptions for new sites (and renewals of those subscriptions). There are similar opportunities for recommending Jetpack products and WooCommerce-owned extensions.
Another notable feature is the ability to build a cart of products to recommend to a client. The cart could include a hosting plan, premium plugins, and other Automattic products tailored to the client’s project. The cart of items would be packaged into a single, comprehensive invoice for the client, streamlining the payment experience.
Eligible agencies can also join the partner directory referral program that’s used across all Automattic brands, helping them to land more clients.
Automattic for Agencies is worth considering if you want to reduce the admin involved in managing multiple client sites while getting access to many agency-focused features to make your life easier.
Ready to manage your sites more efficiently?
Managing multiple WordPress sites doesn’t have to mean juggling countless logins, services, and plugins.
Whether you need an all-in-one solution like WordPress.com’s Hosting Dashboard or more advanced tools and revenue opportunities through Automattic for Agencies, you’ve got powerful options.
The right setup lets you spend less time on maintenance and more time building, growing, and launching new sites.
