Every WordPress management tool advertises a low number, and every one of those numbers is per something: per site, per add-on, per seat, per year. Agencies rarely get burned by the headline price. They get burned by the moment they add a fifth add-on and the sum quietly doubles.
So here is the arithmetic at 25, 50 and 100 sites, using the public pricing pages as I read them. Where a figure needs an assumption, I state it, so you can swap in your own. (Updated October 2026: ManageWP raised its add-on prices, so the ManageWP figures below were recalculated from the live pricing page.)
The ground rules
Comparing these four is awkward because they are not the same shape of product. ManageWP sells a free core plus per-site add-ons and a bundle. MainWP is a self-hosted dashboard with a flat licence. WP Umbrella charges one per-site rate. WPMU DEV sells a plugin-and-hosting suite licensed by site count.
To keep it fair, I priced the things a care-plan agency actually needs: offsite backups, uptime monitoring, vulnerability scanning, and white-label client reports. Anything I could not confirm on the page is left out rather than guessed.
ManageWP: cheap to start, and a bundle that gets cheaper as you grow
ManageWP's core plan is free for unlimited sites, and it includes monthly cloud backups, client reports and one-click updates. The paid part is per-site add-ons: Backups at $2.75/month per site, Uptime Monitor at $1.25, Vulnerability Protection at $2, Advanced Client Reports at $1.25 and White Label at $1.25 (pricing page, checked October 2026, ManageWP pricing).
Those five add-ons come to $8.50 per site per month ($2.75 + $1.25 + $2 + $1.25 + $1.25). That is $212.50 for 25 sites, $425 for 50 and $850 for 100. But the same page lists an all-in-one bundle at $150/month covering the premium tools for up to 100 websites, offered to agencies with over 25 websites (pricing page, checked October 2026). So at exactly 25 sites you are on the à la carte total; from 26 sites up the bundle is available, and at 50 or 100 sites it is hard to argue with. Bundles stack beyond 100.
If raw price per managed site is your only criterion, ManageWP's bundle is the number to beat. I would not pretend otherwise.
MainWP: the flat licence, plus a server you now own
MainWP's dashboard is self-hosted and open source. The free Essentials tier lists unlimited sites, and MainWP Pro is $29/month or $199/year, also for unlimited sites (pricing page, checked October 2026, MainWP pricing). At $199/year that works out to about $16.58 a month, whether you manage 25 sites or 250.
Nothing else here scales that flat. The catch is not on the pricing page: you run the dashboard on your own WordPress install, which means hosting, updates to the dashboard itself, and being the person paged when it breaks. If you already enjoy that job, MainWP is excellent value.
WP Umbrella: one rate, easy sums
WP Umbrella lists a single base rate of €1.99 per site per month (about $2.19 in USD on the page), with backups, vulnerability monitoring, uptime, performance monitoring and white-label reports included (pricing page, checked October 2026, WP Umbrella pricing). The page also shows the multiplication: €49.75 for 25 sites, €99.50 for 50 and €199 for 100.
Two things worth noting. Prepaying a year earns a 10% discount, per the same page. And the firewall, malware scanning and activity logging sit in a separate Security add-on at €2 per site per month, so if you want those, the effective rate roughly doubles. The clarity of the pricing is a real advantage: you can forecast it on a napkin.
WPMU DEV: a different product wearing a similar price tag
WPMU DEV's plans are licensed by site count and include its whole plugin suite, with hosting credit, white-label billing and reseller tools. The Plus plan covers 10 sites at $50/month billed annually ($600/year regular price), and Premium covers an unlimited site licence at $100/month billed annually ($1,200/year regular price) (pricing page, checked October 2026, WPMU DEV pricing).
For 25, 50 or 100 sites you land on Premium, so it is $1,200 a year at every size. Whether that is good value depends on how many of its plugins you would otherwise buy separately. If you want one vendor for everything, it competes. If you only want a management dashboard, you are paying for a lot of shelf.
The numbers side by side
All figures are monthly list prices, using the assumptions above:
- 25 sites: ManageWP $212.50 (five add-ons, à la carte); MainWP Pro about $16.58; WP Umbrella €49.75; WPMU DEV Premium $100.
- 50 sites: ManageWP $150 (bundle); MainWP Pro about $16.58; WP Umbrella €99.50; WPMU DEV Premium $100.
- 100 sites: ManageWP $150 (bundle); MainWP Pro about $16.58; WP Umbrella €199; WPMU DEV Premium $100.
(pricing pages, checked October 2026: ManageWP, MainWP, WP Umbrella, WPMU DEV)
Per-site models lose as counts rise; flat models win. If your portfolio is heading past 50 sites, the per-site pricing math is worth doing before you commit to a rate that multiplies with growth.
Where WPClientHub sits
WPClientHub is free for 3 sites, with paid plans from $19/month. I am deliberately not putting a 25, 50 or 100 site figure in the list above, because I would rather show you the floor than a number I cannot back up on a public page here. What I will say is that client billing through Stripe carries a 0% platform fee on paid plans, and that the help desk, backups on the client's own server plus your own offsite storage, and branded PDF reports are part of the product rather than add-ons you assemble.
What price does not capture
A list of monthly fees leaves out the costs that actually decide it. Time spent restoring a botched update. The dashboard you host yourself. The add-on you forgot to enable on the one site that got hacked. Whatever you choose, price the tool against the care plan it supports: if a site pays you a monthly fee, the tool should cost a small, predictable fraction of that.
Where this leaves you
Pick on shape before price. If you want the lowest flat cost and are happy to self-host, MainWP. If you want the cheapest all-in bundle around 100 sites, ManageWP. If you want simple per-site arithmetic, WP Umbrella. If you want client-facing support and billing in the same place, that is where we try to earn a look. WPClientHub is free for 3 sites if you want to try this on a real client site: start here.