Coming Soon: Make Your Site Private Until You’re Ready to Launch
Keep your site private — hidden from the world’s view — until you’re ready to launch it.
When you create a new site, you may want to personalize it before making it public. On WordPress.com, we give you a safe space where you can work on building and editing your site until you’re ready to share it with the world.
Until recently, this Coming Soon mode was limited to new sites without plugins or custom themes installed. We realize, however, that many users — regardless of how long they’ve had a website on WordPress.com — might want to make updates, change the design, or add new functionality without making these changes visible to the public until they’re complete. Now, all sites have this Coming Soon option, and you can toggle it on or off as you wish.
To set your site to Coming Soon, go to Manage in the sidebar, select Settings, scroll down to Privacy, and select the Coming Soon button. Be sure to click on Save settings for the change to take effect.
While in this mode, site visitors will see a landing page with your site’s title. You and other logged-in people that you invite will see the full website.
Logged-out view 
Logged-in view
To invite people to view your site while in Coming Soon mode, add them as new users from the Manage → People → Invite button. Users will need to at least be a Contributor to view the site in this mode.
To make your site public again, go to Manage in the sidebar, select Settings, scroll down to Privacy, and select the Public button. Again, be sure to click on Save settings.
Private sites for all
If instead of sharing your site with everyone, you want to keep it private, and only available to invited members of the site — for instance, a private blog for your family, made up of photos and videos of your children or pets — you can use the Private option under Manage → Settings → Privacy.
In this mode, instead of the Coming Soon landing page, logged-out visitors will see a more discreet prompt to log in.
No matter what you want to do on your site — whether making a few tweaks, refreshing your site design, or building a fully fledged online store — use the Coming Soon feature to keep it private until you’re ready to unveil it to the world.
We hope you enjoy this new feature!
- May 15, 2020
- Features, New Features, WordPress.com
WordPress.com News 
Fantastic thank you for your support!
LikeLiked by 11 people
This was great. I hope you share more WordPress tips with us. Very helpful.
LikeLiked by 10 people
Good info. Thanks!
LikeLiked by 10 people
Hi, when will this new feature be available?
LikeLiked by 3 people
It’s now available on all WordPress.com sites! While logged into your account, go to Manage in the sidebar, select Settings, scroll down to Privacy, and select the Coming Soon button. Be sure to click on Save settings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wish I had this when I was starting out haha!
LikeLiked by 15 people
Cool 😎
LikeLiked by 10 people
This is so cool! I wish I had it when I was a young blogger starting out but I’m sure that it will make this blogging experience 10x better for the new and incoming bloggers.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sharing your personal experiences with other people is always a good practice, which you could find, for whom this could be really useful. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLiked by 3 people
That was a good tip.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I just opened a new website with WP and accidentally noticed this feature. Good!!!
LikeLiked by 4 people
That’s very helpful for us!
Thanks 🙌
LikeLiked by 4 people
This is a great idea.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Look forward to using it
LikeLiked by 2 people
That feature used to be overdue for the longest time, from the very first day, if you asked me. I’m glad it finally made it to get to see the daylight!
It’s nice to see that – as expensive it might be – WordPress.com is constantly further developed 🙂
Kind, regards, René
LikeLiked by 3 people
I am new comer on wordpress, still confused to use this site and blog both together. Still thank you for information.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Thank you for this useful wordpress tip.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Thanks for the WP tip – a refresher is always useful.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Great feature
LikeLiked by 5 people
Great!
LikeLiked by 4 people
That is very good. Certainly makes it possible to build a site and not worry about people seeing it before it’s launched.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Great Move!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Awesome 👏
LikeLiked by 4 people
great feature, thank you! 🙂
Are you also planning to make a “private” option available for non-logged-in users? E.g. for a family blog, but readers do not have to have an own wordpress account?
LikeLiked by 5 people
This is indeed something we’re looking into adding.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Thank you, I am really looking forward to this! 🤩
LikeLiked by 5 people
Do we need to first create the content and then launch the website!
LikeLiked by 5 people
No, you can create/add your content and build your site in private and “behind the scenes” first.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks @cherilucas
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thank you!
LikeLiked by 5 people
This is a great information
Thanks
LikeLiked by 3 people
Very informative. Thanks
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, it was really very helpful.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Perfect timing.
LikeLiked by 3 people