Looks like it is available for free, but you get a really awkward username. I just enabled it on an old WP.com blog that I have on a free account and while @kelson.wordpress.com@kelson.wordpress.com works (I was able to subscribe to it from both Mastodon and GoToSocial), it's a bit unwieldy.
Is it still paid? According to this article, it looks like all we need to do is turn on the feature in Settings > Discussion.
Apparently not anymore. I have a free account on WordPress.com and I just turned it on like you said.
Yeah. It's basically not available for free setups.
Looks like it is available for free, but you get a really awkward username. I just enabled it on an old WP.com blog that I have on a free account and while @kelson.wordpress.com@kelson.wordpress.com works (I was able to subscribe to it from both Mastodon and GoToSocial), it's a bit unwieldy.