Moving to Wordpress Premium versus a hosting provider

Question

My blog is now over a year old, and I've been considering moving my blog from Wordpress.com for a while. My main reason for this is that I now how enough visitors that I believe I'd rather take the advertising revenue myself. As I understand it, I can move this to a separate hosting provider, or simply upgrade to the WordPress "Premium" service.

I've seen a few questions regarding similar topics; but my questions are (I believe) slightly more specific. First, these are some assumptions that I've made from the research I've done so far (are they all correct?):

1. WordPress Premium protects any Google ranking I may have.
2. I can add my own advertising plug-ins to Wordpress, but am restricted in their type (http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/what-are-the-best-ad-management-plugins-and-solutions-for-wordpress/).
3. That a Wordpress hosted site will require no more maintenance that I currently do on my Wordpress.com site; also, that it will require no work from me to upgrade.
4. I will be able to maintain and edit my blog in exactly the same way as I currently do.
5. That I am restricted to using my current domain name.

The things I don't know:

1. Do I have enough visitors to cover the cost of doing this (currently 500/month)?
2. What I am restricted from doing if I do go with Wordpress.org?
3. If I make the decision to go one way or the other, how difficult is that decision to reverse?

Answer 1

Do I have enough visitors to cover the cost of doing this (currently 500/month)?

I have two hands, is it enough to earn a living? Well, it depends on what and where I am doing a lot.

Visitors do not magically make money appear. Advertisement is part of the process and it depends on a lot of things how well advertisement works in specific niche and how much money it makes on average per visit.

What I am restricted from doing if I do go with Wordpress.org?

You can do absolutely anything, as long as it complies with Terms of Service of your hosting provider, laws of hosting provider's country, and laws of your country.

If I make the decision to go one way or the other, how difficult is that decision to reverse?

The basic import/export of posts is not complicated, but if you use theme/plugins which aren't available on WordPress com obviously you would lose those parts going back to it.