Share your experience. Did you earn money selling a WordPress plugin or its pro version? If you can, tell us what type of plugin it was, how things worked out, and any lessons you learned along the way.
We gave it a shot early on in WordPress and missed an opportunity by not developing a migration tool alongside Search Replace DB. Others took the idea and made tools like Better Search Replace, generating lots of revenue. I built it initially as a dev tool for fixing issues without command line access. Colleagues later made it user-friendly, but I never transitioned into a web developer—I’m more into data and databases.
From what I’ve seen, you need to solve problems people know they have. I created a PHP script to handle WordPress migration issues I faced regularly, and it quickly gained attention. If you think about Gravity Forms, it succeeded because there were no good form solutions at the time. Now, there’s a ton of them.
One problem today is bloated plugins and themes trying to do everything. For example, if you need 2FA, you’ll find massive security suites instead of simple, effective options like Two Factor for WordPress. WP should include it by default, but that might affect other markets.
So, to make money, you either build a feature-packed plugin to monetize heavily, or you create something functional and market it well to build an audience you can monetize later.
We now ask for donations for Search Replace. While it hasn’t fully recouped development costs, small contributions have helped cover future updates and improvements.
@Reagan
> SEO Framework
We avoid heavy upselling with TSF. If you’re looking for profit-driven plugins, Awesome Motive is a better example—they buy established plugins and add monetization layers aggressively.
@Oaklan
I prefer TSF over Yoast any day. Yoast has changed a bit since it got acquired, but the team there is generally professional and capable.
Page said:
@Oaklan
I prefer TSF over Yoast any day. Yoast has changed a bit since it got acquired, but the team there is generally professional and capable.
If TSF isn’t your choice, Yoast is solid too. After their acquisition, the team still has a good reputation for professionalism and knowledge.
@Oaklan
We moved from Yoast to Rank Math due to costs, but SEO Framework sounds interesting. Any good reviews or recommendations?
@Oaklan
We recommend TSF often. It’s clean, works well, and fits the needs of most of our clients. It’s tough creating something like this—it takes a lot of dev work. Yoast and others might be big names, but TSF stays functional and lightweight.
@Reagan
Glad to hear you find TSF useful! Our paying users, mostly developers, value the code quality. It’s not easy to market, but we prefer having a chill user base.
@Oaklan
I recently tried a plugin to remove WordPress bloat but it was full of ‘Pro’ features and barely worked. Removed it within minutes. Donations felt better in the old days—people who loved a tool could support it directly.
@Reagan
Search Replace DB was a lifesaver for our Heroku builds. It’s hard making universally compatible tools without facing high support demands. Free tools often attract unrealistic expectations, which can drain resources.
@Reagan
Selling online to consumers can mean handling complex tax rules, especially VAT in different countries. Many go through marketplaces or stick to donations to avoid the hassle.
Reagan said:
@Reagan
Selling online to consumers can mean handling complex tax rules, especially VAT in different countries. Many go through marketplaces or stick to donations to avoid the hassle.
Freemius simplifies VAT, payments, and plugin updates. Their tiered pricing charges 7% after $5000 in sales, which is fair for the added features like licensing and user management.
@Fay
7% feels high compared to Square’s 2.6% per transaction. If you’re selling well, those savings can add up quickly.
@Fay
Compared to Envato’s 50% cut, 7% is a steal. But I see your point if you’re managing things on your own site.
@Reagan
Migrating staging to live sites while keeping WooCommerce orders intact has been a struggle. Any tips for handling this better?
Jory said:
@Reagan
Migrating staging to live sites while keeping WooCommerce orders intact has been a struggle. Any tips for handling this better?
We rely on feeds to sync live and staging sites. It’s automatic but depends on the specific migration needs.
@Reagan
Targeting businesses, like WooCommerce extensions, can lead to faster sales since businesses are willing to pay to solve problems.
@Reagan
Thanks for the script—it’s been super helpful and still holds up.