License Activation and Renewals

In wp-admin

The License page inside your plugin

Every Royal Plugins Pro plugin ships with a dedicated License page in wp-admin. The exact menu path depends on the plugin (e.g. GuardPress → License, SiteVault → License, Royal MCP Pro → License) but the page itself is functionally identical because every Pro plugin uses the same WPGenius licensing SDK under the hood.

From the License page you can:

Activate a new license key
Deactivate the current license (frees the seat to reuse on another site)
See the license status — active / expired / days remaining
See the license expiration date
Force a fresh check against the license server

Reading the "days remaining" display

When a license is active, the page shows the number of days until expiration next to the license key display. A message like "365 days remaining" means auto-renewal (if enabled on your subscription) will fire at the end of that window.

Setup

Activating a license

Get your license key + confirm the purchase email

Log in to my.royalplugins.com/my-account/licenses/ and copy the license key for the Pro plugin you're activating. Note the email address you used at purchase — you'll need it in step 3.

Open the plugin's License page

In wp-admin, navigate to the plugin's menu → License. Most Pro plugins put this at the top level of their menu; a few place it under a Settings submenu.

Fill both fields and activate

The activation form has two required fields:

Purchase Email — the email address you used at checkout on my.royalplugins.com.
License Key — the key from step 1.

Click Activate License. A confirmation appears within a few seconds.

Why both fields? The purchase email is the identity that ties the key to your account. It stops a leaked license key from being usable by anyone but the buyer — the license server verifies the email/key pair, not the key alone.

Verify the license is active

The License page updates to show Active with the expiration date. Pro features become available across wp-admin immediately.

If activation fails, the most common causes are outbound-HTTPS blocks on managed hosts (the license check needs to reach my.royalplugins.com), a mistyped key (leading or trailing whitespace), or an email/key mismatch. Each plugin ships its own License Activation Issues troubleshoot doc under /support/<plugin>/ with the full diagnostic tree.

Lifecycle

Deactivating a license (moving seats between sites)

Deactivation frees the seat for use on another site. Your license key stays valid — you just re-activate it on the new site.

On the site you're leaving

Go to the plugin's License page, then click Deactivate License. The seat is released back to your subscription.

On the site you're moving to

Install and activate the plugin if you haven't yet. Go to its License page, paste the same license key, click Activate License.

Forgot to deactivate an old site? Log in to My Account → Licenses and use the Connected Sites view to remotely deactivate any site holding a seat. Full walkthrough of the standard move plus the forgot-to-deactivate recovery path lives in Moving Licenses Between Sites.

What happens to Pro data on the deactivated site

Your Pro-tier settings, feature configuration, and any Pro-created data stay in the database. The plugin's Pro features become unavailable (they return a "license expired" service message) but nothing gets deleted. If you re-activate a license on the site later, everything resumes as it was.

Under the hood

How license validation works

The licensing SDK checks the license server on a rolling cache to avoid hitting the network on every request.

Cache window: 24 hours by default. The license server is contacted at most once per day per site per plugin.
Filter to change it: the wpgenius_license_check_interval filter accepts a value in seconds (default DAY_IN_SECONDS). Not usually necessary to override.
Local cache location: license data lives in a per-plugin option named wpgenius_license_<plugin-slug>; the valid/invalid check result is cached in the wpgenius_license_<plugin-slug>_valid transient with a 24-hour TTL.
Failure fallback: if the license server is unreachable, the plugin uses the last known cached state until the network recovers.

Force a fresh check

Two ways to bypass the 24-hour cache and force an immediate re-check against the license server:

Deactivate then re-activate the license from the plugin's License page. Fastest path in the UI and works on every host.
Delete the transient via WP-CLI (if you have shell access): wp transient delete wpgenius_license_<plugin-slug>_valid. The next Pro feature request re-validates against the license server.

Billing

Renewals

Royal Plugins Pro subscriptions renew annually. The renewal date is shown on the License page and in your account at my.royalplugins.com.

Auto-renew

If your subscription is set to auto-renew, the charge is processed on the expiration date. On successful renewal, no action is needed — the site's next daily license check (within 24 hours) picks up the new expiration date automatically. You'll receive an email receipt from my.royalplugins.com.

Manual renewal

If auto-renew is off (or fails), you can renew manually at any time from your account dashboard. Renewing before the expiration date extends the license by another 12 months from the renewal payment date, keeping continuous coverage. Renewing after expiration re-activates the license immediately.

Cancelling auto-renew

Go to my.royalplugins.com → My Account → Subscriptions, click the relevant subscription, and choose Cancel. Cancellation stops future auto-charges but does not revoke the current license — you keep Pro access through the end of the paid-for period.

Heads-up

Admin notices before expiration

Pro plugins show a warning notice in wp-admin when your license is within 30 days of expiration. The notice includes the remaining days count and a direct link to renew. It appears on every admin screen until the license is either renewed or expires.

The pre-expiration notice is intentionally prominent because customers usually want to know before Pro features stop working. It clears automatically once the license is renewed or expires.

Downgrade

When a license expires

Pro plugin behavior on expiration is designed to make the state obvious rather than fail silently.

What continues to work

All free-tier functionality (if the plugin has a free tier) continues to work exactly as before. Pro never disables the free feature set.
Pro-tier settings and data stay in the database. Nothing gets deleted.
Read-only admin views (e.g., an audit log or activity view already populated with data) generally remain viewable so you can review historical Pro activity.

What stops working

Pro-tier writes and premium features return an expired-license service message instead of executing.
Any Pro-tier tool the plugin ships to external clients (MCP tools, REST endpoints, CLI commands) is gated at request time and returns a friendly "license expired" response.

Renewing restores Pro immediately

Once you renew (via my.royalplugins.com), force a fresh license check on the site (see above). Pro features resume within seconds.

Networks

Multisite

Royal Plugins Pro plugins run on WordPress multisite. If you're running a multisite network with more than a handful of subsites and need clarity on how seats are counted for your setup, reach out before purchasing so we can size the right tier. Most multisite customers land on Agency or Enterprise tiers depending on the plugin.

Single-site installs (the common case) don't need to think about any of this — each single-site install counts as one seat against your license's tier.

Guarantee

Refunds

Every Royal Plugins Pro purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If a plugin doesn't fit your workflow, reach out to support with your reason and we'll process a full refund within 3–5 business days. See the full refund policy.

After a refund, deactivate the plugin from your site. If the plugin has a free tier your free installation continues to work — the plugin never destroys data on downgrade.