# Royal MCP Pro Supersedes Royal MCP Free — You Don’t Need Both

> Royal MCP Pro bundles the entire Royal MCP Free codebase and serves every tool from that copy, so do not run both. Deactivate the standalone Free plugin.

- Canonical: <https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/pro-supersedes-free/>
- Last updated: 2026-08-08
- HTML version: <https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/pro-supersedes-free/>

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If you have Royal MCP Pro installed and active, you can safely deactivate or uninstall the standalone Royal MCP Free plugin. Pro bundles the entire Free codebase and serves every Free tool from its own copy — running both plugins active in parallel is redundant and introduces load-order and double-registration risk. This doc explains what is happening under the hood and how to safely remove the redundant install.

## TL;DR

- **Pro is a strict superset of Free.** Every Free tool and every Free fix ships inside Pro. There is nothing you get from standalone Free that you do not already have from Pro.
- **You will see a row on your Plugins page for Royal MCP Free, likely inactive.** That is WordPress showing the file exists on disk. It is not doing anything and it is not needed.
- **Recommended action:** deactivate and uninstall the standalone Royal MCP Free plugin. Pro will continue to serve every MCP request without interruption.
- **You will not miss any Free updates.** Every Free release to WordPress.org triggers a same-week Pro patch bump that bundles the new Free codebase. Your Pro auto-updates keep you in step.

## Why Pro bundles Free

Royal MCP Pro is not a plugin that *adds* features on top of Royal MCP Free. It is a complete plugin that *contains* Free entirely, plus the Pro tool surface layered on top. The Free codebase lives inside Pro at `royal-mcp-pro/vendor/royal-mcp-free/` and is loaded on Pro startup.

This is the same pattern SiteVault Pro, GuardPress Pro, and SEObolt Pro all use. It exists so Pro customers get a single self-contained plugin to install, license, and update — without any dependency on the Free plugin’s presence, activation state, or WordPress.org release cadence.

When Pro is active on your site, Pro’s vendored copy of Free is what serves every MCP request. The standalone Royal MCP Free plugin (the one you may have installed from WordPress.org) is not consulted, not loaded, and not required.

## How to verify Pro is serving from its vendored copy

Call `royal_mcp_connection_health` from your MCP client. As of Royal MCP Pro 1.0.2.2, the response includes:

```
{
  "server_version": "1.4.39",
  "vendored_free_version": "1.4.39",
  "standalone_free_present": true,
  "standalone_free_active": false,
  "standalone_free_version": "1.4.39",
  "pro_version": "1.0.2.2",
  ...
}
```

Reading the fields together:

- `server_version` is the Free version currently serving requests.
- `vendored_free_version` is the Free version Pro bundled at build time. On a Pro-only site, this equals `server_version`.
- `standalone_free_present` tells you whether the standalone Free plugin file is on disk.
- `standalone_free_active` tells you whether standalone Free is currently activated.
- `standalone_free_version` tells you the version of standalone Free (if present) — useful for identifying stale installs.

If `standalone_free_present` is `true` and `standalone_free_active` is `false`, you have a redundant install — deactivate and uninstall standalone Free.

## How to safely deactivate or uninstall standalone Free

1. Go to **Plugins** in WordPress admin.
2. Find the **Royal MCP** row (this is the standalone Free plugin, not Royal MCP Pro).
3. If the row shows “Activate” and no “Deactivate” link, it is already inactive — go straight to step 5.
4. If it shows “Deactivate”, click that first.
5. Click **Delete** to uninstall the plugin file entirely.

Nothing breaks when you remove it

Every MCP tool your AI client uses — Yoast/RankMath/AIOSEO/SEOPress/SEObolt writers, Elementor and Divi tools, WooCommerce operations, cache and backup composers — keeps working. Pro serves all of them from its own bundled Free copy.

## How Pro stays in step with Free releases

Every Free release to WordPress.org triggers a same-week Pro patch bump on the license server that bundles the new Free codebase. When Free 1.4.40 ships to WordPress.org, a Pro 1.0.*x* patch ships to my.royalplugins.com within days, containing Free 1.4.40 vendored in.

Your Pro auto-update handles this the same way it handles any Pro release. You do not need to interact with the WordPress.org update flow, and you do not need standalone Free installed to receive Free fixes.

Slight lag is normal

There may be a 1–7 day window between a Free release on WordPress.org and the matching Pro patch on the license server — Pro rebuilds have their own QA gate. If you specifically need a Free fix the moment it hits WordPress.org, activating standalone Free is technically possible, but not recommended — the load-order and double-registration risks are why this doc exists.

## Why running both plugins active is not recommended

WordPress can load both plugins at the same time. It will not crash. Neither plugin explicitly refuses to run if the other is active. But you should not do it.

- **Two versions of the same code in memory.** Standalone Free at whatever version WordPress.org last shipped, plus Pro’s vendored Free at whatever version Pro last bundled. Class autoloader picks one at random depending on plugin load order.
- **Double-registered hooks.** Both copies register the same `royal_mcp_tools` filter, the same REST routes, the same OAuth endpoints. Consequences depend on which fires first — and that is determined by activation order, which is not stable across environments.
- **Version-skew bugs.** When a Free hotfix ships to WordPress.org that Pro has not yet bundled, standalone Free wins the class-loader race and serves. When Pro later bundles the fix, Pro wins. Which version served *which* request becomes non-deterministic.

None of these are theoretical risks. They are exactly the class of intermittent bug that produces the worst kind of support ticket — the one where you cannot reproduce the issue on a clean site because your customer’s environment has activation state your test setup does not.

Save yourself the trouble: pick one. If you have Pro, remove Free.

## Related

- [Royal MCP Pro support hub](https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/) — all Pro-specific docs.
- [Understanding the Audit Log](https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/understanding-the-audit-log/) — how Pro records every MCP tool call.
- [Undo tokens and reversibility](https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/undo-tokens-and-reversibility/) — the 72-hour undo model on destructive Pro operations.
- [Royal MCP Free support hub](https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp/) — docs for the Free plugin (Pro users benefit from these too via the vendored copy).

[← Royal MCP Pro support hub](https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/)
[Understanding the Audit Log →](https://royalplugins.com/support/royal-mcp-pro/understanding-the-audit-log/)