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User guide

Multisite networks

One WordPress network counts as one site, however many subsites it has. Activate at the network level, and what subdomain subsites do to detection.

A WordPress multisite network counts as one site. A network of three subsites and a network of three hundred both consume one slot.

One install, one wp-admin, one wp-content, one update check — one site. Counting subsites would mean a two-hundred-site network needed an unlimited plan to run one plugin, which is not a line anybody could defend in a support conversation.

Activate at the network level

Activate the Pro add-on network-wide from Network Admin → Plugins (placeholder — not final), then enter the key once at Network Admin → Settings → Subset (placeholder — not final).

That single activation covers every subsite. Subsite administrators do not need a key, do not see a licence screen, and cannot consume a slot.

Planned for 1.0.0

Network-level activation ships with the first Pro release, alongside the licence screen itself.

Per-site activation on a network

Activating the add-on on one subsite rather than network-wide is supported, and that subsite then behaves like an ordinary single site: it takes one slot, on its own address. That is occasionally what you want — one client subsite needs the Pro features and the other forty do not — but it is the exception, and on a large network it is the expensive way round.

Subdomains, subdirectories and detection

A network reports its own address like any other install, so the rules on What counts as a site apply unchanged. Two consequences worth knowing:

  • A subdirectory network has subsites at example.com/one, example.com/two. Activated network-wide, that is one activation on example.com and nothing else.
  • A subdomain network has subsites at one.example.com. If you activate per-subsite rather than network-wide, a subsite called staging.example.com or dev.example.com is detected as a development site and is free — which is correct, and occasionally a surprise.

What a network does not change

Everything else about the licence works the same way. The term, the grace window, the refund window, support, and above all the fail-open rule:

A network whose licence has expired keeps running the plugin on every subsite. It loses updates, support and hosted credits. Nothing is disabled anywhere in the network. See When a licence expires.