WordPress & Premium Plugins

Swanx provides custom web development services for small businesses. We build WordPress websites that are effective, compact and high-performing. We also use the most modern, cutting edge plugin technologies to bring our sites to life. So, what is WordPress exactly? What is a WordPress plugin?

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open-source and free Web publishing application, content management system (CMS) and blogging tool built by a community of developers and contributors. WordPress allows users to build dynamic websites and blogs that may be updated, customized and managed from its back-end CMS and integrated application and components.

WordPress is the world’s most popular tool for creating websites. WordPress is capable of creating any style of website, from a simple blog to a full-featured business website. You can even use WordPress to create an online store, using the popular WooCommerce plugin. In fact, WordPress powers over 34% of all the websites on the Internet. More than one in four websites that you visit are likely powered by WordPress.

What Are Plugins?

Plugins allow developer to extend and modify the features available in a WordPress site. Features including forms, eCommerce stores, and online courses, as well as tools to fine-tune WordPress to your needs, these can all be added can be added to a site.

In other words, a plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to WordPress websites.

Then there are premium plugins.  These  come with a range of additional options, including ongoing customer support and regular updating from the plugin creator. Commercial plugin developers also confirm that any plugin they sell is created with quality code for security and stability so that it can work seamlessly with the WordPress core code.  So, in today’s online environment it is important to prevent vulnerabilities by using premium plugins.  Keeping sites secure is a moving target, now more than ever.

It now takes teams of developers to keep these premium plugins running.  Until a couple of years ago, most WordPress plugins had a single one-off cost. A one-time fee would get you a premium plugin plus unlimited updates and support FOREVER. WordPress developers were prepared to develop a software product, keep adding new features and keep it in line with the latest web technologies and WordPress versions for a minimal one-time fee. They were also prepared to respond to unlimited support queries as part of the deal.

While you, as a customer may love this model , you can easily see how unsustainable it was. No viable company can afford to do such a high amount of work for free. Even if they have thousands of customers, the extra support demands that come with more customers make it impossible to sustain.

Hence the need to bill annually.  These fees occur once a year and are critical to the functioning of your site.