The Freemius Blog

Build. Sell. Grow.

Actionable content for software makers — including SaaS founders, app developers, and plugin/theme authors.

We share practical strategies on product validation, pricing, marketing, checkout optimization, and growth — all tailored for indie developers to small software companies ready to scale.

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Freemius Product Updates

Freemius Just Lowered Fees for All Our Makers!

As of October 1, 2025, we’re rolling out the biggest pricing change in Freemius’ history: simpler rates and lower fees for every single maker. 🎉

Exploring Business Models & Best Practices

Stripe Transaction Fees: The Real Cost for Software Makers (2026)

Stripe advertises 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. It’s clean, simple, and easy to budget around. But for software founders selling globally, that number is rarely what you actually pay.

Seizing Opportunities in the Tech Space

AI-Powered Micro-SaaS Ideas You Can Ship and Monetize in 7 Days

It was called five years ago: 85% of business apps would be SaaS by 2025. And here we are. The tools are faster, AI’s smarter, and micro-SaaS projects are spinning…

Exploring Business Models & Best Practices

How do WordPress Plugin Developers Make Money?

Plugin development is one of many ways to make money with WordPress, but if you’re just starting out as a plugin developer, figuring out the path to success isn’t easy….

Navigating Marketplaces for Maximum Impact

7 best merchant of record platforms for selling software globally in 2026

Choosing the wrong merchant of record can cost you far more than a higher transaction fee — fund freezes, account limits, surprise compliance issues in your target markets, contracts designed…

Freemius Product Updates

Release Notes: Custom download links for apps, Customer Portal Activations page, analytics chart filtering, and Croatian language at checkout

April’s release improves the experience on both sides of the transaction — for the makers building on Freemius and the buyers using their products. App makers get more native tooling….

Navigating Marketplaces for Maximum Impact

Best payment solutions for AI-built apps in 2026: What vibe coders need beyond built-in payments

On April 13, 2026, Lovable launched Lovable Payments: a built-in way to handle subscriptions and one-off payments through Paddle or Stripe. It’s a helpful step forward, especially for makers who…

Succeeding with SaaS & Subscription Models

What is Lovable Payments? Pros and cons for vibe coders who want to make money with their AI app

If you’ve just shipped your first Lovable app and someone wants to pay you, Lovable Payments is probably the right next step. But there’s a version of this story where…

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Grab a free copy of our Cheat Sheet for
Selling Plugins and Themes

A growth roadmap with concise, actionable tips for every milestone of WordPress product development.

blue book with the title “Cheat Sheet for Selling Themes and Plugins by Freemius” written on it

Exploring Business Models & Best Practices

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Premium vs. Freemium WordPress Plugins: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

If you’re new to WordPress plugin development You might be asking yourself whether you should release a limited, free version of your plugin with an option to upgrade, or maybe just…

The Ultimate Guide To Free Trials For Premium WordPress Plugins And Themes

Trials for software products and SaaS (Software as a Service) has been a standard practice for years and is considered as an excellent way to get a higher reach and…

Premium vs. Add-ons – Which is the Best Model for Your WordPress Plugin?

WooCommerce, iThemes Exchange, and other successful WordPress companies have managed to build significant businesses through the add-ons monetization model. It’s very tempting just to follow in their footsteps based on…

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Mastering Pricing Strategies

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Lifetime license for WordPress plugins – the right way!

The post is a followup to WP Rocket’s Transparency Report – Why You Shouldn’t Offer Lifetime Licenses. The reason I was so intrigued by the title is because I was…

Careful! This Simple Pricing Experiment Cost Us $2,000 in Revenue

This is the most expensive blog post I ever posted – it cost our plugin company over $2,000, and I’m not kidding nor exaggerating.

The Do’s And Don’ts of Renewals Discount for WordPress Plugins And Themes, Following The WooCommerce Blunder

In 2017, WooCommerce dropped its 50% Renewals Discount and got some backfire from the community due to how it was rolled out. This inspired me to shed some light on…

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Navigating Marketplaces for Maximum Impact

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Is CodeCanyon a Good Place to Sell Your Premium WordPress Plugin?

So, you’ve started out as a WordPress Plugin Developer and are looking to make it big. You may be looking for a means of successfully selling your plugin, or perhaps…

Can Plugin Developers Succeed on the AppSumo Marketplace?

If you’re a new plugin creator, there’s a good chance that you’ve probably heard of AppSumo. For new plugin creators especially, AppSumo can seem like an answer to your prayers….

Is ThemeForest a Good Place to Sell Your Premium WordPress Theme?

In this article, I’m going to have a thorough look at the most popular theme marketplace for WordPress themes. We’re going to try and understand the pros and cons of…

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Elevating Your Marketing Strategies

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Building in Public: Unveiling the Power of Transparent Creation for Software Founders

Building in public is more than a development approach: it can be an immersive, inspiring experience that weaves together transparency, community, and product innovation. In a landscape where the lines…

The Ultimate Guide To An Affiliate Program For WordPress Plugins And Themes

When your plugin or theme business reaches a certain maturity, inevitably, you start to explore additional revenue streams. One trendy channel is affiliation. Setting up an Affiliate Program can be…

The Marketing Handbook for WordPress Plugin and Theme Developers

As you might already know, product people—especially developers—usually don’t enjoy doing marketing. Developing plugins, themes, or other types of digital products gets their creative juices flowing, but when it comes…

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Strategies for Acquisitions & Successful Exits

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Acquisitions & Exits: How Much Is Your WordPress Business Worth?

You design incredible products, and it’s driving profitable growth for your WordPress business. With an ‘official’ declaration that WordPress powers 43.4% of the internet based on the latest reports, it’s…

The Gamechangers: Meet the Players Driving Change With WordPress Acquisitions

On the cusp of 2022, the market share of WordPress is bigger than ever. But as new plugin and theme developers enter the market to seize the perceived opportunity, major…

Dual Perspective: Zach Tirrell’s 1st-Hand Experience with WordPress Acquisitions as a Buyer & Seller

In 2020, Zach Tirrell was tasked by Modern Tribe to help prep The Events Calendar for an acquisition, despite owning no part of the business. After Liquid Web took over…

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Expert Insights: Learning from the Best

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136 WordPress Business Tips For Selling Plugins & Themes (From the Experts)

About a year ago we started the Experts Corner video series. We reached out to influential, experienced product business owners in the WordPress space, asking them to share their thoughts…

“Our Biggest Challenges in Running A WordPress Plugin & Theme Business in 2018” by MotoPress

In this guest post by Alexander Mat, co-founder at MotoPress, he shares and discusses his company’s biggest challenges in today’s saturated and Guten-stirred WordPress business sphere. MotoPress has been financially…

Sailing the Waves: How Alan Fuller Left Corporate Finance & Found Fulfillment & Success In Plugin Development

The age-old platitude that it’s never too late to learn or start over? It doesn’t get any truer than for Alan Fuller, founder of Fullworks, a successful WordPress plugin company…

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Navigating Taxes, Privacy, and Regulations

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They’re Coming for You: Why US Software Sellers Can No Longer Ignore EU VAT In 2024

For software product makers, nothing is certain in life except for (death by) support tickets and taxes 😩 and we’ve got some bad news for those who are lax on…

Why US-Based WordPress & SaaS Businesses Can’t Ignore US Sales Tax

US sales tax is an ever-growing thorn in the side of solopreneurs and SMBs 🌵 As of 2018, anyone selling software and SaaS products in the US must collect US…

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for WordPress Plugin and Theme Developers

For many plugin and theme shops, Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) has been a hot topic in recent months. So what exactly is all the noise about and why is it…

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Leveraging the WordPress.org Repository

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Is the WordPress Plugin Repository Worth the Hassle?

If you’re a relatively experienced WordPress plugin developer, you’ve most likely already asked yourself this question – possibly more than once. If you’re a relatively new WordPress plugin developer, you’re…

How to Submit Plugins to the WordPress.org Repository

Hosting a plugin on the WordPress.org repository is one of the most popular (and effective) ways of kickstarting a successful freemium business. If it’s your first time submitting a plugin…

How to Outrank Your Competitors’ SEO on the WordPress.org Plugin Repository

The new WordPress plugin repository was officially released, replacing the old “legacy” one. Many community members (including me) feel that most of the issues that were addressed during the feedback…

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Get Started With Freemius

Stuck growing your product revenue? You’re not alone! We know first-hand how hard it can be to break through a growth barrier in your business. We see so many plugin & theme developers get stuck at $3-5k in monthly revenue without knowing what else they can do with their limited resources.

We know how to break that pattern - this is what we specialize in. If you feel that struggle too, let’s have a chat about how we can help you fully utilize your business financial potential.

Building Your Dream Team: Hiring & Growth

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Scaling vs Coding: Should You Hire a Lead Engineer for Your WordPress Business?

Do you hand over the coding keys to a lead engineer or do you keep them? This is a question most technical founders will have to answer as their WordPress…

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Successful Product Launch Strategies

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Growth Hacking Your Product Launch with Hot Tips

I want to share some secrets about how I’ve been growth hacking with daily “Hot Tips” leading up to the launch of my Landing Page Masterclass. This is a unique…

How to Have a $100k+ WordPress Product Launch

Have you ever heard of a WordPress plugin (or theme) that made over $100,000 in its first 30 days after launch? After spending hours Googling for successful plugins in the…

The SaaS Launch Playbook: How to Ship Without the Chaos

Launching a SaaS product isn’t just another milestone. It’s a high-stakes moment where everything you’ve built is suddenly on the line.

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Innovative Growth Hacks for Your Business

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The Freemius Blog

Freemius Just Lowered Fees for All Our Makers!

Stripe Transaction Fees: The Real Cost for Software Makers (2026)

AI-Powered Micro-SaaS Ideas You Can Ship and Monetize in 7 Days

7 best merchant of record platforms for selling software globally in 2026

Release Notes: Custom download links for apps, Customer Portal Activations page, analytics chart filtering, and Croatian language at checkout

Best payment solutions for AI-built apps in 2026: What vibe coders need beyond built-in payments

What is Lovable Payments? Pros and cons for vibe coders who want to make money with their AI app

Grab a free copy of our Cheat Sheet for
Selling Plugins and Themes

Exploring Business Models & Best Practices

Premium vs. Freemium WordPress Plugins: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Premium vs. Add-ons – Which is the Best Model for Your WordPress Plugin?

Mastering Pricing Strategies

Lifetime license for WordPress plugins – the right way!

Careful! This Simple Pricing Experiment Cost Us $2,000 in Revenue

Navigating Marketplaces for Maximum Impact

Is CodeCanyon a Good Place to Sell Your Premium WordPress Plugin?

Elevating Your Marketing Strategies

Strategies for Acquisitions & Successful Exits

Expert Insights: Learning from the Best

Navigating Taxes, Privacy, and Regulations

Leveraging the WordPress.org Repository

Is the WordPress Plugin Repository Worth the Hassle?

How to Submit Plugins to the WordPress.org Repository

Get Started With Freemius

Building Your Dream Team: Hiring & Growth

Successful Product Launch Strategies

The SaaS Launch Playbook: How to Ship Without the Chaos

Innovative Growth Hacks for Your Business

How We Increased our WordPress Plugin’s 5-Star Reviews by 700%

Discover Your Top-Selling WordPress Add-Ons Without Wasting Time

Trusted by thousands of software companies

The Freemius Blog

Most Popular Posts

Freemius Just Lowered Fees for All Our Makers!

Stripe Transaction Fees: The Real Cost for Software Makers (2026)

AI-Powered Micro-SaaS Ideas You Can Ship and Monetize in 7 Days

How do WordPress Plugin Developers Make Money?

Most Recent Posts

7 best merchant of record platforms for selling software globally in 2026

Release Notes: Custom download links for apps, Customer Portal Activations page, analytics chart filtering, and Croatian language at checkout

Best payment solutions for AI-built apps in 2026: What vibe coders need beyond built-in payments

What is Lovable Payments? Pros and cons for vibe coders who want to make money with their AI app

Grab a free copy of our Cheat Sheet for Selling Plugins and Themes

Exploring Business Models & Best Practices

Premium vs. Freemium WordPress Plugins: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Ultimate Guide To Free Trials For Premium WordPress Plugins And Themes

Premium vs. Add-ons – Which is the Best Model for Your WordPress Plugin?

Mastering Pricing Strategies

Lifetime license for WordPress plugins – the right way!

Careful! This Simple Pricing Experiment Cost Us $2,000 in Revenue

The Do’s And Don’ts of Renewals Discount for WordPress Plugins And Themes, Following The WooCommerce Blunder

Navigating Marketplaces for Maximum Impact

Is CodeCanyon a Good Place to Sell Your Premium WordPress Plugin?

Can Plugin Developers Succeed on the AppSumo Marketplace?

Is ThemeForest a Good Place to Sell Your Premium WordPress Theme?

Elevating Your Marketing Strategies

Building in Public: Unveiling the Power of Transparent Creation for Software Founders

The Ultimate Guide To An Affiliate Program For WordPress Plugins And Themes

The Marketing Handbook for WordPress Plugin and Theme Developers

Subscribe to the Freemius Blog

Strategies for Acquisitions & Successful Exits

Acquisitions & Exits: How Much Is Your WordPress Business Worth?

The Gamechangers: Meet the Players Driving Change With WordPress Acquisitions

Dual Perspective: Zach Tirrell’s 1st-Hand Experience with WordPress Acquisitions as a Buyer & Seller

Expert Insights: Learning from the Best

136 WordPress Business Tips For Selling Plugins & Themes (From the Experts)

“Our Biggest Challenges in Running A WordPress Plugin & Theme Business in 2018” by MotoPress

Sailing the Waves: How Alan Fuller Left Corporate Finance & Found Fulfillment & Success In Plugin Development

Navigating Taxes, Privacy, and Regulations

They’re Coming for You: Why US Software Sellers Can No Longer Ignore EU VAT In 2024

Why US-Based WordPress & SaaS Businesses Can’t Ignore US Sales Tax

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for WordPress Plugin and Theme Developers

Leveraging the WordPress.org Repository

Is the WordPress Plugin Repository Worth the Hassle?

How to Submit Plugins to the WordPress.org Repository

How to Outrank Your Competitors’ SEO on the WordPress.org Plugin Repository

Get Started With Freemius

Building Your Dream Team: Hiring & Growth

Scaling vs Coding: Should You Hire a Lead Engineer for Your WordPress Business?

Successful Product Launch Strategies

Growth Hacking Your Product Launch with Hot Tips

How to Have a $100k+ WordPress Product Launch

The SaaS Launch Playbook: How to Ship Without the Chaos

Innovative Growth Hacks for Your Business

How We Increased our WordPress Plugin’s 5-Star Reviews by 700%

Discover Your Top-Selling WordPress Add-Ons Without Wasting Time

Getting The Most out of Feature & Customization Requests for Plugin & Theme Developers

Trusted by thousands of software companies

Grab a free copy of our Cheat Sheet for
Selling Plugins and Themes