Advanced Custom Fields PRO, the workhorse plugin for many a WordPress developer, has adopted a new pricing model that does away with its previous “pay once, update forever” in favor of an annual renewal for continued updates.
You would think that such a move would be met with howls of protest, but on the contrary, reaction to this move has been overwhelmingly positive. Why? Because ACF PRO is such a trusted, well-thought-out, essential plugin for so many developers, that it behooves us as a community to support this move into increased sustainability.
As ACF’s lead developer Elliot Condon explained last year when making the announcement, while revenue from sales of the plugin were increasing year-over-year, the lack of a subscription model meant that support costs were increasing as well, with no long-term viability model in place. Obviously, if Advanced Custom Fields PRO were to ever disappear, it would be a major loss to the entire WordPress community.
What This Means for Taupecat Studios and Its Clients
Supporting quality plugins and the WordPress ecosystem as a whole has always been extremely important to us. We eschew so-called “nulled” and free “knock-offs” of valuable, well-crafted plugins in favor of the genuine article. We pay for quality where we can, and are happy to do so.
Technically, as existing customers of Advanced Custom Fields PRO, we don’t have to do a thing; we’re grandfathered into our existing “pay once, update forever” license that we purchased when we first opened up shop. But that doesn’t really match the spirit of our rule of supporting quality developers, so we’re going to embrace this new model wholeheartedly.
Today we will be purchasing an Agency license for Advanced Custom Fields PRO, and begin using that license on all of our work currently in development or operating under our monthly maintenance plan. So long as a client site remains in our maintenance plan, that license will continue to be used for all future updates.
If a client chooses not to retain us for ongoing WordPress maintenance, they will need to purchase their own Personal license going forward if they wish to continue to receive updates. You can safely guess that we would strongly recommend that they do so.
As with most premium plugins in the WordPress ecosystem, the Advanced Custom Fields PRO plugin will continue to operate even with an expired license, but it will stop receiving updates. Over time, all plugins—even the most well-crafted—can suffer from instabilities or security vulnerabilities if not properly updated.
Do you have a WordPress site, but hate dealing with the hassle of plugin updates and other critical maintenance? Let us handle that for you. Get in touch and we’ll partner with you to keep your site running strong.