WordPress Plugins are in Trouble

April 13, 2026

Some WordPress plugin businesses won't survive this.

If you spend any time on social media, you'll see that revenue is coming down for WordPress plugin businesses, and who knows where they'll bottom out. Honestly, some of them are screwed, and it's not looking good for others.

For as long as I can remember, the defensible position for most plugins has always been:

Feature gating
Add-ons
Support

There are others to consider, but these have always been the main reasons why you'd renew a license. Today, Claude (or pretty much any AI offering) sorta makes them less critical.

For example, consider a plugin that revokes access to certain settings unless you have a valid license code. Or, one that shows a constant license nag on your dashboard. Well, now you can just whip up Claude and tell it to remove the code that does this and you're done. You don't have to be a developer, it just takes a couple of seconds.

For add-ons, it does sort of depend on the scope. Those that add simple integrations are no longer a necessary buy. Why pay extra to connect to Mailchimp when AI can just whip up a mini-plugin for you? Pretty much any connector add-on is a quick fix. Okay, it's perhaps a tad longer if you're not a developer through trial and error. But if you have a client and you're a dev, you can save your client money by just having AI build out the connection really quick.

There will always be a need for support, but less so now when you can just ask AI for help to troubleshoot something. This is especially true for plugins that are more of a utility. Now, on the other side of this is that many plugin companies are using AI to help them give better support. Of the three, this one is the area that is still a strong motivator to renew a license, plugin depending.

Now What?

You know, I don't have a definitive solution for this one. I don't think anyone does as the market sands are still shifting. AI has really challenged the status quo of tech.

For me, here are the areas I'd be thinking about if running a WordPress plugin business:

Community

AI can't recreate it. This is a wedge. This is why someone will want to renew. Many plugins have big communities but they are an afterthought. Some even consider them a burden. It's time to make it a top priority. For example, I would start evaluating the utility of adding a Slack or Discord offering. Or, potentially investing more heavily into a FB group if it already exists.

SaaS Certain Features

Look for the areas that create the most support and try to find a way to make those a SaaS to improve user experience, dependability and to reduce headaches for both you and your customers. If you're hung up on keeping that part of the code open source, you can still do so if you want (though it's not necessary).

Invest in New Marketing

Blogging is still worth it, on some level, but if that's all you do then time to move into new areas. Connection matters, and for the moment, YouTube is how you do that. I'd invest heavily into YouTube to bring about the human element in an AI world (this goes back to my first point on community).

WordPress Isn't Going Anywhere

This is not the “death” of the platform by any means. New avenues are going to open up, and that means for WordPress plugins as well. This is just a market shift, and there will be some growing pains along the way. For some, this means the end of their business. That's the nature of the free market.

#WordPress