February 2026 Newsletter

Monthly journals are updated weekly, as each InfluenceWP Weekly newsletter drops.

InfluenceWP Updates

400+ Deals 🔥

InfluenceWP surpassed 400 deal listings and 130 partnerships this week! 🎉

This milestone is the result of 16 months of hard work, with zero financial incentive. There’s managing the website, outreach, communication, marketing, creating listings, managing the directory, the newsletter, the giveaways, the first look videos, the extended look videos, the tutorial videos, the guides, Black Friday, and more that I’m probably not thinking of.

Additionally, there’s the time spent with partners behind the scenes, working on their branding, the direction of their products, their pricing, their pain points, and more. I’m always available. I’m their partner.

InfluenceWP is a passion project to give back to WordPress. It approaches things differently for the benefit of WordPress product creators and the community.

The non-affiliation policy (i.e., no affiliate links) means partners maximize their profits. The absence of sponsorships eliminates bias and ensures equal treatment for all partners.

The concept is simple. Product creators provide a deal to the WordPress community for their solution, and I go to work. Everyone wins.

This concept is changing perspectives. Product creators are becoming more and more aware of affiliate link farms and rethinking their affiliate programs. Consumers are more aware of fake deal websites and shopping from trusted sources.

All I’ve ever asked is for folks to first look at InfluenceWP when buying WordPress solutions (and non-WordPress solutions) to see if there are savings to be had. An InfluenceWP consumer membership pays for itself after the very first purchase.

Do it for the product creators who have trusted InfluenceWP. Do it to fight affiliate link farms and fake deal sites.

Letting Go of the Fight Against Fake WordPress Deal Websites

After a series of events over the past 1.5 years of running InfluenceWP, I’ve decided to abandon the fight against fake deal websites. No, that doesn’t mean the deals are going away. ☺️

This topic may not be a big deal to others, but it’s something I’m passionate about, after seeing WordPress folks get duped time and again.

I needed to put my most recent thoughts about this topic on “paper” just to get it out of my head, and rather than keeping it to myself, I decided to create a Letting Go of the Fight Against Fake WordPress Deal Websites post.

The adage “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” applies here.

InfluenceWP will continue to be part of the solution through its trusted deals.

You can be part of the solution by staying vigilant, distancing yourself from bad actors, educating your clients, communities, etc., and by continuing to support people, projects, and brands that are trying to do the right things.

Mañana No Más Podcast Appearance

I joined the Mañana No Más podcast last week to share my journey in IT and WordPress. It was an absolute blast! If you want to learn a bit more about the guy behind InfluenceWP, I’d love for you to check out the episode.

Podcasts are the next best way to experience my passion for what I’m doing in the WordPress space, outside of talking to me in person or over a virtual coffee. If you happen to be a podcast host, I’m always up for being a guest.

Kurt is a fantastic host, so if you get the chance to be on his show, do it. If you’re nervous about being a guest on a podcast, I get it, but with Kurt, it’s just like having a casual conversation with a friend. Thank you again, Kurt—I know how much time you put into what you do.

You can also find Mañana No Más on YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes.

PluginTracker

I’m having a lot of fun playing with PluginTracker (IWP Deal) to track and enhance the performance of the free Changelog as a Service plugin, of which I’m a co-founder. This morning I woke up to our daily digest email from PluginTracker to find we moved up 438 spots in the overall rankings, and we overtook a changelog plugin that hit the market long before we did. We have a long way to go, but it’s nice to get good news to start the day.

If you’re a developer and you’re listing your plugins in the WordPress repository, I’d definitely give PluginTracker a look to see how your plugins stack up against others and learn ways to improve your rankings.

I know non-developers are subscribed to this newsletter, but I didn’t hesitate to mention this developer-focused tool off the top because it’s also useful for WordPress agencies and freelancers. We’re always on the hunt, or at least paying attention to plugins that may be the best (or a better) fit for our business.

Perhaps you’re thinking about replacing an SEO plugin that isn’t meeting your expectations. You can use PluginTracker to monitor SEO plugins in the WordPress repository over time, tracking factors such as the quality of support they offer, their overall rating, the number of installs they have, and more.

An alternative is to dive into the WordPress repository, which takes quite a bit of time, and you don’t get features like historical data. Another alternative is to ask very subjective questions, such as “What’s the best free SEO plugin?” This approach will yield a wide range of varying answers that are not particularly helpful, as every person and business is different.

Viral Giveaways Testimonial

An unsolicited testimonial arrived this week, which is always nice to receive. InfluenceWP partners are loving the viral giveaway campaigns.

“After running the giveaway on InfluenceWP, I realized how valuable real conversations are. I got some surprisingly strong feedback that helped me sharpen the product in a way I probably wouldn’t have done alone.”

Viral giveaways are free for partners. Partner memberships are free too. Notice a theme? 🤗

But non-partners can run giveaways through IWP as well, practically for free. Provide the prize…we do the rest.

Partnerships

Exclusive Deal. No Affiliation. Just Savings. 👇

• Media Scanner—Find and Clean Up Unused Media Files in WordPress
• WordPress Website Audit—Audit WordPress Sites Without Leaving the Dashboard
• ToggleWP—The All-in-One Modular Toolkit for Pro-Hosters and Freelancers
• Palleon—The Ultimate WordPress Image Editor
• Pwork WP Intranet—All-in-One Intranet Solution For WordPress

First Look Videos

These videos are our first look at products from our partners. We will experience them for the first time, just as a new customer would.

• WP Adminify—Supercharge Your WordPress Management
• PluginTracker—Stop Guessing. Start Tracking. Grow Your Plugin
• Confetti—Add More Excitement to Your WordPress Site

YouTube Companion Posts

Any videos we produce for our partners, such as First Looks and Extended Looks, are accompanied by posts that direct viewers back to their listings on our platform. We optimize these posts to respond to AI-generated questions, enabling partners to expand their reach even further.

• Top 10 Pro—Boost Engagement by Easily Tracking and Displaying Popular Posts
• AesirX CMP Pro for WP—First-Party Consent for WordPress Sites
• Conditional Blocks—Create Personalized WordPress Content in Minutes
• eBook Crafter—The Fastest Way to Turn WordPress Content Into eBooks

FREE Giveaways 🎉

InfluenceWP ran viral giveaways for the following partners. Want to do the same? Great! Please submit your giveaway using our simple form, and we’ll take care of the rest.

• PluginTracker.io helps plugin owners track their performance within the WordPress repository so they know exactly where they stand.
• NeetoRecord, a Loom alternative, is a screen and webcam recording tool that helps you avoid unnecessary meetings. You can record your screen to create demos, presentations, tutorials, feedback, and more.

Updates From Our Partners

• MailPoet v5.20 (IWP Deal) brings a new filter to control cookie tracking; a welcome with discount email pattern; “Abandoned Cart” and “Abandoned Cart with Discount” email patterns using the WooCommerce Product Collection block; and support for guest customers in WooCommerce Bookings automation triggers.
• Fluent Support v2.0 (IWP Deal) brings a redesigned dashboard, smarter ticket management, a redesigned reports module, better workflow automation, redesigned customer info and business inbox, full RTL language support, and more.
• WP Umbrella v2.21 (IWP Deal) brings improvements to API connectivity, backup processes for databases, compatibility with SiteGround, compatibility with WordPress.com, and the ability to disable WordPress actions during update processes to prevent conflicts.
• Meta Box v5.11.1 (IWP Deal) brings improvements to the block editor field, including a block inspector sidebar, a structure panel for the list view of blocks, fullscreen mode, height settings (default is 300px), and the ability to resize the editor, along with numerous fixes for the block editor field.
• Better Search v4.2.3 (IWP Deal) brings WooCommerce product and custom meta indexing, Tom Select, improved seamless mode logic, stronger tracker regex handling, and more.
• CrawlWP v3.1 (IWP Deal) brings an SEO Performance Email Report, a Winners and Losers filter to SEO Stats, GSC (Google Search Console) stats, the ability to sort posts by Google index status, and an improved SEO indexing page to show recently indexed and de-indexed pages. WordPress Instant Indexing & SEO Insights Plugin.
• MailPoet v5.21 (IWP Deal) brings automation subject fields as tags in the email block editor and email patterns for post-purchase automations: First Purchase Thank You, Post Purchase Thank You, Product Purchase Follow-Up, and Win Back Customer. Better Email for WordPress-Powered Websites.
• Infinite Uploads v3.1 (IWP Deal) brings user-controlled folder exclusions directly into the plugin settings to avoid custom code or one-off workarounds and a major performance upgrade across the most expensive operations in Infinite Uploads: syncing media, deleting local files after offload, and downloading files back to the server. Effortlessly Offload Your WordPress Media and Videos to the Cloud.
• DevKit v2.2.1 (IWP Deal) brings the ability to migrate websites with intelligent URL migration, file types to the file manager for identification and sorting, an improved error log, and more. A WordPress Developer’s Little Helper.
• FooBox v2.7.42 (IWP Deal) brings a new glass theme (Glassmorphism style—rounded, translucent borders with a clean, contemporary look) and new styling controls to fine-tune colors across all themes. Responsive Media Lightboxes With Built-in Social Sharing.
• Modular DS (IWP Deal) dropped a massive update for their management tool, introducing a powerful way to manage WordPress updates—in addition to choosing a schedule for when plugin, theme, and WordPress core updates should run, you can set smart rules so they only happen when certain conditions are met. Manage All Your WordPress Websites From One Place.
• Better Search Pro v4.2.3 (IWP Deal) brings WooCommerce product and custom meta indexing, Tom Select, improved seamless mode logic, stronger tracker regex handling, unified Hook_Registry validation, and more. Improve the Default WordPress Search With More Relevant Results.
• Top 10 Pro v4.2 (IWP Deal) brings a guided Settings Wizard to help new installs reach a stable baseline and existing sites revalidate long-running configurations; a network-wide dashboard for multisite, showing aggregated popular-post statistics across sites; a high-traffic tracking mode with configuration validation, designed for predictable behavior under load; the ability to copy settings across multisite installs, making standardization easier; a compact “Top 10 Views Overview” dashboard widget with click-through filtering; and additional controls for Admin Bar visibility and data retention overrides. Boost Engagement by Easily Tracking and Displaying Popular Posts.
• Contextual Related Posts v4.2.0 (IWP Deal) brings the ability for multisite admins to copy plugin settings across sites, saving time and reducing configuration drift across networks; WooCommerce product support—enabling contextual product recommendations based on real content analysis; and WP-CLI support. More Relevance. More Engagement. More Retention.
• Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce v7.4 (IWP Deal) brings a new “referral welcome popups” feature, a new “dark mode” option to the design settings for the regular shortcode dashboard page, a “Clear Cache” button to the admin dashboard page to manually refresh all cached statistics and data on demand, and more.
• RightBlogger (IWP Deal) has shipped the much-anticipated Teams feature, so now you can easily invite your teammates, virtual assistants, and clients to collaborate inside their powerful autoblogging and content automation systems.
• FluentBooking v2.0.05 (IWP Deal) brings a file upload option for admin bookings and rate limiting in meeting scheduling, an overall security audit, and more.
• LinkCentral Premium v1.5.3 (IWP Deal) brings a category filter to the links overview page, and you can now easily view and clear filters on the links overview page.
• FluentCommunity v2.2 (IWP Deal) is the biggest update since the plugin was officially launched, bringing a smart media player (FluentPlayer), a redesigned real-time messaging experience, a rebuilt lesson editor, profile privacy controls, comment pinning, a card grid layout view, and a ton more.
• Simple Points and Rewards v1.9 (IWP Deal) is a massive update, bringing new individual customer points pages to view the point summary and history for each customer in the admin area, a maximum cart percentage setting for points redemption to limit the percentage of cart total that can be paid with points, dark mode support for the rewards dashboard, an accent color setting for theme customization, and an “Award points” timing option for First Order Bonus to choose between immediate or on-completion award, as well as many tweaks and fixes.

Other WordPressers Not to Be Overlooked

• FluentAffiliate v1.3 (Changelog) brings affiliate commissions on subscriptions, dynamic affiliate QR codes, a bank details payment method, and numerous fixes.
• FluentCart v1.3.10 (Changelog) brings full site editing (FSE) block theme support, new Gutenberg blocks (mini cart, product, product title, product image, product carousel, and product categories shortcode), styling improvements, and more.
• CommentsWP v1.3 (Changelog) brings a new “Group by Day,” “Newest First,” and “Oldest First” option to the “Total by Time Period” card, a visual refresh of the plugin admin area, and several fixes.
• Amelia Booking v9.1 (Changelog) brings an integration with Elementor’s Angie AI, allowing admins to explore employees’ availability, list employees, and create appointments using natural chatting, as well as other cool updates including new welcome and first-time setup pages, Divi 5 integration, and simplified Outlook calendar sync.
• Tax Exemption v2.5 (Changelog) brings multiple improvements and fixes to the new full integration with WooCommerce Block Checkout, an update to the Exemption Message custom URL placeholder to show the default tax exemption page URL, an option to set a custom URL for the tax exemption message link on checkout, and more.
• MailerPress v1.3 (Changelog) brings a Fluent Forms (IWP Deal) integration, embeddable forms, automatic double opt-in reminders, enhanced control and visibility, and performance and usability improvements.
• Freemius published their release notes for January, highlighting refund policies for usage-based pricing that now support unused credits, clearer, faster documentation for AI-assisted builds, improved onboarding visibility with a new checklist banner, a customizable proration period for lifetime license upgrades, and more incremental improvements that add up to a better overall experience.
• Newsletter Glue v4.0.6 (Changelog) brings the Single Recurring Cron system, which significantly improves the reliability of automations, preventing double sends and other erratic behavior caused by overlapping or unreliable WordPress scheduled events, BigMailer and HubSpot integrations, and more.
• Instant Images v7.1 (Changelog) brings the ability to disable and reorder the image providers and improvements to the admin UI/UX throughout the plugin.
• Johanne Courtright (X) released Query Filters v1.1 (Changelog Post), which now works with WooCommerce, with the ability to filter products by price, rating, stock status, and sale status—all as native blocks inside the editor.
• GravityKit (X) released GravityImport v2.8 (Changelog Post), which brings a redesigned interface, comprehensive pre-import data validation, and several accessibility improvements.
• Per Soderlind (X) released an add-on manager (GitHub) for his free Virtual Media Folders (Changelog) plugin, providing a dedicated admin screen (Media → Add-on Manager) for installing, activating, updating, deactivating, and deleting supported add-ons directly from GitHub releases.
• David Allsop (X) took the Site Updates Report plugin (Changelog) he built for himself years ago to report on core, plugin, and theme updates for maintenance clients and released it for free within the WordPress repository.
• Marcus Burnette (X) announced the free My WP Photos plugin (Changelog) to turn your WordPress Photo Directory images into a beautiful gallery with a Gutenberg “WP Photos Gallery” block + shortcode, admin defaults (with per-block/shortcode overrides), unlimited photo count + random mode, captions from photo content, and more!
• Mike McAllister (X) announced the new Smart Sync extension for Ollie, which analyzes your layout and detects repetitive design patterns that can be synced together. Once synced, you can instantly apply styles to dozens of blocks in real time.
• Two Factor v0.15 (Changelog) is a massive update, bringing a breaking change to trigger two-factor flow only when expected, new features such as user IP address and contextual warning in two-factor code emails, optimizing email text for TOTP, adding a “Settings” action link to the plugin list for quick access to the profile, and more, as well as many development updates and documentation updates. Every website under my management uses this free plugin. Check out the Easier Two-Factor Authentication for WordPress: Save Your Time, Sanity, and Bacon tutorial, which covers this plugin and more.
• WooCommerce Smooth Generator v1.3 (X) (GitHub) brings several improvements big and small, including brands and cogs support, PHP 8.5 compatibility, sample attribution data from AI sources, and more. This is a plugin to generate products, orders, coupons, customers, and terms for testing purposes.
• MailerPress v1.4 (X) brings the ability to display your latest newsletters publicly using our dedicated block for the WordPress Block Editor.
• WordPress Spin Wheel v2.0 (X) brings a complete rewrite with powerful new features, including 10+ premium themes (Midnight Royalty, Neon, and more), an AI assistant for campaign insights, a leads management dashboard, and more.
• Easy Product Bundles for WooCommerce v.6.16 (X) brings compatibility with WooCommerce Subscriptions and the ability to search categories and tags by slug. and other improvements.
• CaptaineWP (X) is looking for testers for his new custom fields and options pages plugin made for the Gutenberg era—native WordPress fields, design field groups with the block editor, block to render fields without code, and more to come.
• Riaan Knoetze (LinkedIn) created Plugin Pulse, which does exactly what I’ve been looking for—showing when plugins were added to the WordPress repo, making the dates sortable, and more.
• Johanne Courtright (X) announced that she launched this community for anyone working with blocks, FSE, theme.json, and all things Gutenberg, themes, and plugins. Go hang out, whether you’re building custom blocks or just starting out. All skill levels are welcome. Sharing (not spamming) your own work is encouraged.

WordPress Tidbits

WordPress 7.0 Beta

WordPress 7.0 Beta 1 is ready for you to explore. 7.0 will bring exciting features like real-time collaboration and new design tools, enhancing the WordPress editing experience for creators, developers, and teams. Test and share your feedback!

Make WordPress Core Page Needs a Revamp

In my opinion, this page needs to be more inviting and easier to use, especially for new, non-developer contributors. I’m happy to provide feedback and contribute to WordPress in non-dev ways, rather than just complain, but when I hit this page, I’m out. Can’t do it.

As an example, if I have feedback about improving the UI/UX of the WordPress dashboard, I have no idea where to go without doing a lot of reading and link following. Those who want to contribute should find it effortless to do so.