March 2026 Newsletter

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

Partner Spotlight

FooPlugins

Since 2004, FooPlugins has been dedicated to creating high-quality, developer-friendly solutions for WordPress, with a focus on gallery and lightbox plugins built for performance and growth.

You can try FooPlugins solutions for free and enjoy top-notch support, thorough documentation, developer-friendliness, and a refund guarantee.

Visit FooPlugins on InfluenceWP to learn about their brand and plugins, watch first look videos, read video companion posts, get exclusive deals, and more.

InfluenceWP Updates

IWP 2.0

Over the past week, I have been diligently revamping IWP’s approach to partnerships with product creators. It’s a much-needed move for the sustainability of the project, and as a byproduct, I’ll be able to go deeper when it comes to helping product creators.

Some people have mentioned they thought IWP was just a place to get WordPress and WordPress-adjacent deals. It stings to hear that because IWP is about much more than that.

Behind the scenes, I’ve helped product creators change the direction of their products, quite literally. Behind the scenes, I’ve had virtual coffees with partners to discuss product ideas that aren’t even a part of IWP (i.e., there’s nothing in it for me, other than wanting to help). Behind the scenes, I’m doing a laundry list of things.

In addition to all the behind-the-scenes stuff, there are the things that you can see, like on the IWP website, for example. But this is where a big part of the problem is was.

Insufficient emphasis was placed on the product creators. This has been addressed.

• NEW Home Page: Completely redesigned to put the focus on IWP partners.
• NEW Home Page Takeover: Partners will be able to take over the IWP home page for a time to increase their exposure.
• NEW Home Page Featured Listings: As new listings are added to IWP, they will appear on the home page for a time to increase their exposure.
• NEW Brand Listings: A starting point to learn about the partner and find everything associated with them on the IWP platform (deal listings, non-deal listings, posts, guides, videos, etc.).
• NEW Newsletter Takeover: Partners will get a featured section in the IWP newsletter for a time to increase their exposure.

Partnerships

Exclusive Deal. No Affiliation. Just Savings. 👇

• Revise—AI Content Creator That Lives Inside Your WordPress Editor
• upCheckout—Never lose a sale to a broken checkout. Verify your entire e-commerce checkout flow, from form validation to live payment processing, to avoid any obstacles for your customers.
• Simple Points and Rewards for WooCommerce has deepened their partnership for this powerful and feature-rich “Points and Rewards” plugin for WooCommerce. IWP members now get 27% off.
• GB Query Enhancements has deepened their partnership for this plugin that gives you complete query control for GenerateBlocks. IWP members now get 25% off, which equates to upwards of 50% off when combined with the vendor’s discounts.
• Infinite Uploads has deepened their partnership for this plugin to effortlessly offload your WordPress media and videos to the cloud. IWP members now get 30% off.

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.

• Simple Points and Rewards for WooCommerce—Simplify the Way You Reward Your Most Loyal Customers
• SiteSkite—Next-Gen WordPress Management

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.

• Confetti—Add More Excitement to Your WordPress Site
• Simple Points and Rewards for WooCommerce—Simplify the Way You Reward Your Most Loyal Customers

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.

• 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.
• DLX Plugins gave away their Deluxe Bundle—Archive Pages Pro (IWP Deal), Comment Edit Pro, GB (GenerateBlocks) Extras, HeyTodos – Gravity Forms and Todoist Add-on, QuotesDLX, and Tazker – Gravity Forms and Toggl Plan Add-on.

Updates From Our Partners

• Changelog as a Service v1.2 (Changelog) brings a new global setting, shortcode setting, and block setting to show a “Get notified of updates” link within changelogs so users can easily subscribe to them on ChangelogWP.com, a new filter that allows you to change the final HTML however you’d like right before it is displayed, and other fixes.
• Perfmatters v2.5.8 (IWP Deal) is a massive update that brings the code snippets feature out of beta and includes many performance improvements, along with several other new features, fixes, and enhancements.
• Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce v7.5 (IWP Deal) is a massive update that brings an option to set per-group and per-user MLA commission rates, an option to display a “Rates” tab on the MLA affiliate dashboard, an “MLA Users” admin page listing all users who are part of the multi-level affiliate system with their affiliate details and stats, lots more details and statistics about the affiliates’ sub-affiliates within the “View Affiliate” page, as well as more new features, and numerous improvements, tweaks, and fixes.
• Conversion Bridge v1.13 (IWP Deal) is packed with changes that’ll make conversion data more accurate, consent handling more reliable, and checkout tracking more complete with a rebuilt consent system, phone support for Enhanced Matching in 30+ integrations, and integrations for CheckoutWC (IWP Deal), Termageddon (IWP Deal), Tutor LMS, and Usercentrics, new Gravity Forms power features, and much more.
• Hoverify v4.6.8 (IWP Deal) brings new features to “Site Stack,” including a rebuilt detection engine, PDF report generation, and caching, while the “Color Eyedropper” gets added support for the OKLCH color space, “SEO” gets a button to clear the cache and refetch data and a button to change the position of the SEO panel, “Capture” gets added support for smooth scrolling libraries like GSAP, and the extension gets numerous overall improvements and bug fixes.
• Scripts Organizer v4 (IWP Deal) brings defer, async, etc., options for JavaScript scripts and WP Core scripts added in the code block scripts manager field, plus a Bricks color names notice fix.
• UiPress v1.2.18 (IWP Deal) brings several improvements—dashboard layout, style layering and CSS scoping, WordPress toolbar integration, and global search keyboard handling, and several fixes—Activity Log timestamp timezone display and four fixes raised by the community, as well as other improvements.
• GB Query Enhancements v1.2 (IWP Deal) brings new term queries: “Include terms from this post” (i.e., object_id) param support and new Term & User Queries: {{post_id}} placeholder support for all meta_value params, multiple improvements, and fixes.
• OOPSpam Anti-Spam (IWP Deal) is bringing you OOPVulns, a new WordPress vulnerability scanner plugin that works with your existing OOPSpam account, so there’s no need for a new subscription. You can download the beta via a link on this page.
• PatternsWP (IWP Deal) brings you February 2026 Pattern Day with 26 fresh designs, including patterns for hero sections, feature sections, pricing, customer logos, and essential components like testimonials, galleries, FAQs, stats, and team sections.
• SiteSkite (IWP Deal) is evolving beyond routine maintenance into a full control layer for WordPress operations—teams can safely experiment, clone, recover, and manage environments through intelligent sandboxing and streamlined backup workflows. This evolution includes the ability to launch sandboxes in seconds, use blueprints to save and reuse proven site structures, create sandboxes from blueprints, extremely powerful and multi-layered backups, pretty error logs, domain expiry tracking, and a ton more.
• FluentSupport v2.0.5 (IWP Deal) brings dark mode to the admin dashboard, OpenAI GPT-5.2 support for workflows, view tickets (read-only) permission, faster ticket list loading, optimized Zendesk migrations, and a handful of bug fixes across permissions, attachments, formatting, and UI.
• SEOPress v9.6 (IWP Deal) brings an option to freeze post modification dates, the ability to import global settings from SmartCrawl, the ability to add Facebook meta domain verification tags, a schema column (posts, pages, etc.), improved migration from Yoast, enhanced flushing of XML sitemaps, and numerous fixes.
• Activity Logo Pro v1.0.4 (IWP Deal) brings support for WooCommerce 10.5.3, compliance updates for the WordPress plugin repository listing, and numerous fixes. Also, there is now support for secure, token-based automatic updates via Lemon Squeezy. (Note: A one-off manual update is required, and you can get that download from your account.).
• WPSyncSheets For Contact Form 7 v3.9.0 (IWP Deal) has an option to enable or disable saving Contact Form 7 submissions to the WordPress database.
• ThriveDesk (IWP Deal) introduced ‘Undo Send’—a short delay before your reply actually leaves your inbox. Spot a typo. Forgot an attachment. Just changed your mind. Cancel it before anyone sees it.
• Advanced Forms Pro for ACF v1.9.3.7 (IWP Deal) brings a shortcode copy button for a nice QoL improvement, as well as an ACF 6.7 compatibility fix where integration field labels were getting their HTML escaped.
• Simple Points and Rewards for WooCommerce v1.10 (IWP Deal) brings a new “Prize Wheel” reward type that customers can redeem points for a chance to win various prizes, new “Product” and “Product: Category” conditions for the conditional rules, a “Theme Style” option for the checkout rewards box to choose between light and dark mode styles, and a way to reorder the “Ways to Earn” on the rewards dashboard and widget with a drag-and-drop interface in the settings, as well as more new features, tweaks, and fixes.
• Flowmattic v6.0 (IWP Deal) is a massive update (their biggest ever) with way too many things to mention here, but some of the highlights are AI agents (build workflows that think, decide, and act autonomously) and MCP Server & MCP Client (connect to the Model Context Protocol ecosystem and expose your workflows as MCP tools). The future of AI-powered automation is here with FlowMattic, a WordPress-native automation plugin that connects your site to 370+ apps—zero code required. Your workflows. Your data. Your control. All inside WordPress.
• Pollify v1.0.12 (IWP Deal) lets you require login before anyone can vote—across polls, Kudos (a way to give recognition), NPS (Net Promoter Score, a measure of customer loyalty), up/down votes, and everything, because polls on your WordPress site are only as good as the people voting. Custom login URL support is also included.
• Revise v1.5 (IWP Deal) introduces one-click AI editing directly in the Gutenberg block toolbar, allowing for quick actions like rewriting, simplifying, and fixing grammar without typing a prompt.
• AntiManual v3.0 (IWP Deal) is a huge update that brings AI-powered auto-translation (30+ languages, bulk translation, tone and glossary controls, translation history, and a frontend language switcher), AI-driven SEO audits (Single Page, Bulk, and Full Site modes; Quick and Full AI Audit options; and external URL analysis), AI-powered link analysis (Link Reports, Generate Links, Bulk Auto-Link, Site Visualizer, Topic Clusters, Anchor Manager, and link health detection), the ability to automatically refresh outdated posts on a schedule with post type and status filters, age thresholds, tone settings, and statistics dashboard, and a ton more.
• Conversion Bridge 1.13.2 (IWP Deal) brings Highlight and Share plugin integration, simple setup for Phone link (tel:) and email link (mailto:) click tracking, custom events (separate trigger + event type), scroll % custom event trigger, and Document Library Pro lead capture tracking.
• Novashare 1.6.6 (IWP Deal) brings an updated Mastodon share link to use their new official share workflow, new share and follow buttons for Gab, a new novashare_share_link_target filter, UI style adjustments in preparation for WordPress 7, and more.
• Modular DS (IWP Deal) brings a newly rebuilt uptime monitor, new Patch & Product features including a centralized security dashboard, configurable hardening rules, white label support for the Patchstack plugin, abandoned plugin detection, and more.
• uiXpress 2.19 (IWP Deal) brings the ability to add an “important” flag in the Admin Notices UI so you can pin critical notices to the top of the admin page, and now when creating a new role in the Role Editor, you can choose an existing role as a starting point rather than building permissions from scratch. This update also includes numerous other improvements and fixes.
• ShutterPress Gallery Pro 1.5.6 (IWP Deal) brings secure image delivery through WooCommerce emails and includes an improvement to watermark behavior, as well as a fix for a bug where watermarks did not always cover the full image.
• Font Hero 2.3.0 (IWP Deal) is a massive update with a complete rewrite with a modern React interface, powerful performance tools, and expanded support for page builders and WordPress themes. Font Hero is no longer just a font uploader—it’s now a complete typography management system for WordPress.
• Magic Login Pro 2.7 (IWP Deal) brings friendly captcha integration, local font loading for better privacy, security hardening, and improved abuse protection for magic login emails.
• WP Umbrella 2.22 (IWP Deal) brings a new broken link checking on demand and improvements such as removing the old backup process, preventing plugin and theme update process on failure, and an added debug log for update processes.

Other WordPressers Not to Be Overlooked

• MailerPress v1.5 (Changelog Post) brings new webhooks: support for both incoming and outgoing webhooks to integrate external systems and receive real-time events and flexible click and open tracking to choose between Yes, No, or Anonymously in the Review & Send modal, as well as numerous improvements and fixes.
• Virtual Media Folders v1.8.0 (Changelog) brings server-side sidebar preference (user meta), server-side grid/list/folder view switching, a new REST endpoint for preferences, and fixes for sidebar/cache + view-switch race conditions.
• FluentCart v1.3.11 (Changelog Post) brings Elementor blocks such as Add to Cart, Buy Now, Mini Cart, Products Grid, Carousel, Category List, and Checkout; Razorpay subscription support; product SKUs; new Gutenberg blocks such as Related Products, Media Carousel, Customer Dashboard Button, and Store Logo; and several other new features.
• WP Rollback Plugins & Themes v3.0.12 (Changelog) brings the ability to reinstall the currently installed version of a plugin or theme, with the rollback button now adapting its label based on the selected version—“Reinstall” when selecting the current version, “Rollback” when selecting an older version, and “Update” when selecting a newer version. Confirmation messaging updates accordingly for each action type.
• FluentCart v1.3.14 (Release Post) brings bulk product imports, Flutterwave payments, early installment payments, customizable product shortcodes, new Gutenberg blocks, the ability to add images via a URL, and a couple fixes.
• Steve Jones (X) of Equalize Digital announced Accessibility Checker v1.38, which brings a new Block Editor sidebar for scan results, the ability to dismiss issues with reasons, updated issue terminology, better status indicators using color and shape, and more.
• Pavel Ciorici (X) announced that his new WPZOOM User History plugin (Changelog) is now available for download from the WordPress repository and is packed with over 7 new features to help track what your WordPress users are up to.
• Gaurav Tiwari (X) announced his Functionalities plugin is now Dynamic Functionalities (Changelog), and this change also comes with several fixes. This WordPress plugin replaces multiple plugins with one lightweight toolkit to manage performance, security, SEO, redirects, link behavior, and more.
• Directorist (X) v8.6 brings smarter forms with conditional logic, safer listing management, bulk expiration control, and better mobile search—giving you more flexibility and control over your directory.
• Dave Grey (X) announced Document Library Pro Power Pack v2 (Release Post), a major release that brings an improved settings screen (now tab-based), settings import/export, and a much-requested improvement to the enhanced frontend form—reorderable fields (including custom fields). It also includes the first public release of the Client Management area, which allows businesses like accountants to use Document Library Pro + Power Pack to add client-based document approval tracking.
• Johanne Courtright (X) announced Query Filters 2.0, with FSE blocks, no shortcode, and no custom PHP, addressing the fact that WordPress search has always been a text scanner with matches, not relevance. With Query Filters, you now get a weighted index, fuzzy matching, a synonym dictionary, and proximity scoring, all inside WordPress, with no external services.
• Brandon Dove (X) created a solution that imports Miles AI WordPress export ZIPs into any local WordPress environment—not just Local by WP Engine or Studio. This solution manages various tasks such as database import, URL replacement, plugins, themes, and uploads.
• WebberZone announced Link Warnings v1.0 (Changelog), a free plugin that lets visitors know when they are leaving your site or opening a link in a new tab, adding visual indicators, modal confirmations, or redirect screens—helping you align with accessibility best practices without rewriting your content.
• Ronald Huereca announced Highlight and Share v6.0, a massive update for this free plugin for unobtrusive and lightweight content sharing. There are way too many new features to list here, so check out the (Changelog) to learn more.
• FluentCart 1.3.15 brings an email editor powered by Gutenberg, email preview for default templates, scheduled reminder emails for payments and subscriptions, an improved EU VAT reverse charge experience, EU VAT block in checkout, and more.
• OllieWP released an eCommerce pattern collection and a whole suite of designs, blocks, and templates for WooCommerce. They didn’t just throw down some styles; they created a whole experience to make this the best solution for using WooCommerce in the WordPress site editor.
• Harish Chouhan (X) released a structured WordPress plugin foundation for AI-assisted development (GitHub) intended for developers who already understand WordPress plugin development (hooks, filters, escaping, and sanitization) to build with clear guardrails: a consistent structure, coding standards, and static analysis so generated code stays maintainable and secure.
• Ciprian Popescu (X) wanted to turn his WordPress sites into shareable demos without the pain of writing Blueprint JSON by hand, so he built a plugin (GitHub) that does exactly that—to showcase WordPress plugins in the browser.
• WooCommerce 10.6 brings enhanced product collections, streamlined cart and checkout design, improvements aimed at boosting performance and user experience, and more.
• Plugin Check Plugin 1.9 (Changelog) adds numerous enhancements, including using the WordPress 7.0 core AI connectors, adding External Admin Menu Links check to detect external URLs in top-level admin menus, adding and refining the block metadata compatibility check, improving the Plugin Updater detection to identify Plugin Update Checker (PUC) calls, and the acceptance of WTFPL as a GPL-compatible license, as well as numerous tweaks and fixes.

WordPress Tidbits

WordPress Drama & Speaking Up

Coen Jacobs (X) published a nice piece, Fear of voicing the unpopular opinion within the WordPress ecosystem, that I’m confident will resonate with many folks reading this newsletter. I found myself repeatedly nodding in agreement as I read his post.

I’m especially drawn to the “The cost of staying quiet” section due to how much it resonates, but also because I’m going to push back a bit here regarding the “And the result is an ecosystem where the only voices that get heard are the ones with enough power or influence to feel safe speaking up,” the statement said. If you read the entire post to get the full context, my takeaway from the message seems to be that if we stop being quiet…we will be heard.

My pushback (not even sure I want to call it that) is to say that the only voices that get heard are the ones with enough power or influence. Full stop.

It’s a nice thought to think that if enough people who have been silent until now stop, we will be heard and make a difference. That’s a fantasy. It’s what we tell ourselves to feel compelled to continue sharing the thoughts in our heads with the world.

I’m not going to get into it, but I’ve spoken up a lot since starting InfluenceWP. I’m under no illusions that I made a difference. Hell, I’m not even convinced that those in the innermost WordPress circles have any chance at influencing change. So, what now?

Dunno, to be honest. These days I’m leaning more towards silence.

In WordPress land, doing anything other than holding hands and talking about rainbows and unicorns makes you just seem like someone who is “stirring the pot” or who needs to “touch some grass.”

Product Documentation

I’m sure many product creators already know this, but if you want to help users become more self-sufficient and reduce your support tickets as a byproduct, focus on documentation.

I just used AI to create a code snippet to enhance a popular SEO plugin.

All I needed to do was mention the specific plugin and what I wanted. AI went to the plugin’s website, referenced their docs, found the hook I needed, and a couple prompts later…boom!

For the vendor, this meant they didn’t have to receive a support ticket from me in the first place, they didn’t need to correspond back and forth with me, and they had more time to focus on the business or help with other support tickets.

Miles

This week, I embarked on a new project (more on that later), and in the process, I decided to experiment with Miles, an AI agent that creates and develops WordPress websites using custom blocks, plugin integration, and production-ready code. Describe what you want, and Miles makes it real.

That last sentence couldn’t be more true. I was staring at a blank screen, ready to build our new home page, but I wanted some inspiration. So, in another browser tab, I fired up Miles (having never touched it before), walked through some onboarding questions about our business, our product, etc., followed by some light prompting, and bam!

Not only did I have some amazing inspiration, but Miles also gave me a WordPress website that I could easily spin up if I wanted to. Since I already had our environment set up and the build started, I stopped at what I came for: inspiration and to finally see what Miles was all about.

I’m on the newer side of building sites with FSE (Full Site Editing), so I’m constantly learning. What I ended up doing was taking the build Miles gave me, and I recreated it with our theme.

I’d say we ended up using and recreating about 75% of the design elements Miles came up with. If I wanted to spend more time with it, the amazing thing about Miles is that I could have asked for design changes through a simple conversation.

For example, social media icons weren’t added to the footer. I asked Miles to add the social icons of the top social media platforms, and it nailed it.

In addition to the design elements, Miles also wrote amazing copy. I simply told Miles about our product, its target audience, our selling model, etc.

I’d say that 95% of the copy that Miles came up with is now on our home page. Incredible! That doesn’t mean it will all stay, but the benefits are crazy. It thought of things I hadn’t, and then there’s just the time savings alone.

Now, one could argue that most AI solutions could do that same copy, but what’s interesting here is it goes ahead and drops that copy in the right places, within the design.

As a web designer/builder who is leaning heavily towards the WordPress block editor and FSE, Miles has my head spinning. I just proved in a real-world scenario how valuable a tool like this is.

As an agency owner, I need to take the time to reevaluate my web design/building offering.

I don’t know if Miles is the only solution like this specifically for WordPress and FSE, but either way, it’s all but certain more will be coming.

Random

• I wish the WordPress Command Palette had a right-click menu (My X Post)
• The ‘Featured Plugin List’ in the WordPress repo is a welcome move to give more exposure to folks, but like most things with those who control (or have some real say in) WordPress, we’re left to wonder how things really work under the hood. Where’s the transparency? Where’s the discussion?