May 2026 Newsletter

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

Partner Spotlight

GB Query Enhancements

GB Query Enhancements extends the native GenerateBlocks 2.0 Query Block to add additional query types, new dynamic tags, or enhancements to existing dynamic tag functionality. No matter which version of GenerateBlocks you’re using, you can benefit from GB Query Enhancements.

• Adds New Query Types: Term, User, and Enhanced Post.
• Adds New Dynamic Tags: Terms and Users
• Adds New Filters: Fallback and URL

Visit GB Query Enhancements on InfluenceWP to learn more about the brand and the plugin, watch the first look video, read video companion posts, and get an exclusive deal.

InfluenceWP Updates

Partnerships

New Partnerships

• URL Shortify—Tired of relying on third-party link shorteners that slow you down, add latency, or risk downtime? Take full control of your links directly inside WordPress with this simple, powerful, and lightning-fast URL shortener plugin trusted by over 10k+ power users. Get 20% off.
• Core Forms—Tired of form plugins that nickel-and-dime you with expensive add-ons just to get basic features like payments, file uploads, or proper spam protection? Meet Core Forms — a powerful, lightweight, and developer-friendly WordPress form builder that includes everything you need right out of the box. Get 30% off.
• Unblock—Tired of hitting the walls of the block editor? Unblock removes the boundaries so you can build exactly what you envision, right inside Gutenberg. At its core is a single, incredibly powerful block that can transform into any element you need. Every block in Gutenberg = one real HTML element. No nested wrappers, no abstraction layer. What you build is what ships. The AI part follows naturally: there’s no custom schema to learn, and every LLM already speaks the open web. The chat is Unblock. The model is yours, configured in WP 7.0.

First Look Videos

These videos are our first look at products from our partners and the WordPress community. We experience these solutions for the first time, just as a new customer would.

• Ollie AI—an extension that works with the OllieWP ecosystem (OllieWP theme, Ollie Pro, etc.) to search the pattern library with natural language and let Ollie curate full page layouts for you, discover hidden gems with random pattern combinations you’d never find browsing manually, build pages and modify designs through Claude, Cursor, VS Code, and other AI agents, and teach your AI agent how to work with Ollie’s features and design system.
• Core Forms—Tired of form plugins that nickel-and-dime you with expensive add-ons just to get basic features like payments, file uploads, or proper spam protection? Meet Core Forms — a powerful, lightweight, and developer-friendly WordPress form builder that includes everything you need right out of the box. Get 30% off and check out the video.

FREE Giveaways

InfluenceWP ran the following viral giveaways. Want to do the same? Great! IWP Partners can run a giveaway for free as part of their membership, and anyone can run a giveaway for a small fee. Fill out a simple form, and we do the rest.

ToggleWP

ToggleWP (IWP Deal) is the all-in-one modular plugin for WordPress profitability.

• Admin Peace of Mind: Real-time monitoring and login security.
• Developer Speed: Deploy your favorite tools in under a minute.
• Client Value: Internal messaging, plugin renewal reminders, and a cleaner, faster dashboard.
• Modules: Security, Admin, Utility, Media, Marketing, Communication, and more.

Updates From Our Partners

• Perfmatters v2.6.2 (IWP Deal) automatically optimizes and lazy-loads Elementor Atomic YouTube elements and legacy video widgets when the Perfmatters iframe lazy-loading feature is enabled. YouTube preview thumbnails are also supported, as well as Elementor image overlays if set. This update also includes additional changes, improvements, and fixes. Perfmatters goes on every website under my management.
• RightBlogger (IWP Deal) added Claude Opus 4.7 to their AI Chat tool. This provides you with access to Anthropic’s most capable model, available for the writing and SEO tasks where reasoning matters most. I’m leveraging RightBlogger pretty much daily.
• Firebox (IWP Deal) has been focused on expanding integrations and improving the campaign editing experience. Alongside that, they fixed issues in analytics and the Gutenberg editor and ensured compatibility with the upcoming WordPress 7.0 release. Integrations now include ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, Salesforce, and GetResponse.
• ShutterPress Gallery Pro 1.6 (IWP Deal) is a big update that brings gallery proofing tools so clients can mark images (Yes, Maybe, or No), proofing submission workflow with selection limits, submission locking, admin review, CSV export, and email notifications, “Copy Chosen Filenames” and “Submit Choices” actions for proofing galleries, sticky button bar controls, including device-specific sticky behaviour for desktop, tablet, and mobile, and WooCommerce image size options so downloadable products can deliver full-size, scaled, or registered WordPress image sizes
• Activity Logo Pro v1.0.6 (IWP Deal) brings Log Channels (routes activity log events to external destinations in real-time), Login Flood Guard (caps repeated failed-login log rows during attacks (20/50/100/200); optional toggle under Security events; notice on Activity Logs when suppression runs), and Daily Groups (displays a visual section header showing “Today,” “Yesterday,” and “X days ago” in the activity logs table when sorting by date).
• FluentCommunity 2.4 (IWP Deal) focuses on the things community managers actually do every day, getting people in, talking to them, and helping them find their way around—bringing bulk member import, group messaging, and a smarter sidebar.
• Modular DS (IWP Deal) now brings one of the most requested and highly voted features on their roadmap—site migration, cloning, and staging, as well as one-click backup restoration.
• MailPoet 5.24 (IWP Deal) is a big update that includes automatic cleanup of the rendered email body from old completed sends to reduce database size, automatic cleanup of per-subscriber sending status data with a configurable retention period, new public APIs to manage tags and (un)assign tags to subscribers, AI-powered subject line and preview text suggestions in the email editor, the ability to resend a newsletter to subscribers who didn’t open it, birthday email automation, and more.
• Better Search Pro (IWP Deal) now brings WP-CLI support, a multisite network dashboard, auto-index reconciliation (cron), fuzzy search refactoring, and ACF image support for better relevance and solid bug fixes.
• Directorist v8.7.1 (Learn More) brings less guesswork, better search, and a cleaner admin experience. New features include “Listing Rejection Flow” so listing owners now know exactly why a submission was rejected and “Nearby Sort” so users searching by location can sort results by distance.
• Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce v7.8 (IWP Deal) is a massive update that honestly includes too many new features, tweaks, and fixes to list here. So, let’s just say this plugin covers all your affiliate marketing needs, whether you’re running a complex affiliate program, working with influencers, or just needing a simple “refer a friend” system. Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce empowers your affiliates with a streamlined dashboard for tracking stats, payouts, and referrals.
• FluentCart v1.3.2 (Release Note) ships with the official EDD (Easy Digital Downloads) migrator, providing a one-click migration for products, orders, customers, licenses, and download history transfer into FluentCart’s native structure.
• FluentCart v1.3.27 (Release Note) turns licensing from a record into a workspace for stores that sell software, plugins, themes, developer tools, etc. Any activated site attached to a license is where most operational questions live—where the license is running, which variation that activation covers, and why support heard from that customer this week. This update also brings a meaningful set of additions for stores using Bricks Builder, a few small tools for product editors, and a long list of paper-cut fixes across subscriptions and receipts.
• DevKit v2.3 (IWP Deal) brings new performance scans to find autoload bloat, database clutter, plugin inefficiencies, and media optimization opportunities. These scans don’t just show you problems—they let you fix them instantly with one-click actions. “DevKit replaces other plugins, is a huge time saver, and makes the task of being a WordPress admin that much more of an enjoyable experience.”
• WP Multitool v1.2 (IWP Deal) brings the long-awaited (and requested) Auto Update feature and fixes some of the issues reported by users. “Stop Juggling WordPress Optimization Plugins. Enable What You Need, Ignore What You Don’t.”
• BitFlows v1.2 (IWP Deal) brings new triggers and actions (ProfilePress, FluentSupport, and more) and a new Sticky Note node to the flow builder — supports markdown rendering inside the visual canvas. and field mapping support for Google Calendar and Discord actions.
• MailPoet v5.25 (IWP Deal) is a big update, bringing generated WooCommerce coupon block support for regular newsletters and automation emails, unsubscribe reason surveys, duplicate actions for automations, controlled bulk resend actions for confirmation emails to unconfirmed subscribers, bulk actions for automations, custom fields management for subscribers, and more, as well as numerous improvements and fixes.
• SEOPress v9.8 (IWP Deal) is a massive update, bringing a new command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K) to search and jump to any setting, with quick actions and recent commands history, an Agent Readiness toggle to prepare your site for AI agents, a Visual token editor for Dynamic Tag fields, one-click AI-generated alt texts for image issues in Site Audit, and more, as well as numerous improvements and fixes.
• Tella (IWP Deal) dropped a big update, bringing new branding options, a redesigned onboarding email series, and a long list of polish across the recorder, editor, and viewer. Tella is the all-in-one screen recorder. Record, edit, and share every video your business needs.
• Ajay D’Souza (X) announced his Knowledge Base Pro plugin (Release Announcement), which brings a help widget, rating system, premium layout pack, floating TOC, and more to an already feature-packed free version. “If you’re hunting for a clean, easy-to-use documentation plugin for your products, you won’t be disappointed.”
• EventKoi (IWP Deal) is celebrating the launch of their new tickets feature with a huge lifetime deal sale! Get on the waitlist to know when the sale opens. EventKoi is a modern WordPress events plugin with a clean calendar, recurring events, RSVP, and now Tickets.
• Activity Log Pro v1.0.7 (IWP Deal) is about making it easier to see what matters, with newly added Logging Levels (“severity”) to every activity entry—each row is labeled as critical, high, medium, low, or info, with a clear badge in the log table so your eye goes to the right place first.
• FluentCRM v3.0 (IWP Deal) dropped and is touted as the “biggest update ever” by the team. This isn’t one of those releases where they added a few features and bumped the version. The team rebuilt FluentCRM v3.0 on Vue 3, adding AI, SMS, a Gutenberg-native email builder, and a fast dashboard based on two years of customer feedback.
• Conversion Bridge v1.1.4 (IWP Deal) brings one of the most-requested features yet: a real home for any tracking script that doesn’t already have a built-in integration, a brand new way to set up FluentForms tracking, two new integrations (Bit Form and FunnelKit), and faster page tracking across the board.
• Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce v7.8.1 (IWP Deal) adds a new “Privacy & Cookies” settings tab with related options moved into it (easier to find, to control the cookie storage and session options, etc.), an option in “Coupon Checkout Settings” to always allow any other non-affiliate discount coupon to be applied alongside zero-discount affiliate coupons, a {coupon_description} merge tag for dynamic landing pages, which outputs the WooCommerce coupon description, a “Dynamic Landing Page Template Protection” option to the landing pages settings, and more.
• FluentBooking v2.1 (IWP Deal) introduces Bookings CSV Export (a one-click download that respects every filter you’ve already set and every column you’ve ever needed), along with Filter Hooks (the admin’s Bookings list now remembers your Author and Status filters between sessions, so you stop re-filtering every time you reopen it), a No-Show Trigger for FluentCRM Automations, Saved List Filters on Bookings, PHP 8.4 Compatibility, Snappier Scheduler and Admin Queries, and more.
• Pollify v1.0.13 (IWP Deal) brings a faster and fully responsive admin, cleaner architecture, smarter error handling in FeedbackManager, and multiple fixes. Create Dynamic, Engaging Polls and Surveys Effortlessly With Pollify – the First 100% Gutenberg-Based Poll Creator Plugin for WordPress.
• MailPoet 5.26 (IWP Deal) is a big update that brings a WooCommerce dynamic segment filter for product variations, an “email subscriber unsubscribed” automation trigger, mail notifications when sites near their subscriber limit, Cloudflare Turnstile support for SPAM protection, post scheduling notification enhancements, and an automated latest content post customization hook, along with numerous improvements and fixes.
• RightBlogger (IWP Deal) now has branded (white label) live SEO reports for clients (or for yourself), pulled straight from Google Search Console. Live GSC data, branded for your agency, custom domains and URLs, sharing with one link, AI insights, and more.
• Core Forms (IWP Deal) continues to pump out updates. v4.2.9 brings a polished container builder—popover redesign, single-column default, and real-time preview, while v4.3 brings a rework of the Polls feature, importers for Gravity Forms, WPForms, and FluentForms, and conditional emails (per recipient).

Other WordPressers Not to Be Overlooked

For any free plugins mentioned, check out ChangelogWP, where you can view and track their changelogs and optionally get notifications in your inbox.

• Mike McAlister (X) announced OllieWP AI. Just when you thought the Ollie ecosystem couldn’t get any better (well, we knew it would, if we’re being honest), the team announced the AI integration with the following message: “Instead of asking AI to design everything from scratch, we gave it superpowers to use the massive library of professionally designed Ollie patterns.” Next up is the Ollie MCP server! Scroll back up and check out the First Look video I recorded for Ollie AI, if you missed it.
• Jon Schroeder (X) announced Recently Edited, his first solo commercial plugin for WordPress, that he’s been using it on every project for about 3 months and can’t live without it anymore. “A Swiss Army knife that lets you quickly browse between bits of content on your site, whether they’re published or not.”
• MailerPress 2.0 (Direct Post) brings automations, branded WordPress email, WooCommerce email customization, new ESPs (Resend, EmailIt & SMTP2GO), native wp_mail() support, and Divi Builder integration.
• Marcus Brunette recently launched WellPlayedWP, a WordPress plugin library with a pretty different pricing model—one license gets you access to every plugin in the collection. There are already 20+ plugins included, most translated into 6 languages, with detailed documentation for both site builders and developers.
• Ajay D’Souza (X) has been busy! He announced Code Block Highlighting v1.0 (Changelog), a clean syntax highlighting using the code block that comes with core WordPress, which means no custom blocks and no setup. He also announced Link Warnings v1.3 (Changelog), which can now process every link on your site with sitewide link scanning (works in menus, widgets, footers, etc.), and CSS class rules now apply everywhere. For those that don’t know, the Link Warnings plugin lets visitors know when they are leaving your site or opening a link in a new tab, using visual indicators, modal confirmations, or redirect screens.
• After building and migrating 100s of WordPress sites, Denis Bosire (X) announced that he launched his own plugin, Swish Backup (Free), to backup, migrate, duplicate, and restore entire sites in a few clicks.
• Simple History v5.27 (Free) is a massive update that adds AI agent attribution to log events, so you can see when an action was triggered through Claude Code, ChatGPT, or other AI tools. Also, action links are now front-and-center for media, plugins, users, menus, and failed plugin installs. Connect with the creator, Par Thernstrom, on LinkedIn.
• James Koussertari (X) announced the initial release of the free Attribufy plugin to help users bulk update alt text effortlessly with AI. It also generates image attributes automatically on upload.
• Ronald Huereca (X) mentioned the big v2.4.5 release for the free Pattern Wrangler plugin, bringing better preview navigation, mobile controls, quick actions to the toolbar, and more new features, as well as some fixes and general updates. Pattern Wrangler lets you preview, organize, and control WordPress block patterns.
• Kirki (X) is introduced as “the first freeform visual builder for WordPress,” with the ability to design on an infinite canvas—placing anything, anywhere, with an advanced built-in CMS, real-time collaboration, and a visual interaction timeline.
• Troy Chaplin (X) is the creator of the Smart Media Replacement plugin (free). If you’ve ever updated a PDF and realized half your site links to the old version or replaced a hero image and watched your carefully tuned page layouts collapse, this plugin solves both problems, adding a safety net you’ll wish you had earlier. Smart Media Replacement has seen a lot of development of late, with a recent major release and then v1.2 dropping on 5/15 with a focus on multisite—“Multisite behavior is now consistent and centrally managed.”
• Giovanni Cintolo (X) announced v.1.1 of their (Dynamic.ooo) Novamira Pro plugin, with a focus on field plugin integration. AI agents now have dedicated abilities for ACF, JetEngine, Meta Box, Pods, ACPT, and ASE Pro: field groups, custom post types, taxonomies, options pages, relationships, and field values across posts, users, terms, and options pages. Less token usage and less back-and-forth than going through generic PHP and database calls. Novamira gives your AI full access to PHP execution, database queries, and file edits. Pro adds expertise on Elementor, Bricks, ACF, JetEngine, and Meta Box, plus more, with memory between sessions.
• Nico Arche (X) announced My Favorite Plugins, which allows you to build reusable installation lists from WordPress.org plugins and themes (plus your own zips) and connect them to your site with a companion plugin.

WordPress Tidbits

• WooCommerce Subscriptions (Major Bugs): I mentioned last week that Sybre Waaijer (X) dropped an important post about four major bugs he found in the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin that has everything to do with store owners potentially losing money. Since then, WooCommerce has responded with Subscriptions Health Check, adding the option for manual and automated scans of your store’s subscriptions for conditions that may need attention. If you run a WooCommerce store, it’s a good idea to run some new health checks. I’m grateful that WooCommerce has taken steps, but it’s a shame that they didn’t credit Sybre for his hard work.
• Real-Time Collaboration Will Not Ship in WordPress 7.0: Matt Mullenweg decided to remove real-time collaboration from WordPress 7.0 and shared that he is not confident the current approach is robust enough to include in Core at this time, citing concerns around surface area, race conditions, server load, memory efficiency, and recurring bugs found through fuzz testing. Read the post.
• WordPress 7: Release Candidate 4 is ready for testing. The final release is scheduled for May 20, 2026.
• WordCamp US 2026: Tickets are now available for WordCamp US 2026, taking place August 16–19, 2026, at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

What to Do After a Plugin License Expires

Marco Almeida (X) started an engaging conversation regarding this topic. If you’re a WordPress plugin creator, it’s definitely a thread worth checking out. My perspective, from an agency standpoint, is to keep the plugin functioning, lock the settings screen, stop future updates and support, and educate users on the risks of keeping the plugin around long-term.

Built My First Plugin

I built my first plugin as a non-dev, with the help of AI.

“A simple, yet powerful Coming Soon/Maintenance Mode plugin for WordPress, that includes an opt-in form block with FluentCRM and Mailchimp integration.”

It passes Plugin Check (PCP) checks, follows WordPress coding best practices (WordPress rules within Cursor), and checks against PHPStan/PHPCS.

This plugin was developed to meet a specific need. It’s the fastest way I’ve found to build a block-based Coming/Soon Maintenance page and put the site into the desired mode. It’s super flexible in terms of bypass options for those who need to get into the site.

I’ll probably submit it to the repo to share it and better understand the processes WordPress developers go through. This only makes sense given what I do at IWP and ChangelogWP.

I’ve since gone on to build another plugin, which is an even bigger endeavor, combining 15 mini/utility plugins into one, modular plugin.

If you’re reading this newsletter and you’re not a developer, but you’re technical, curious, and interested in putting code out into the world the right way, just know that we have the tools to do that.

Em Am Dash

While driving for my fishing trip last week, I listened to a fascinating podcast episode on the history of the Em Dash and how it eventually found its way into AI. There’s also a segment that talks about a “human movement” for a new “Am Dash.”

Respect

Ever since I started InfluenceWP almost two years ago, I’ve noticed something pretty gross in the WordPress community, and just before we walked out the door, I was reminded of how prevalent it is. For me to completely detach from work during our trip, I had to bring the issue out into the open with this post on X and get it off my chest before we hit the road.

With the engagement on my post, what I had to say seems to resonate with several people. and I’m not surprised.

The WordPress world is full of people who want to be mentioned for this, that, and the other. I get it, trust me. However, when you ask someone to promote you and they do, make sure you give everyone who promotes you the same level of respect.

If someone or some business is worthy enough for you to ask them to promote you, it should warrant equal respect when you go to acknowledge those who helped you spread the word. When all you do is show your appreciation to those with the most reach in hopes of impacting your bottom line, that’s not cool, and it’s pretty obvious you’re doing it.

Let me give you an example scenario that I didn’t include in my post, so we’re on the same page.

1. Requestor: They want to be mentioned, so they contact several people with a templated request—“Hey, I’ve launched this thing, and I’d love for you to mention it.”
2. Sharer: They share the thing with their audience, using a couple of sentences to do so, which basically amounts to a templatized share, as there’s only so much you can say.
3. Requestor: They thank the sharers with the largest audiences (or their pals) with personalized acknowledgments, reposting, tagging, etc., while others are lucky if they get a like on their post, let alone any sort of written acknowledgment.

So, here’s the thing. Those involved in Step 2 are pretty much doing the same amount of work, but the acknowledgement is hardly ever the same.

I see the above scenario playing out again and again. It’s unfortunate, but there’s a simple fix.

Don’t treat people as mere transactions. Don’t go into everything with a “what’s in it for me?” mentality.

Treat people with respect equally. Treat people the way you would want to be treated.

Plugin Check (PCP) Plugin

Partially inspired by this engaging post by Danny (X) and partially because, as a non-dev, I’ve been trying to learn the ropes for my own plugins, I posted this poll on X, asking whether we should use the Plugin Check (PCP) plugin in our workflow. I’m not surprised the results are what they are, but I imagine it would be a much tighter race if the WordPress plugin repo wasn’t a factor.

Opportunity

By now you’ve probably heard how Liquid Web has closed its StellarWP brand and consolidated its WordPress product lineup behind Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, and Give. If you haven’t or you want to learn more about it, I recommend this post from The Repository (X link).

As this news started circulating, there were some companies that took the opportunity to mention their products as replacements for the aforementioned solutions. I assume this is what prompted Jeff Chandler to post this on X, contemplating whether we see this practice as disgraceful or simply taking advantage of an opportunity.

I see it as an opportunity and said as much—“Product creators need to put their big boy/girl pants on and put themselves in a position to step up to the plate when OPPORTUNITY arises. People can complain, start drama, talk sh**. whatever, but at the end of the day and on the other side of all that noise, it’s about sales. Period. Love or hate certain companies, things are not going to change. It is what it is. Best to spend energy focusing on what we can control…ourselves.”

Getting noticed in the WordPress ecosystem is not easy. One way to make it a bit easier is to always have your brand, business, and product in a position to take advantage of an opportunity that arises. It’s not dirty. It’s not disgraceful. It’s called business.

If you do it in a tasteful way but find people are still hating on you, it’s likely because they are jealous you are in a better position than they are or they are just stirring up drama.

Don’t hesitate to seize the moment.

Envato Market – Revenue Share & Exclusivity Changes

Starting July 1st, 2026, Envato Market will move to a single non-exclusive model for all content, with content revenue split evenly. Learn more.

• Exclusivity Removed Entirely — You are free to sell your content on Envato as well as other channels and explore business models that weren’t previously available to you.
• Author Fee Increases to 50% — Authors will receive 50% of the item price component of the list price.

Lots of chatter about this amongst WordPress product creators, and the general sentiment went something like, “Why would anyone sell on Envato at this point?”

I talk to a ton of product creators, and I often hear that a sale is a sale. My guess is there will be vendors that continue to list on Envato to get whatever they can, but at least now they are free to sell in other marketplaces.

If you’re not already an InfluenceWP partner, consider it. This project is unique in a number of ways, all designed to see WordPress product creators extend their reach and maximize their profits.

While Envato takes 50% of your sales, InfluenceWP takes 0%. I understand InfluenceWP is not Envato, but if you’re a product creator looking for more exposure, what I’ve been told “InfluenceWP is a no-brainer.” and “Partnering with InfluenceWP was the easiest decision I’ve made.”

Block Editor – Adding Custom Colors to the Color Picker

This is something I’ve been wondering about for some time and wanted to get to the bottom of. When I use a block-based theme, OllieWP is my daily driver, so adjusting colors is a breeze.

But what if we are in a situation where we want to add a custom color to the block editor color picker and we don’t have the tooling in place? For example, say we are using a classic theme but using the block editor for our blog posts. What then?

While we’re specifically discussing colors here, the same applies if we wanted to make adjustments to other areas of the block editor. Okay, back to colors.

I whipped up a quick Block Editor Tweaks guide to document some approaches I tested and confirmed to work. It covers adding a theme.json or code snippet to a website.

Thanks to Brian Coords (X), I learned that theme.json could be added to a classic theme. It’s not that I thought that wouldn’t work, I literally didn’t think about that as an option.

Also, I gotta shout out and credit Yahya Qara (X) for the code snippet. He came through where AI wasn’t, at least not for me. If you don’t kno