If you’ve built a WordPress plugin or theme — whether you wrote every line yourself, hired a developer, or used AI tools like Claude Code to ship it fast — you’ve done the hard part. You built something people want.
But here’s the part most new plugin developers miss until it costs them: shipping without a licensing system is leaving money on the table every single day.
Today, we’re changing that.
Sentio License Manager is live. It’s a self-hosted licensing and subscription management plugin that runs on your WooCommerce store, protects your plugin or theme from unauthorized use, and turns one-time buyers into paying subscribers — all without a SaaS platform taking a cut of your revenue.
Why We Built This
We know this problem firsthand. Sentio for Elementor — our flagship plugin with 150+ widgets — needed a professional licensing infrastructure that we actually owned. Every SaaS option we looked at meant ongoing fees, revenue sharing, platform dependency, or all three.
So we built our own. And after running it in production on sentioaddons.com, we’ve polished it into something every WordPress plugin or theme developer can use.
Sentio License Manager is the licensing system we wished existed when we started.
What It Does
Licenses Generate the Moment a Customer Pays
When a WooCommerce order completes, a license is automatically created and emailed to the customer. No manual steps. No admin intervention. No delay between payment and delivery.
Customers Activate by Logging In — No Keys to Copy or Lose
This is the feature we’re most proud of. Instead of emailing a license key and asking customers to copy it into a settings field (and then email you when they can’t find it six months later), Sentio License Manager uses a login-based activation flow.
Your customer installs your plugin, navigates to the license settings page, enters their store email and password, and clicks activate. The domain is registered. Done.
No keys to share in Slack. No keys to post in a forum. No keys to accidentally commit to GitHub.
Domain Limits That Actually Enforce
Set a maximum number of site activations per license plan. When a customer hits that limit, further activations are denied by the REST API. They can deactivate an existing domain from their My Account dashboard to free up a slot — all without touching you.
Built-In Subscription Management
You don’t need WooCommerce Subscriptions. Sentio License Manager ships with its own subscription engine, Stripe-powered, that handles:
- Automatic renewals — no manual invoice sending
- Upgrades and downgrades — price-based direction logic shows “Upgrade” or “Downgrade” labels correctly, with a prorated amount summary before any charge is made
- Cancellation flows — customers can cancel from My Account; they get a confirmation email, you get a notification
- Lifetime licenses — the billing UI hides automatically, renewal emails are suppressed, and a lifetime badge shows in the customer’s dashboard
The My Account Dashboard Your Customers Will Actually Use
We’ve seen too many licensing plugins dump a plain text license key into a custom tab and call it a day. Sentio License Manager gives your customers a full dashboard:
- License cards with plan name, status badge (Active / Expired / Lifetime), and active domain list
- One-click domain deactivation via a branded confirmation modal
- Plan switching with upgrade/downgrade labels and proration preview before switching
- Next renewal date, per-plan pricing, and a clean cancellation flow
White-Label — 100% Your Brand
Your customers never see “Sentio” anywhere. The Admin Branding page lets you configure:
- Your logo (shown in My Account and emails)
- Primary and secondary colors (applied as CSS custom properties across the entire My Account UI)
- Custom font
- Email sender name and address
- Modal copy and button labels
There’s a live preview built into the Branding settings page so you can see exactly what your customers will see before you save.
The REST API + Integration Code You Actually Need
Five clean endpoints handle the entire licensing lifecycle: /auth, /licenses, /activate, /deactivate, and /verify. The full documentation is built into WordPress Admin under License Manager → Integration Guide, with your store’s API URL auto-inserted and a copy button on every code block.
An example client plugin lives in /example-integration/ in the plugin directory — a drop-in license check class with a daily heartbeat call already wired up. Adding license protection to your plugin takes an afternoon, not a week.
What’s Included in v1.3.1
This release ships everything you need to go from zero to a fully licensed, subscription-enabled plugin business:
- Automatic license generation on WooCommerce order complete
- Login-based activation REST API (no key copy/paste)
- Domain-limit enforcement with configurable max activations per plan
- Subscription lifecycle management (Stripe-powered, no WC Subscriptions required)
- Lifetime license support
- Upgrade/downgrade with price-based direction and proration preview
- Six email types: delivery, expiry reminders, plan changes, renewals, cancellations (admin + customer variants)
- Full white-label branding system with live preview
- Admin dashboard with license stats, sortable/filterable table, and inline detail modals
- Paginated license table with configurable per-page and smart pagination
- AJAX deactivation modal with keyboard accessibility
- Integration Guide tab with copy-ready code
- HPOS compatibility declared
- All inputs sanitized, outputs escaped, AJAX nonce-verified, all queries use
$wpdb->prepare()
How Much Does It Cost?
$349. One time.
No annual renewal. No per-activation fees. No revenue share. No platform dependency.
Install it on your WordPress server. It runs on your infrastructure, stores data in your database, and talks to your WooCommerce. You own all of it.
Compare that to a SaaS licensing platform charging 5–7% of your revenue: if your plugin earns $5,000 a month, you’re paying ~$250/month to their platform. Sentio License Manager pays for itself in 42 days and costs nothing every month after that.
Who It’s For
Sentio License Manager is built for:
- Solo plugin developers who want professional licensing without enterprise overhead
- Agencies selling white-labeled premium plugins or themes to clients
- AI-assisted builders who used Claude Code, Cursor, or similar tools to ship a commercial product fast and now need to protect it
- Existing Sentio for Elementor users who want to launch their own licensed products on the same infrastructure we use
If you’re selling a WordPress plugin or theme — or plan to — this is the licensing infrastructure you need.
Get Started
Sentio License Manager is available now on sentioaddons.com and on the WooCommerce Marketplace.
The plugin ships with a complete example integration so you can see exactly how to wire it into your client plugin. The Integration Guide inside WordPress Admin walks you through every endpoint with copy-ready code.
Get Sentio License Manager — $349 →
Questions? Reach out through the contact page. We read everything.