Free Consumer Reports requires WordPress 5.6 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. PHP 8.0 or later is recommended, and the PDF rebrander wants a generous PHP memory limit.
Installing the plugin:
- Download the plugin ZIP from your purchase confirmation or your account area.
- In WordPress go to Plugins, then Add New, then Upload Plugin.
- Choose the ZIP file and click Install Now.
- Click Activate Plugin.
- Open the Free Consumer Reports menu. Until a licence is active this shows the licence activation screen and nothing else.
Activating your licence:
- Paste your licence key into the field on the activation screen.
- Click Activate.
- The plugin sends a signed request to the licence server with your key and your site domain.
- On success the plugin stores the key, the licence email, your activation slots and the list of niches your key unlocks, then loads the full plugin.
Copy the key carefully. A stray space before or after the key is the most common reason an activation is rejected.
Set your permalinks first:
Funnel pages are served through WordPress rewrite rules, so your permalink structure must not be set to Plain. Go to Settings, then Permalinks, choose Post name, and save. The setup wizard checks this and shows a red warning if it is still on Plain. If funnel URLs ever return 404, revisiting that screen and clicking Save Changes reflushes the rewrite rules.
Moving the plugin to another site:
Use the Deactivate License button in Settings. The plugin clears the local licence immediately and tells the licence server to release the slot, so the button never hangs waiting on a network call. You can then activate on the new site.
Deactivating versus deleting:
Deactivating the plugin in WordPress does not release your licence slot. That is deliberate, so a quick deactivation to troubleshoot does not force you to re-enter your key. The slot is released when the plugin is deleted, which runs the full uninstall cleanup.
Ongoing validation:
A daily WordPress cron job revalidates the key. Network errors are tolerated and counted, and only an explicit rejection from a healthy licence server, or three consecutive failures, clears the licence. That protects a live site from a single server blip taking every funnel page offline.
How many sites your key covers, and which niches it unlocks, are both returned by the licence server and shown on your licence screen. Click Refresh to pull the current values, for example after adding another niche to the same key.