27. Free Hub Restrictions

As a free Hub user, you have access to the Plugins feature in the Hub, but you can only install plugins from wordpress.org, your favorites list, or via ZIP or URL. To install the Pro version of any WPMU DEV plugin would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

The Domains Manager is available to free Hub users to purchase or transfer domains and manage their DNS records.

However, to connect 3rd-party domains and manage their DNS records would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

The WPMU DEV Expert Services in the Hub are not available to free Hub users. To purchase the expert services would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

The Team feature in the Hub enables you to add sub-users to your account, and grant them any access & management capabilities you need to help you manage your connected site(s) and Hub features.

As a free Hub user, you are limited to only one added team member. Additionally, the option to enable the paid Support Access add-on is not available.

Once a team member has been added, the New Team Member button would be disabled and you would need to upgrade your account as noted at the beginning of this document if you wish to add more.

The Clients & Billing portal enables you to manage all invoicing activities related to your clients and the sites where you’ve added them as clients in your Hub.

As a free Hub user, WPMU DEV will charge you a flat 2.1% fee on all transactions made through this portal, in addition to any fees levied by Stripe.

To remove the WPMU DEV transaction fee, you would need to upgrade your account as noted at the beginning of this document.

As a free Hub user, you can of course access the Support page in the Hub. But the only support option available to you is via the Help bubble to communicate with our Billing & Accounts team via Live Chat about anything related to your WPMU DEV account.
Support for any other issues via the forums or live chat would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

However, you can use the WordPress support forum associated with the specific WPMU DEV plugin to search for any related questions or start a new discussion to ask the team about any plugin-related queries.

The support management options under the Community tab are locked as well, and would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

Note however that the Refer a Friend referral link is available to you as a free Hub user. You can refer your friends to WPMU DEV and earn Hero Points when they make their first payment, then exchange those points for free WPMU DEV membership.

Click the Refer a Friend button on the Community page to get your link, or click the How to Earn Points? button to learn more.

As a free Hub user, you can of course enable the Automate feature on your connected site(s) to ensure your plugins, themes & core WordPress are kept up to date.

However, you can only enable a once-weekly schedule to check for updates. All other scheduling options require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

These Hub features are assured by our Hummingbird, Smush, SmartCrawl & Defender plugins.

As a free Hub user, you can enable any or all of these features, which will install the free version of each of our corresponding WPMU DEV plugins from wordpress.org on your connected site.

To enable the Pro features of any of these plugins & services would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

As a free Hub user, you must wait 15 minutes after running a scan before you can run a new one.

Running a new scan after the cooldown period will initiate a brand new scan; it will not pick up where the first scan left off.

Note that if you upgrade your WPMU DEV membership immediately after a scan timeout, you will still need to wait until that 15-minute cooldown period has expired before running a new scan. After that, as a Pro member, there would be no more cooldown periods between scans.

The Backlinks service in the Hub is not available to free Hub users. The ability to scan for broken backlinks would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

The WPMU DEV Dashboard plugin is what securely connects your site to your Hub via our API.

As a free Hub user, the WPMU DEV Dashboard in the wp-admin of your connected site(s) is a much-simplified version compared to that displayed to full members.

By default, the Plugins, Support and White Label sections in the WPMU DEV Dashboard plugin are not accessible to free Hub users.

In addition, the Dashboard screen only displays, and links to, those plugins & services to which you do have access as a free Hub user.

Gaining access to all pro services & plugins would require an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

However, if you have purchased one or more standalone hosting plans, the Plugins and Support sections will be accessible to you so you can install the Pro plugins included with all WPMU DEV hosting plans, and get support for any issues with those hosted sites.

Backups for your connected sites are assured with our Snapshot plugin.

As a free Hub user, you can only trigger manual one-off backups and/or set a monthly backup schedule.

You are also limited to 1GB of free WPMU DEV storage. You can however connect the plugin to any of the following 3rd-party destinations so you can store as much as allowed by your plan at those destinations:

• Amazon S3 (and S3 compatible storage)
• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• FTP

To enable additional backup scheduling options and get up to 50GB of free WPMU DEV storage (with the option to purchase more if needed), you would need to upgrade your account as noted at the beginning of this document.

The Uptime feature in the Hub enables you to continuously and automatically monitor your site’s uptime and be alerted whenever it goes down.

As a free Hub user, Downtime & Uptime Alert emails will be sent to your Hub account email address by default. You can change that default address to a different one if needed, but adding additional recipients for these alerts would require an upgrade to your account as noted at the beginning of this document.

Also, you can only set the alert threshold to 5 minutes or greater. To receive instant alerts, you would need to upgrade your account as noted at the beginning of this document.

The Reports feature in the Hub enables you to create comprehensive, white-labeled activity and performance reports for you and your clients.

As a free Hub user, you can only create one-time reports. The option to create recurring scheduled reports is locked and requires an account upgrade as noted at the beginning of this document.

If you still have questions or need assistance after reading this document, please don’t hesitate to contact our support superheroes using the available options under the Support tab in your Hub or via the Support tab in your WPMU DEV Dashboard.