StellarWP is Becoming Liquid Web: What It Means for You and Your Favorite WordPress Plugins

If you’ve been following my work for any length of time, you know I don’t sugarcoat things. So when I tell you that StellarWP is becoming Liquid Web, and that the WordPress plugin changes are worth paying attention to, I mean it. Not because the sky is falling, but because if you use any of the tools I’ve recommended over the years, you deserve the full picture from someone who isn’t just copying and pasting the official talking points.

StellarWP, the umbrella brand behind Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, and GiveWP, is officially reorganizing under Liquid Web, its parent company. This isn’t an acquisition. It isn’t a takeover. StellarWP has technically been part of the Liquid Web family for years. What’s changing is the structure: four flagship products, one unified platform, several smaller tools folded in, and a handful being retired altogether.

I love these plugins. I’ve recommended them to clients, to readers, to people who’ve trusted me to point them toward tools that won’t waste their time or money. That’s exactly why I’m not writing a glowing endorsement right now. What I am writing is an honest look at what’s happening, what I actually think about it, and, because this situation handed me the perfect opportunity, a longer conversation about why I’ve always been careful about lifetime deals. Because this is exactly the kind of moment that validates that caution. Every. Single. Time.

Let’s get into it.

What’s Actually Changing with StellarWP and Liquid Web

Here’s the short version for anyone who just wants the facts before I get into my feelings about it. 😄

The four products that matter, Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, and GiveWP, are staying. They’re not going anywhere. In fact, each of them is getting bigger, absorbing smaller tools that previously lived as separate products.

Kadence is now absorbing SolidWP (security, backups, site management), IconicWP (advanced WooCommerce features), and Restrict Content Pro (membership functionality). LearnDash is integrating MemberDash, bringing membership management directly into the LMS. The Events Calendar is consolidating all its premium add-ons into a single tiered product. One license, one renewal. GiveWP is doing the same with its add-ons.

A few products are being retired entirely: WP Business Reviews, WPComplete, StellarPay, and BookIt. If you’re using any of those, existing customers get critical security updates for a year. After that, you’re on your own.

The pricing structure has also shifted. Instead of paying based on how many sites you install, you’re now paying based on what features you can access. Plans are tiered as Essentials, Pro, and Elite across all four products. LearnDash runs $259, $399, and $599 per year. Kadence runs $99, $299, and $499. GiveWP and The Events Calendar both run $259, $399, and $599.

If you’re an existing customer, you’re grandfathered. Your pricing and access don’t change unless you choose to upgrade. That’s the official word, and I have no reason to doubt it. Yet.

New customers get more capability per tier than the old model offered. That part I do believe, because consolidating features that used to require separate purchases into one license is genuinely a better deal on paper.

The part I’m watching? “On paper” and “in practice” are two different things. I’ve seen this story before. More than once. 👀

Why I’m Cautiously Optimistic

Let me be clear about something. I’m genuinely open to being wrong in either direction. It means I’m watching the pace of development. I’m watching what happens to the features that got folded in. I’m watching whether the pricing holds for grandfathered users twelve months from now. I’m watching whether “one license, one renewal” actually simplifies things or just consolidates the bill before the next restructure.

Consolidations like this can go two ways.

In the best-case scenario, a larger parent company brings more resources, faster development, better infrastructure, and a more cohesive product experience. The tools get stronger. The support gets better. The roadmap gets clearer. I’ve seen this happen too. It’s not impossible.

In the worst-case scenario, priorities shift. Features that don’t perform get sunset quietly. Grandfathered pricing gets grandfathered right out of existence on the next renewal cycle. The products that got folded in lose their identity. Support tickets take longer. The roadmap stops being public. Prices go up for everyone else, and eventually even for the people who were told they were protected.

I’ve seen that happen too. More than once. And that’s the part of this conversation I really want to get into. StellarWP and Liquid Web are the headline, but the real lesson here is one I’ve been living for years. 💡

The Lifetime Deal Problem Nobody Talks About Honestly

Let me tell you about October 2020.

I bought a lifetime deal for WP Scheduled Posts PRO on AppSumo for $39. At the time, it seemed like exactly the kind of smart, scrappy business decision that online business owners love to celebrate. One price, no recurring fees, lifetime access. What’s not to love?

Fast forward to recently. I go to upload the plugin, and it causes a critical error on my travel site. Not a minor hiccup. A full site break. I’m restoring from backup at 3:31 in the morning.

So I reach out to support. And here’s what I get:

“As the error message does not specify the reason, please install and activate this plugin [a debugging plugin], it should show the detailed error, share the error message with us.”

Let me translate that for you: your site is broken because of our plugin, and our solution is for you to install another plugin at 3am so you can troubleshoot the issue and report back to us.

No. Absolutely not.

Here’s the thing. I went back to look at the AppSumo reviews after this happened. And I want to be fair: there are people who love this plugin. The most recent review, from October 2025, gave it five stars and praised the support. Other people have had terrible experiences. I’m not here to tell you the product is garbage across the board, because that’s not accurate, and I won’t say things I can’t stand behind.

What I will tell you is that my experience at 3:31 am was my experience. And when a plugin breaks your site, and support asks you to do their debugging work for them, that’s a problem regardless of anyone else’s five-star review.

The refund window closed on December 21, 2020. Two months after purchase. I’m only mentioning that to give you a sense of the timeline, not because I’m expecting a refund almost six years later.

AppSumo now offers something called the “We Got Your Back” guarantee. If a Select tool shuts down within 12 months of your purchase, you can receive a credit. But read the fine print: Plus members get 100% credit. Non-Plus members get 50%. So the full protection costs extra. The guarantee that’s supposed to make you feel safe about lifetime deals is itself tiered.

Let that sink in. 💸

When the Company That Acquires Your Tool Also Sells the Replacement

WP Scheduled Posts isn’t the only story I have. Let me tell you about Thrive Themes.

Thrive Themes was acquired by another company, one that’s well known in WordPress circles, so I’ll leave the name out and let you do your own homework if you’re curious. 🔍 The acquisition brought price increases. Fine, that happens. But what didn’t sit right with me was what happened to Thrive Automator, a feature that had been part of the Thrive suite. It got removed.

And what did the acquiring company push as the replacement? Their own plugin, Uncanny Automator.

That’s a company that acquires a product with a built-in user base, removes a feature those users depended on, and then sells them a separate product to fill the gap they just created. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a business model.

I was grandfathered into pricing, so in theory I was “protected.” But grandfathered pricing doesn’t protect you from feature removal. It doesn’t protect you from being nudged or pushed to spend more on something you already have. And it certainly doesn’t protect you from the frustration of watching a tool you loved get hollowed out in the name of restructuring. 😤

Descript: When “Grandfathered” Has an Expiration Date

Here’s a third one for you, and this one’s a little different because it’s not an acquisition story. It’s a “we’re moving you whether you like it or not” story.

Descript, the audio and video editing tool, had Legacy and Sunset plan holders. People who had been on those plans, some of them for years. Starting November 17, 2025, all of those customers were automatically migrated to new plans. No opt-out. Your migration happened on your next billing date, whether you were ready or not.

Their language around pricing was careful: “Most customers will not see a price change.” Most. Not all. And here’s the kicker. Unused transcription hours don’t carry over when you migrate. So if you’d been banking hours, or if you’d purchased additional transcription add-ons, those are gone the moment you hit your migration date. Final sale. Non-refundable.

This isn’t a villain story. Descript is a solid product, and I understand that pricing models have to evolve. But the pattern here is the same one I keep seeing: the terms you agreed to when you signed up aren't necessarily the ones you’ll be living with in two years. Grandfathered pricing, legacy plans, lifetime access. All of these are promises made by companies that may not be the same company, under the same ownership, with the same priorities, when it’s time to collect on those promises.

Kadence Changed Its Plans in 2025

Here’s something I want to make sure doesn’t get lost in the bigger StellarWP and Liquid Web news. On January 16, 2025, I got an email from Kadence. Subject line: exciting updates to plans and licensing. 📧

They were introducing a new entry-level plan, the Express Plan, at $69 per year. They were also switching from an unlimited site license model to a per-site model. The old Essentials Bundle became the Plus Plan. The Full Bundle became the Ultimate Plan. Prices shifted. Site limits were introduced for new subscribers. The email was friendly, the reasoning was reasonable, and existing customers were told their plans and pricing were staying exactly the same.

That was January 2025. It is now barely a year later, and Kadence is reorganizing again under Liquid Web with new plan names, new pricing tiers, and another round of “existing customers are grandfathered.”

I’m not saying either of these changes was made in bad faith. Kadence is a solid product, and I’ve recommended it for good reason. But two significant plan restructurings in under twelve months is a pattern worth naming. 👀

When a company changes its pricing structure, the official message is almost always the same: we’re doing this to serve you better, existing customers are protected, and new plans offer more flexibility. And sometimes that’s genuinely true. But “grandfathered” is only as durable as the company’s next restructuring cycle. And when those cycles start coming closer together, it’s worth paying attention.

The January 2025 email said: “As long as you keep your subscription active, you can continue enjoying your current plan without site limits and a locked-in rate every year.”

That promise was made thirteen months before the next round of changes arrived. 📋

One more thing worth noting: my own plan and pricing have not changed. I am grandfathered in, and I’m not paying more than I was before. I want to be upfront about that because it matters. This isn’t coming from a place of personal frustration about my bill. It’s coming from a place of having watched this long enough to know that being protected today and being protected through the next restructuring are two different things. My skepticism isn’t about what happened to me. It’s about what I’ve seen happen, and what I think is worth watching for. 👀

I’m not telling you to panic. I’m telling you to document everything. Screenshot your plan details. Save your emails. Know exactly what you were promised and when. Because if there’s a third restructuring in 2026, you’ll want the receipts.

So, Where Does That Leave StellarWP and Liquid Web?

Right now? In the “I’m watching” category. 👀

The products are strong. The install numbers are real. 400,000+ sites on Kadence, 800,000+ installs on The Events Calendar, 34%+ market share for LearnDash on WordPress LMS. These aren’t fly-by-night tools. They have track records and user bases that would make a lot of noise if things went sideways quickly.

The affiliate commission structure isn’t changing. Still 25% on initial purchases with a 90-day cookie window. I’m disclosing that because you deserve to know it, and because it’s exactly why I want to be careful about how I talk about this. I have a financial relationship with these products. That means I hold myself to a higher standard of honesty, not a lower one.

What I’m not going to do is update my recommendations until I see how this plays out in practice. The pricing structure has changed. The feature sets have shifted. I need to actually live with these changes, hear from people who are using the products post-restructure, and form an opinion based on evidence rather than the official messaging.

When I update my roundup posts, and I will, they’ll reflect what’s actually true.

What This Means If You’re Currently Using These Tools

If you’re an existing customer of Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, or GiveWP, you should be fine in the short term. Your setup isn’t broken. Your pricing is grandfathered. Nothing changes unless you choose to upgrade.

Do I think you need to panic? No.

Do I think you should pay attention? Yes. Here’s what I’d actually do:

• Screenshot your current plan details. Document what features you have access to right now, at what price, under what terms. If things change down the road in ways that weren’t promised, you want receipts. 🧾
• Don’t let your subscription lapse during the transition. The official word is that if a GiveWP subscription has lapsed, customers will need to purchase at the current pricing. For other brands, maintaining the subscription through the transition period is the safe move.
• Watch the product roadmaps. If development slows down, if features start disappearing, if support response times change, those are your early warning signals.

And if you’re considering buying into any of these tools for the first time right now? I’d wait. Not forever, but long enough to see whether the promises made in this announcement actually hold. A few months of clarity is worth more than catching a launch promotion.

I See Both Sides. That’s Exactly Why I’m Saying This.

Before I get into the bigger lesson, I want to be upfront about something: I’m not here to drag companies for making money. I’m a business too. 👀

I know what it means to have to restructure. I know what it means to pivot, to look at your pricing model six months in and realize it isn’t sustainable, to make decisions that aren’t popular because the alternative is shutting the whole thing down. I’ve had to make hard calls in my own business. I’ve watched other business owners make them. It’s not fun, and it’s rarely malicious.

I’ve also worked for a small tech startup. I had a front-row seat to what development actually costs. The infrastructure, the engineering hours, the support overhead, the unglamorous reality of keeping a product alive while also trying to make it better. It is expensive in ways that are genuinely hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it. So when a company says their old pricing model no longer reflects what it takes to build and support the product, I believe them. I’ve seen that math up close.

I’ve also seen it with courses, which don’t carry anywhere near the ongoing development cost of a software product. Someone buys a course with the understanding that they’ll have lifetime access, maybe even future updates. And then the course gets taken down. Or the platform shuts. Or the creator quietly stops updating the material, and the “lifetime” becomes a snapshot of 2021 with no path forward. The resources required to maintain a course and the resources required to maintain a plugin are completely different animals. And yet the feeling when the terms change is exactly the same.

It feels like your initial buy-in didn’t mean anything.

That’s the part I want to sit with for a second, because I think it’s worth naming directly. When you buy into something, whether it’s a lifetime software license, a course with promised future updates, or a grandfathered plan that’s supposed to protect you, you’re not just buying the product. You’re buying a relationship with the company. You’re extending trust. And when the terms change, even for completely understandable business reasons, that trust takes a hit. It doesn’t matter how reasonable the explanation is. The feeling is the same: what I was promised and what I received are two different things.

I’m tired of feeling like I can’t trust developers. I say that as someone who genuinely roots for them, who understands their constraints, who has recommended their products to people who trust me. I want the tools I use and recommend to be around and thriving in five years. I want the companies behind them to be sustainable. I just also want the promises made at the point of sale to mean something.

Both of those things should be able to coexist. The fact that they so often don’t is the whole problem.

And This Is Why I’ve Always Been Cautious About Lifetime Deals

Here’s what all of these stories have in common: the promise made at the point of sale is not a legally binding contract for how a company will operate in perpetuity. A lifetime deal is a lifetime deal until the company rebrands, gets acquired, restructures, changes hands, or decides that its old pricing model is no longer sustainable. And at that point, your $39 grandfathered plan, or your legacy tier, is only as good as the goodwill of whoever is running the company right now.

I used to love a good lifetime deal. 🦄 The value proposition is hard to resist. One price, forever access, no recurring fees. I got reeled in, too. But I've watched too many of them play out exactly like this, and at this point I'm just not interested anymore. The value proposition sounds incredible in the moment. One price, forever access, no recurring fees. And then the plugin breaks your site at 3am, and support asks you to install a debugging plugin. Or the feature you depended on gets removed and sold back to you as a separate product. Or your legacy plan is automatically migrated on your next billing date, and your banked hours disappear.

The real cost of a lifetime deal isn’t always the purchase price. Sometimes it’s the hours you spend troubleshooting. Sometimes it’s the features you lose. Sometimes it’s the money you spend on the replacement product that the acquiring company helpfully pointed you toward. Sometimes it’s just the aggravation of finding out that “lifetime” meant the lifetime of the product under that particular ownership structure, not the lifetime of your business.

That’s not me telling you never to buy a lifetime deal. That’s me telling you to go in with your eyes open and your expectations calibrated to reality, not the sales page. Ask yourself: if this company gets acquired tomorrow, am I okay with whatever the new owners decide to do with this product? If the answer is no, that’s worth knowing before you hand over your credit card. 💳

Conclusion

I’m not closing the door on Liquid Web. I’m leaving it open a crack and watching carefully from across the room.

The products I’ve recommended, Kadence, LearnDash, The Events Calendar, and GiveWP, are still solid. The track records are real. The user bases are large enough that many people would notice and speak up if things deteriorated quickly. That matters.

But I’ve been doing this for a while now, and I’ve watched companies make promises and then quietly walk them back eighteen months later. I’ve seen “grandfathered” used as a word that sounds protective right up until it isn’t anymore.

So: watching, taking notes, and updating my recommendations based on what actually happens.

If you want to be the first to know when I publish my updated roundup on these tools, get on my list. That’s where the unfiltered version always goes first. 👇

And if you’ve had your own experience with lifetime deals that went sideways, or one that actually held up, drop it in the comments. The more data points we have, the better decisions we can all make. 💬

THIS SITE USES AFFILIATE LINKS. THERE’S NO EXTRA COST TO YOU, BUT I RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION WHEN YOU USE THEM.

---

PIN ME!