How to integrate a license system into WordPress Theme Plugin

Integrate a license system into WordPress to secure your product and business.

When you are an owner of a WordPress website or working with themes and plugins license you must ensure secure access to any plugins or tools. Because your themes, plugins, or other content can be stolen or crushed for creating negative issues. 

You can easily solve this problem and make secure use of every piece of content, plugin, and theme. For this, you need to maintain a multi-domain license management system.

You have created several plugins, themes, or pieces of content as a developer or site owner, all of which run the danger of being stolen by others.

It’s not easy to integrate a license system into WordPress that satisfies your expectations. You can choose the qualities you want from the license management system you select.

In this article, we will talk about licensing systems. Then we’ll discuss its benefits. For your convenience, we’ll briefly explain the integration system of an effective licensing system. 

What is a license key?

The license works to confirm ownership of software that is kept in a database. Proper usage of this kind of software security technology allows companies to stop illegal copying and distribution. It helps to prevent unauthorized access to the product.

A license key is an access key for WordPress plugins and themes. To be enabled, every new plugin or theme you purchase needs a license key.

WordPress software licensing provides a comprehensive method for creating, activating, and verifying license keys. License keys allow users to correctly license and activate their copies of the application.

As a developer you may worried about your plugin or other application being copied, transferred, or otherwise used illegally by non-licensed users. So, to solve this, adopting a software license system into WordPress for your products might benefit you.

Benefits of a license system in WordPress?

Integrating a licensing system into WordPress can help developers monetize their products, protect their intellectual property, provide better support and updates to legitimate users, and gather valuable insights for continuous improvement.

Implementing a licensing system into WordPress can offer several benefits, especially for developers and businesses that create and distribute premium themes or plugins. 

Some advantages to integrate a license system into WordPress:

• A license system enables developers to sell premium WordPress themes or plugins
• A license system helps to prevent unauthorized use or distribution of premium themes or plugins, ensuring that users have a legitimate copy obtained through proper channels.
• Developers can restrict access to software updates and new features to users with valid licenses, encouraging them to renew their subscriptions for continued improvements.
• Users with valid licenses can access customer support services, fostering a better user experience and satisfaction.
• License systems can help developers track how their products are being used, providing valuable insights into user behavior, popular features, and potential areas for improvement.
• Developers can offer incentives for license renewals, such as discounts or access to new features, encouraging users to stay subscribed.
• License systems can automate the activation and deactivation of products, making it easier to manage user access and reduce manual administration efforts.
• Developers can enforce terms of use through license agreements, ensuring users comply with specified terms and conditions.

How to integrate the license system into WordPress?

We’ll show you the process to integrate a license system into WordPress using an effective plugin NextLi. This plugin can serve you with all the functionalities that you need to build a license system.

Step 1: Install and set up WordPress

When you are ready to create a WordPress website the first and foremost task is to install and set up WordPress. You have to go through some easy steps to install and set up WordPress. For your convenience, you can follow the blog How to install WordPress which will help you to install WordPress.

Step 2: Activate a Theme

After installing WordPress, you need to organize your WordPress website with proper web pages, design, and content. So, in this phase, you can install and activate a suitable WordPress theme that is relatable to your purpose.  

There are so many free and premium themes available. We’ll use a free theme to show you the theme activation process. So, to install the theme, go to the WordPress admin dashboard and select Appearance.

Click on Themes.

Now, go for Add New Theme.

Here you can see some free themes like Twenty Twenty-One, Twenty Twenty- Two, Twenty Twenty-Three, Astra, etc. However, You can activate one of them. If you have any extra requirements you can search for a specific theme in this search Box. 

We’ll install the Twenty Twenty-Four theme.

Activate the theme.

Now you can seamlessly customize the theme according to your plan.

Step 3: Install a plugin like – EDD

As you know, we are installing the NextLi plugin to integrate a licensing system into WordPress. So, we need to download EDD (Easy Digital Download) first. 

To download Easy Digital Download, go to the Plugins section.

Click on the Add New Plugin button.

Now, search for EDD (Easy Digital Download) in the Search Box. 

Here, you can see the EDD (Easy Digital Download) plugin. Hit the Install plugin.

Click on the Activate button to activate the plugin. 

Click on Get Started

You have to set up all these 5 steps.

The first step is Business. Here you need to provide all of your business-related information such as business name, type, and address.

In the first step, you need to provide more information like business country, postal code, currency, etc.

Now click on the Save & Continue button.

The second step is the Payment Method. Here we’ll go to Skip the step. You can access this step and save and continue the process if you want. 

Now, you can set up the Email section which will be sent to your customers as a receipt. You need to set up the Logo, From Name, From Email. 

You can edit the email body as you want. Then hit the Save & Continue button.

In the fourth step, you’ll find the Tools section. Here you can Conversation & Optimization tools. Check the boxes as you require.

Now, you can disable the button of Join the EDD Community. Then Click on the Save & Continue button.

In the last or fifth step, mention the product that you want to sell. Here, you’ll need to mention your product name, image, etc. 

After completing all these above processes, click on the Save & Continue button.

Now you’ll get a Congratulations message and you can go for further process by clicking on the Edit My Product button.

Step 4: Add a new Digital Product

Then go to the Download section and click on the Add New button.

Now you can enter your product name here.

We’ll give a product name as digital product1.

You need to fix a price for this product.

After inserting your product name and price click on Publish button to publish it. 

You can see your created product name in the product list in the download section.

Step 5: Install a license manager plugin 

To go for further process, you need to install a license manager plugin. As mentioned earlier, here we’ll install NextLi. Because it is one of the most user-friendly and feature-rich plugins.

To install the plugin click on the Plugin tab.

Then hit the Add New Plugin button.

Click the Upload Plugin button.

To upload the plugin’s zip file, click the Choose File button.

Select the NextLi zip file from your folder. 

After uploading click on the Install Now button.

If you completed the installation process then Activate the plugin.

Your license management plugin NextLi is ready to serve you. You can click the NextLI tab to access its panel.

Step 6: Active software license of the plugin

To connect NextLi a license system into WordPress with the Easy Digital Download plugin, you need to install the EDD Software Licensing. For installation go for Plugin >> Install Plugins.

Here you can see the Install button. Click on this button.

Step 7: Enable product license 

After the above process, the following page will appear to edit and enable the licensing system. Click on the Edit button that is below your product. 

You can see an option of  Check to enable license creation.  

Check the box to enable the license system into WordPress.

Now you need to set the Activation limit.

Then set the version number of the NextLi plugin that you collected when you got the plugin.

Insert the License length and time as Days/ Weeks/ Years. Here we’ll select Years as we purchased the yearly package.

After providing all this information, click on the Update button.

Step 8: Details installation/ setup process (from documentation)

There are 3 parts of the installation to complete the setup.

Setup Plugin

1. Download the installable WordPress plugin nextli.zip files.
2. Upload and active plugin from WordPress → Plugins → Add New this plugin to your WP Server https://example.com/
3. Before Active, Must be installed and Active Plugins [ EDD(Easy Digital Download), EDD License manager, NextCode ]
4. After activation, the next step is to configure your settings. Go to WordPress Dashboard and click NextLi Settings → Api Settings → API URL: https://api.example.com/. And set up a menu or other Settings.

Setup Server

1. Download the installable Server source code server.zip files.
2. Upload these files on your API server → https://api.example.com/
3. After uploading, the next step is to configure yours with WordPress Plugin NextLi. Open index.php files and set your WP URL define( ‘EDD_URL_NEXTLI’, ‘https://example.com/’);

Check license (Active or Revoke)

This API uses your product to check the valid license.

1. Open documentation.txt for Details. Use API to check valid licenses and permission to use your products.
2. Follow this code:

$product_id = 10;

$key = isset($_POST['key_license']) ? trim($_POST['key_license']) : '';
$config['key'] = $key;
$config['eddid'] = $product_id;
$config['eddv'] = '1.0.0';
$config['eddtigger'] = 'active'; // active, revoke

$header   = array();
$header[] = 'Content-length: 0';
$header[] = 'Content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8';

$verify_url =  "https://api.example.com/?".http_build_query($config, '&');

$ch_verify = curl_init( $verify_url );
curl_setopt( $ch_verify, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header );
curl_setopt( $ch_verify, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false );
curl_setopt( $ch_verify, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );
curl_setopt( $ch_verify, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 5 );
curl_setopt( $ch_verify, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080311 Firefox/2.0.0.13');

$result = curl_exec( $ch_verify );

curl_close( $ch_verify );

$result = ($result != "") ? json_decode($result) : false;

Extended Licence

1. Setup Extended Licence for product wise. Open extended-list.php files.
2. Setup EDD Product Id and Licence key:

function get_extended_key(){

return [
'100' => 'extendedlicense-d15bdaade3f97602a875f675ef37d2a3-fghfgh', // productid = key
];

}

Step 9: Create a page to display my account section

To create my account section with NextLi, you can follow the given process. You can either show the account panel directly by selecting a page or you can use a shortcode to display the My Account panel.

Method 1: Selecting the page

Go to the Pages tab on the left side panel bar.

Click the Add New Page button.

Insert your My Account page name.

Now click on the Publish button.

You can also view the created page. 

Now go back to the Dashboard. Go for NextLi >> User Dashboard.

From the Display form in the page’s drop-down menu select your created page My Account.

Set the form position. We are choosing the No Content Only Dashboard option.

After all these processes, click on the Save All Changes button.

You can see the account form on the required My Account page. 

Method 2: Using ShortCode

Go for NextLI Settings >> User Dashboard.

Copy the Shortcode from the User Dashboard.

To paste the shortcode, go to Pages >> All Pages. 

Click on the Edit button on the My Account Page.

Click on the + icon.

Select the Shortcode tab.

Paste the copied shortcode in the Shortcode field. After that, hit the Update button.

You can also see the form on the My Account page.

Step 10: Explore the ways to access the process of the plugin

Here you can see NextLi’s dashboard. You can access all features from this portion.

Click on Display Menu to create a menu section.

You can check the boxes that you want to show as menus. Select the Menu position as you want.

After all, changes click on the Save All Changes button.

Go for Display Products to set up all the products.

You can add products to the product list as you need. 

Don’t forget to click on Save All Changes.

Now click on Sale Notification.

You can set the sale notification as a popup. To do so enable the button. Set position, number of days, display last order and custom date test. At last click on the Save All Changes button.

Now go to the API Settings.

You can set API URL in this section.

To customize the form, you can go to the Style section.

Setup the dashboard container width and Menu’s typography and padding.

You can set the typography, button border and their colors from the portion. At last click on Save All Changes.

You can also add an affiliate area in your dashboard. 

Step 11: Purchase to get a license.

For your convenience and clear idea, now we’ll make a purchase to complete the purchasing procedure and get a license.

So, go to the product details page and click on the Purchase button.

Then go to the Checkout page to complete the purchasing process.

Now you can see your product details. Confirm by clicking on the Purchase button again.

You can see here all the details about your product. Now go to the View Order details or Order page.

Here on the Orders page, you can see your ordered product.

Go to the Subscriptions page.

 Here you can see the license details.

To get the license, go to the Products page 

Click on the License button.

Your license will appear in this phase.

From the backend portion, the business owner can see your order.

Conclusion

You may find the process to integrate a license system into WordPress easier with NextLi. To secure your product, provide a secure purchasing procedure with an effective licensing system.

So, we hope this blog will help you to create a license management system. Go through the easy process and enjoy a secure licensing system in WordPress.

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