See how your plugin is used with the usage SDK

WordPress.org tells you how many sites run your plugin, but not what those sites run or why people leave. The TrackWP Insights SDK is one PHP file you ship in your plugin. Once a site’s admin allows it, it sends a small ping once a day, and people who deactivate your plugin can choose to tell you why. It all appears on your product’s Usage data page.

Set it up

1. On your dashboard, open the plugin’s three-dot menu and choose Usage data.
2. Under Add the SDK file to your plugin, download trackwp-insights.php and put it in your plugin, for example in includes/. It needs PHP 7.2 or later and WordPress 5.5 or later, with no dependencies.
3. Under Start it from your main plugin file, copy the snippet. It already holds your project key, your plugin’s name and the fields you accept.
4. Under Document it in readme.txt, copy the External services section into your readme. WordPress.org asks plugins to list the services they contact.
5. Ship a release. Data arrives once site admins start clicking Allow.

Your key ships inside the plugin, so it isn’t secret: it only lets sites send data to this product.

What site owners see

• Nothing is sent until an administrator clicks Allow in a “Help improve …” notice. No thanks is remembered.
• A Stop sharing usage data link sits under your plugin on the Plugins screen.
• When someone deactivates, a short form asks why. The answer is sent only if they click Submit and deactivate; they can also Skip and deactivate.
• No site address, email, name, content or IP address is stored. Each site is a random ID made on the site.

Choose the fields

The plugin version is always kept. Under Fields you accept, choose from WordPress version, PHP version, site language, multisite, active theme, web server and database, then click Save fields. The first four are on by default. Turning a field off applies at once, even to sites on older releases, and clears what was stored, so keep the snippet’s fields in step.

Read the data

• Opted-in sites: sites that sent a ping in the last 7 days.
• New sites, 30 days and Deactivations, 30 days, with daily charts.
• What the active sites run: plugin version, WordPress, PHP and the other fields you accept.
• Why people deactivate (90 days), and In their words for the comments people add.

Delete data removes every site, answer and daily count for the plugin. Sites that opted in keep sending new data.

Plans

Usage data is on Boost and FullCharge, for plugins. On Starter the page is locked. When you have usage data, the monthly report email includes it too. On FullCharge, the same SDK can also show a notice you write in TrackWP: see Show a notice in your plugin’s dashboard without a release.