Activating staging sites on your WC Vendors license

If you want to test plugin updates before pushing them to your live marketplace, you can activate your WC Vendors licence on up to 3 staging sites per key. This guide shows you which staging URL patterns we recognise, and how to enter your licence key on a staging site so it receives product updates.

Before you start

• An active WC Vendors licence for the plugin you want to install (WC Vendors Pro, Stripe Connect, Membership, Tax, etc.)
• A staging site already created on a URL pattern we recognise (see the next section)
• WordPress admin access on the staging site

Supported staging URL patterns

For our licensing system to treat your site as staging — not as a production activation — the site’s URL must match one of these patterns. * stands for any text (your domain or subdomain).

• localhost
• 127.0.0.1
• *.dev
• *.local
• *.test
• *.staging
• *.example
• *.invalid
• dev.* (e.g. dev.domain.com)
• local.* (e.g. local.domain.com)
• staging optionally followed by a digit, then your domain (e.g. staging.domain.com, staging1.domain.com, staging9.domain.com)
• stage.* (e.g. stage.domain.com)
• *staging.wpengine.com
• *stg.wpengine.com
• *dev.wpengine.com
• dev-*.pantheonsite.io
• test-*.pantheonsite.io
• staging-*.kinsta.com
• staging-*.kinsta.cloud
• env-*.kinsta.com
• *.myftpupload.com
• *.ngrok.io
• *-dev.ksysweb.com
• *-stg.ksysweb.com
• *.cloudwaysapp.com
• *.tempurl.host

If you’re a web host providing staging services and want to add your URL pattern to the list, please reach out.

Step 1: Find your licence key

1. Sign in to your account at wcvendors.com.
2. Click the Downloads tab.
3. Find the plugin you want to activate. Copy the value under License Key. Each plugin has its own key.

Step 2: Activate the licence on your staging site

1. On your staging site, sign in to the WordPress admin.
2. Go to WC Vendors → License in the admin sidebar.
3. Select the tab for the plugin whose licence you’re activating — for example WC Vendors Pro, Stripe Connect, Membership, Tax, Subscriptions, Simple Auctions, or Bookings.
4. Paste your licence key into the License Key field.
5. Enter the email address you used when you purchased the licence in the Activation Email field.
6. Click Activate.

The page shows a confirmation that your staging site is activated and counts toward your 3 staging slots. From here, your staging site receives plugin updates the same way your live site does.

Removing a staging site

If you no longer use a staging site, free up its slot so you can activate a new one.

1. Sign in to your account at wcvendors.com.
2. Click the Downloads tab.
3. Find the plugin row. Under Site Activations, click View Sites.
4. Remove the staging site you no longer need.

Troubleshooting

My licence won’t activate on my staging site

Check that your staging URL matches one of the patterns listed in Supported staging URL patterns above. If it doesn’t, the licensing system treats the activation as a production slot — not as staging — and refuses it once your production allocation is used up.

Generic top-level domains like .com, .xyz, .net, or .io are not recognised as staging. These TLDs are sold for general use and host real production sites, so blanket-whitelisting them would let any production site claim a free staging slot. The patterns we accept are restricted to RFC-reserved TLDs (.local, .test, .dev, .invalid, .example), recognised hosting providers (WP Engine, Kinsta, Pantheon, Cloudways, GoDaddy Managed WordPress), and conventional staging prefixes (staging., dev., stage., local.).

My host’s staging URL pattern isn’t on the list

Contact our support team and tell us your host’s staging URL pattern. If it’s a recognised managed hosting provider with a predictable staging convention, we can add it to the licensing system after verification.

I’ve used up all 3 staging slots

Remove an unused staging site from My Account → Downloads → Site Activations → View Sites on wcvendors.com (see Removing a staging site above). The 3-slot cap is per licence key, so removing an old staging site immediately frees a slot for a new one.

FAQ

Can I use a generic TLD like .com or .xyz as a staging domain?

No. Generic top-level domains are used by real production sites all over the world, so we can’t classify a whole TLD as staging without letting unlicensed production sites claim a free slot. Use a recognised staging prefix on your existing domain — for example staging.yourdomain.com or dev.yourdomain.com — instead of pointing a separate TLD at your staging server.

Does activating a staging site count against my production licence slots?

No. Each licence key has a separate allowance of up to 3 staging sites that’s independent of your production slots. Staging activations don’t reduce the number of production sites you can run on the same key.

Need Help?

If you have a question or run into any issues, we’re here to help.

• Premium users: Open a support ticket
• Free users: Visit our community forum