Contents
Free vs Pro - Plugixa CRM
Plugixa CRM is thirty-eight modules. Thirty-two are free and six are paid: the five connectors, and custom fields.
That is the whole line. There is still no feature in this plugin that exists in a limited form for free and a complete form if you pay - custom fields is either there in full or not there at all, like every connector.
The seam is absence, not a licence check
There is no licence check anywhere in this plugin, and there never was.
The Pro build is the free plugin plus a pro/ directory. On a free site that
directory is not there, so the module loader finds nothing, no routes are
registered, and the connector’s card on the Integrations screen says it is not
part of this download rather than pretending to be switched off.
A sibling Plugixa plugin was once rejected from wordpress.org as trialware for exactly the thing this avoids. The rule is asserted by the test suite, and the release script refuses to build if premium code is found in the free tree.
The matrix
The CRM
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts, with a contact link that records each person’s role | Yes | Yes |
| Contacts, with many email addresses and phone numbers each | Yes | Yes |
| Leads, and one-step conversion into account, contact and deal | Yes | Yes |
| Opportunities, pipelines, stages and a kanban board | Yes | Yes |
| Weighted forecast and stage history | Yes | Yes |
| Duplicate detection and record merging | Yes | Yes |
Activities
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Tasks, calls and meetings | Yes | Yes |
| One calendar over all three | Yes | Yes |
| Working hours, holidays and free/busy | Yes | Yes |
| Reminders on any record | Yes | Yes |
| Google Calendar sync | - | Yes |
| Outlook and Microsoft 365 calendars | - | Yes |
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Send from any record | Yes | Yes |
| Email templates with merge fields | Yes | Yes |
| Inbound email over IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| Email-to-case, with replies threading onto the case | Yes | Yes |
| A Microsoft 365 mailbox without a stored password | - | Yes |
Marketing
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Campaigns and target lists | Yes | Yes |
| Mass email, sent in batches | Yes | Yes |
| Unsubscribe that cannot be switched off | Yes | Yes |
| Open and click tracking on your own domain | Yes | Yes |
| Web-to-lead forms, as a block or a shortcode | Yes | Yes |
| Your site’s own contact forms feeding the CRM | - | Yes |
Support
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Cases, with a number sequence you control | Yes | Yes |
| Knowledge base with a category tree | Yes | Yes |
| A public help centre, server-rendered | Yes | Yes |
| Customer portal, as a block or a shortcode | Yes | Yes |
On every record
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Notes, private file attachments, tags | Yes | Yes |
| Activity stream and followers | Yes | Yes |
| Favourites | Yes | Yes |
| Audit log | Yes | Yes |
| Custom fields on contacts, accounts, leads and deals | - | Yes |
Insight and data
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Reports, charts and the report builder | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-tab arrangeable dashboards | Yes | Yes |
| Document library with a folder tree | Yes | Yes |
| PDF templates and print | Yes | Yes |
| Import and export as CSV or Excel | Yes | Yes |
Access
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Roles per entity and per action | Yes | Yes |
| All, team, own or none scoping | Yes | Yes |
| Field-level rules | Yes | Yes |
| Teams | Yes | Yes |
Integrations
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| The integrations framework, credentials and health | Yes | Yes |
| Outbound webhooks on record events | Yes | Yes |
| Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Elementor | - | Yes |
| Google Calendar | - | Yes |
| Microsoft 365 | - | Yes |
| Twilio SMS | - | Yes |
| WooCommerce | - | Yes |
For developers
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
REST API, plugixa-crm/v1 |
Yes | Yes |
| Over eighty actions and filters | Yes | Yes |
Four things people expect to be paid, and are not
These are worth calling out because other CRMs charge for them, and because some of this plugin’s own older code comments still describe them as premium. They are not.
- Reports and forecasting. A full report builder with charts, free.
- Teams and roles. Per entity, per action, with field-level rules, free.
- The customer portal. Free.
- Campaigns and mass email. Free, including the tracking.
The one thing that is free and looks broken without Pro
Integrations. The framework ships free: the screen, the encrypted credential store, the job queue, the health checks and the field mapping. What it ships with is one working connector, Webhooks, and a catalogue of cards for the ones that are not in this download.
A locked card is an advertisement, not a switched-off feature. Its routes answer 404 by design, and the card says so in plain words rather than showing a greyed switch you cannot move. See Integrations and Webhooks.
What upgrading does not do
It does not move your data. The tables are the same tables. Each connector adds its own, and so does custom fields.
It does not need a reactivation. Installing the premium ZIP over the free one replaces the files without WordPress firing an activation hook, and both builds carry the same version number - so a version check alone would compare equal and the new tables would never be created. The plugin fingerprints which modules it found alongside the version, so gaining a module is itself the signal, and the next request after the upgrade creates the tables.
It does not change who can do what. Roles are free and already in force.
It does not need a key entered. Install the premium ZIP over the free one.
What downgrading does not do
It does not delete anything. Anything a connector wrote stays: the WooCommerce customers, the calendar links, the form mappings. What stops is the connector.
Your custom field answers stay too, and this is the case worth being precise about. A connector losing its build loses a sync; custom fields losing its build leaves data you typed yourself sitting in a table with nothing installed to read it. Nothing drops those tables, so every answer is exactly where it was and reappears the moment the paid build is back. But be clear-eyed about it: until then you cannot see those values in the CRM, and an export run while downgraded will not contain them. If you are leaving for good, export first - the columns are in every CSV and XLSX while the module is present.
One thing that keeps working either way: a merge or a GDPR erasure still tidies the rows a premium install left behind. Both keep their reference lists guarded by a table-exists check rather than by whether the module is loaded, so a contact merged on a free build does not strand its old answers, and a person erased is erased out of those tables too.
One deliberate exception in your favour: the opt-out and invalid flags on phone numbers are free, even though only the premium Twilio connector writes them. Somebody who texted STOP stays opted out whether or not you are still paying, because a refusal recorded in a table that leaves with the premium build is not a refusal.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Usual cause |
|---|---|
| A connector card says it is not installed | It is not in this download. That is what free means here. |
| A Pro route returns no route on free | Correct. The module is absent, not refused. |
| I upgraded and nothing changed | Pro adds connectors and custom fields. Connect one on the Integrations screen, or look for Custom fields under Administration. |
| There is no Custom fields item under Administration | It is paid. On a free build the item is not registered and /custom-fields is not a route - absent, not greyed out. |
| The filter drawer still has a “Custom fields” heading on free | It is the free drawer’s grouping for a section that will always be empty there. Harmless, and it is why that one word is still in the free build’s string table. |
| A code comment says Reports is premium | Some older comments are out of date. Reports is free. |
| Downgrading lost a screen but not the data | That is the design. |
| I cannot find where to enter my licence key | There is nowhere. Feature availability is decided by which build is installed. |
What to do next
- Start here: Getting Started.
- Connect something: Integrations and Webhooks.
- The free access model: Roles, Teams and Permissions.