Contents
Free vs Pro - Plugixa Exam
The free edition is a complete exam plugin, not a trial. Nothing in it is disabled, nothing is time-limited, and it contains no premium code waiting to be unlocked.
Pro is a separate download: the same plugin plus a pro/ directory.
Question bank
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Subject tree, nestable | yes | yes |
| Free-form tags | yes | yes |
| Rich text stems, explanations, rubrics | yes | yes |
| Images in questions, with alt text | yes | yes |
| Difficulty and default points | yes | yes |
| Version history | - | yes |
| Custom fields | - | yes |
| LaTeX and maths rendering | - | yes |
| AI question drafting, with your own API key | - | yes |
Question types
| Type | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple choice, single answer | yes | yes |
| Multiple choice, several answers | yes | yes |
| True / false | yes | yes |
| Short answer | yes | yes |
| Essay | yes | yes |
| Fill in the blanks | yes | yes |
| Picture choice | yes | yes |
| Ordering | - | yes |
| Matching | - | yes |
| Extended matching | - | yes |
| Hotspot | - | yes |
| Image matching | - | yes |
| Range | - | yes |
| File upload | - | yes |
| Total | 7 | 14 |
Building and running exams
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Sections as fixed lists | yes | yes |
| Sections as random pools | yes | yes |
| Shuffle questions and options | yes | yes |
| Server-side timing | yes | yes |
| Paper frozen at attempt start | yes | yes |
| Autosave, pause and resume | yes | yes |
| Works without JavaScript | yes | yes |
| Inactivity sweep | yes | yes |
| Practice mode | - | yes |
| Prerequisites | - | yes |
| Integrity signals | - | yes |
| Live invigilation board | - | yes |
Marking and results
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic marking on submit | yes | yes |
| Partial credit and negative marking | yes | yes |
| Manual marking queue with rubric | yes | yes |
| Release policies | yes | yes |
| Per-subject breakdown | yes | yes |
| Gradebook and letter grades | - | yes |
| Weighted transcripts | - | yes |
| Certificates awarded on a pass | yes | yes |
| Public QR verification | yes | yes |
| Certificate designs | 1 | unlimited |
| Drag-and-drop certificate designer | - | yes |
| A different certificate per exam | - | yes |
| Item analysis | - | yes |
| Scheduled email reports | - | yes |
| Opt-in leaderboards | - | yes |
Access
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Open, by role, access code, guest | yes | yes |
| Attempt caps and cooldowns | yes | yes |
| Opening and closing windows | yes | yes |
| Cohorts | - | yes |
On the site
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
Learner portal at /my-exams/ |
yes | yes |
| Blocks | 5 | 6 |
| Shortcodes | 10 | 11 |
| Template overrides | yes | yes |
| Schedule calendar | yes | yes |
Administration
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Five seeded roles, twelve permission areas | yes | yes |
| “Edit own” scoping | yes | yes |
| Seeded email templates, sending queue | 5 | 6 |
| In-app alerts feed | yes | yes |
| App Manager | yes | yes |
| Demo dataset | - | yes |
Data and integrations
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Import CSV, Aiken, GIFT, Moodle XML, QTI | yes | yes |
| Export CSV, Moodle XML, QTI | yes | yes |
| GDPR exporters and erasers | yes | yes |
| Translations, RTL, four bundled languages | yes | yes |
| Multilingual content, one exam many languages | - | yes |
| Tutor LMS, LearnDash, LifterLMS | - | yes |
| LTI 1.3 | - | yes |
| Signed webhooks | - | yes |
| Scoped API tokens | - | yes |
What happens if you stop paying
This is the question the matrix above does not answer, and it is the one worth knowing before you commit a question bank to any plugin.
- Your content stays yours and stays readable. Questions, exams, attempts and results are in your own database, in your own tables.
- A question whose type is no longer installed still works. It renders, it exports, and it is still marked from the answer key it already has. What you lose is the ability to create new ones of that type.
- Export is a free feature. CSV, Moodle XML and QTI export are in the free edition, on purpose, so leaving is not gated behind paying.
- Certificates already issued remain in the database, and on the free edition they keep working: they are still awarded, still verify, still download. What Pro adds is the designer, more than one design, and a different certificate per exam - so a site that drops to free keeps every design it drew and can still edit them, but cannot add another.
There is no licence check anywhere in the plugin. Premium modules are discovered by looking at the filesystem, so in a free build they do not exist rather than existing and being locked. That is also what keeps the free edition inside the WordPress.org trialware rules.
What to do next
- Start with Getting Started.
- See what each type does in Question Types.
- Turn off anything you do not want, in either edition, from the App Manager in Settings.