Hello!
I have WordPress site, which, for security and continuity of maintenance, also has a staging version (not available to the public, accessible only internally). On the staging version, I perform plugin updates to check if everthing is working. If everything works, I perform the update on production.
Unfortunately, paid plugins don’t want to update on staging, which is problematic and doesn’t allow me to update the site safely.
Is there a way to manage the licenses of paid wordpress plugins so that performing updates on staging is possible?
Download the paid plugin and simply overwrite either via add plugin or sftp on staging. Unless you have an unlimited license, or slots to add your staging site to an existing license, this is really the most effective way.
Out of curiosity, what is the URL structure of your staging site or other branches?
I asked a similar question during pre-sales phase for paid plugin I was/am considering. They pointed me to their FAQ:
[PublishPress license keys and local development ](https://publishpress.com/knowledge-base/license-keys-and-local-development/)
I haven’t dealt with enough paid plugins to know if the described naming convention is pretty standard in the market, or if YMMV.
It’s probably worth asking the plugin devs of your specific plugin(s), “How would you handle this very valid, very common need for staging, production branches?”
After all, you are paying them for support, including answering questions like this….