Today, I’m excited to share that AffiliateWP along with all other Sandhills Development plugins are joining Awesome Motive.
Since this is BIG NEWS, you probably have a lot of questions like: who is Awesome Motive, how did this acquisition come about, what will happen to the AffiliateWP team, what’s coming next, etc.
Who’s Awesome Motive?
Awesome Motive (AM) is a company started by Syed Balkhi with a mission to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys.
The AM team is behind some of the most popular plugins and resources in the WordPress ecosystem:
- WPBeginner – the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.
- OptinMonster – popular conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers and customers.
- WPForms – the most beginner friendly WordPress form builder.
- MonsterInsights – the most popular WordPress Analytics plugin that helps you grow your business with confidence.
- AIOSEO – the original WordPress SEO plugin to help you get more traffic.
- WP Mail SMTP – the #1 plugin that helps improve your WordPress email deliverability.
- SeedProd – the best drag & drop landing page builder for WordPress.
- RafflePress – powerful WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow your website traffic.
- Smash Balloon – most popular social media feeds plugin for WordPress.
- PushEngage – leading web push notification software for small businesses.
- SearchWP – the most advanced WordPress search plugin.
- … and many more.
Collectively over 17 million websites use Awesome Motive plugins.
And I’ve always admired their commitment to customer success.
Background Story
I have known Syed Balkhi for multiple years, and we have crossed paths at numerous industry events. Syed has supported AffiliateWP since the early days by featuring it on WPBeginner.
Earlier this year, my Sandhills Development business partner Pippin and Syed connected to discuss potentially joining forces to better serve the WordPress community.
Awesome Motive uses Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, and other Sandhills products to power many of their eCommerce transactions.
Not to mention, they have a strong track record of building popular WordPress plugins.
So it made perfect sense for us to join forces.
This is why I’m excited to be joining Awesome Motive as a partner.
I have a lot of respect for what Syed and the team has built at Awesome Motive, and I’m looking forward to learning and leveraging their knowledge to continue to make AffiliateWP even better.
What will happen to the AffiliateWP Team?
As I mentioned, as part of this acquisition I’m joining Awesome Motive as a partner. I will continue to lead AffiliateWP, and our entire team is joining Awesome Motive as well.
This acquisition also means that we will be hiring and growing the AffiliateWP team, so we can bring even more powerful solutions your way (faster).
See the Awesome Motive Careers page for open positions.
What’s Changing / Coming Next?
Aside from ownership change, it’s business as usual. You can continue to use the plugin that you love without any interruption.
Behind the scenes, we’re upgrading our support workflows and growing the team, so we can better serve our community.
In the coming weeks, you’ll likely see a lot more helpful tutorials on our blog to better highlight all the amazing features that are available in our plugins.
I’m also working with Syed to create our future product roadmap, and we will be coming out with a lot of features that you have been asking for. This is going to be a game changer.
Once again, I want to thank you for your continued support of AffiliateWP, and I can’t wait to bring more exciting features your way.
Andrew Munro
Co-Founder of AffiliateWP
Wow!!! that’s a piece of awesome news. Congratulations!!!!
Congratulations Andrew Munro and AffiliateWP Team for the huge step towards growing and helping the WordPress community.
Glad to know you are now connected with Awesome Motive. I am using at least one product every day in my everyday routine of Awesome Motive and I am just loving them.
Looking forward to more awesome updates and features.
Can you provide a statement regarding the lifetime deal purchasers? I purchased LTDs for AffiliateWP and Sugar Calendar and would like clarity on if these deals will be honored. Thank you!
Congratulations Pippins and everyone in the team. It has been awesome seeing you build all these awesome products over the years.
Best wishes to everyone.
Will the lifetime license continue to be honored moving forward?
Hey Jason! Absolutely, lifetime licenses will be honored.
I hope AffiliateWP lifetime account will continue to be honored. This is probably on many peoples minds.
Yes, lifetime licenses will be honored 🙂
My concerns is Awesome has ruined nearly ever plugin they have acquired. I still use WP Forms but am looking at alternatives because of bloat. Is Pippin moving over as well?
From this quote of Pippin’s post on Sugar Calendar (almost a clone of this one) it sounds like he’s stepping away from WP altogether:
“I will stay on for the next month to help with transition before exiting the WordPress ecosystem to focus on my family.”
It’s a real shame because I’ve watched AM ruin everything I like that it’s ever touched. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure they refused to honour LTD holders for the Optin Monster plugin.
I’m so disappointed by this. After RCP was sold they had said there was no plans to sell anything else in the near future. :/
After a transition period to help move everything over to Awesome Motive, I will be closing the page on the WordPress chapter in my book. I wrote a more detailed post that helps explain some of the reasons here: https://sandhillsdev.com/2021/09/awesome-motive-has-acquired-our-wordpress-products-and-services/
We did get a commitment that lifetime licenses would be honored so you should not see any changes there.
Is it possible for AM to provide additional reassurance about honoring the lifetime license owners?
They did in fact revoke this from Opti monster users and then they removed any legacy pricing renewals after. They even had a huge price increase and then gave a number of time to lock in our preferred pricing… Then they later decreased pricing from the planned increase (which greatly decreased the value of locking in price for an increase that didn’t fully materialize). Then they later decided not to honor the locked in pricing as well and increased it to list price… Which made the early upgrade in anticipation for future additional usage being a waste of money. Especially paying more today to plan for the future and then paying more when you really need it.
It is very unsettling that they acquired AffiliateWP and seems in their best interest to make an official statement regarding legacy license holders… Especially because a larger lifetime deals on various of your plugins was done last year (which would equate to overpaying if it is no longer honored).
Hi Pol! Thanks for your comment. I can assure you lifetime licenses will be honored.
I have been looking closely at AffiliateWP, and frankly, the main thing holding me back is the refund policy. Without a trial version to work with, and the policy essentially stating that no refund is offered if there’s a conflict with other plugins, this is a risk I’m not willing to take.
From what I see, the refund policy on all Awesome Motive products is the same 14-day no questions asked policy, which makes it easy to test a new plugin.
Some of the comments above suggest that Awesome Motive has a negative history, yet I can only find 2 problems reported from a half-hour of searching. I’m sure there are more issues out there. I just couldn’t find them. In the case of OptinMonster, they changed the business model, and the WP plugin was discontinued, therefore, that would have been the end of the “life” of that product.
Lifetime means the life of the product, not the life of the customer.
Overall, yes, I see this as a positive move, especially if the new owner has the skills, resources, and marketing know-how to push development forward.
Hi Alan!
AffiliateWP is transitioning to the same 14-day, no questions asked policy. If you’d like to give AffiliateWP a try at any point, you can do so without any risk.