Can I run ShieldPRO on a staging or test site?

Currently, there is no special provision within ShieldPRO's licensing system to cater for dev or staging sites.

Considerations When Importing To And From Staging Sites

Since there is no provision for staging site licenses, if you export your live site to a staging site, it may lose it ShieldPRO status. This means that any pro-only options will revert to their non-pro default state.

If you then proceed to export your staging site to your live site, you may lose your preferred ShieldPRO configuration that you had on your live site.

While there is no special handling for staging sites, our recommendation is to always have a backup of your ShieldPRO plugin settings. You can do this by exporting your current settings to a file so that you may re-import them immediately after any staging-site export.

We have a guide on how to create a backup of your ShieldPRO plugin settings here.

Staging Site License Alternative Option

A workaround to this problem is to have a license dedicated for your staging site(s). ShieldPRO pricing scales quickly so that if you wish to upgrade your subscription in order to provision a PRO license for your staging site, the cost is minimal.

For example, at today's pricing, if you had 1 site license a year, and needed a license for a staging site, you could upgrade your 1-site license to a 3-site license. This is a pro-rata upgrade, so you'll only pay the difference between the two plans.

We understand that this isn't ideal, but it's currently how the licensing system stands today.

Future Plans

We do have plans to cater to staging site licenses, but this development work is not yet complete.