Frequently Asked Questions

No. Free Version and Premium Version are completely independent plugins. Only one can be activated at a time. If one version is already activated, it won’t allow other to get activated.

For installing premium plugin, follow these steps:

1. Download the premium plugin’s zip file from your “My Account” page on this website.
2. After logging in, on “My Account” page, click “My Products” tab. If you already bought a license, it would be listed under this tab. In the top right corner above the list, you will see a download button—only if you possess a valid license.
3. Go to “Plugins > Add New,” upload, and activate it.
4. After activating, click on “ECF” in admin sidebar. You’ll find it near the bottom.
5. The page that opens up will ask for a “Licence Key.” Get it from “My Products” tab on “My Account” page. If the key you enter is valid, ECF Premium will be activated.

Generally, a website is developed either on a development server or a local server (localhost) but seldom on production server alone. For enabling you to work in parallel on both servers, you are offered these two keys. Production key will work on any kind of server but development key will only work on development server or on localhost.

You can safely switch from “Free to Premium” whenever you make up your mind. But the fields created while using free version won’t be carried over automatically. Use “import/export” feature to do that.

While it’s equally possible to switch back from “Premium to Free,” but we don’t recommend it. If you have used the data stored in fields marked premium—Tabs, Accordions, Repeater, and Field Group—for your site content, switching will result in loss of visibility of all such fields. Switching from “Premium to Free” is also done through “import/export” feature.

Despite loss of visibility of premium fields, the field keys bound to them will remain preserved. Plugin won’t allow you to use those field keys—although invisible, but still in memory—and this can sometimes be confusing. Preserving the field keys helps to retain access to the data you stored against these fields. This essentially means: your frontend will not be affected.

Importing fields data does no harm to your already existing fields. The new fields will be added down below your existing fields.

While importing, if a “field_key” is found in already existing fields, the imported “field_key” is modified rather than existing one.

Anytime you activate the plugin with a license key, an entry is created against that key on our server. You can see that entry in your account. Log-in, click on “My Products,” and then on “pencil icon” next to the license key you want to know about. The panel that opens up displays the list of sites on which this license key is “active” and on which it’s “blocked.” Also look at data showing the “current activations / allowed activations.” If both “current” and “allowed” values are equal, your quota is full.

If you see some unwanted sites listed under “Active on” label that are just using up your license quota, you can free it up by “Deactivating” or “Blocking” them. Deactivating will remove license key from that site, but blocking goes even further; blocking prohibits a site from ever using that key again, until you choose to unblock it.

This means the license owner has blocked your site from using this license key. You can request the owner to unblock it or buy a new license key. All your data is safe whether the license key is “active” or not. On activating with a valid license key, you will gain access to all your data.

A license key is considered as invalid if you missed one or more characters while copying it. The other reason could be that this license key has been replaced by a newly generated one.

If you have account access,

1. Go to “My Products” tab under “My Account” page on this site.
2. Copy a License Key from list that fall under section labelled “Active”.

If you don’t have account access, you can buy a new license key.

The Effortless Custom Fields Premium plugin is a subscription-based product. While buying or anytime before your license expires, you have an “Auto-Renew” option that if remains on and your card holds sufficient balance, the subscription would never expire. But if you decide to disable the auto-renewal, your license will auto-expire at the end of subscription period.

Subscription can’t be renewed once expired. The associated license keys will also become invalid. To continue using the ECF Premium, you have to buy it again.

A minimum amount of information: “License Key” and “Site URL” is sent over to our server; no personal data such as “username” or “email address” is included in that.

Whenever you activate your License, your allowed activations count goes down by one. Now if you don't need Premium plugin in one of your sites, you can free the slot occupied by a license activation by “deactivating license” first before doing a regular plugin deactivation. If you bypass the license deactivation, the slot remains occupied even if you “deactivate” or “uninstall” the premium plugin from your site.

As an example, let’s say you bought a “Personal License.” You used your license’s production key in one of your sites. Now you want to use it on another site. As Personal License only allow “single activation” against the production key, you have to deactivate the license on your old site first before using it on your new site.

Any of above actions have no effect, in any way, on the fields and the data you saved in those fields. No changes are done to the database with any such actions. When you reactivate it, you will see everything in place.

Yes, you can. After logging in,

1. Go to “My Products” tab under “My Account” page.
2. Locate the “License Key” that was used to activate the license. Click on “pencil icon” next to the “License Key”. If you don’t know which “License Key” was to activate the license among many purchased plans, try clicking on every “pencil icon,” one by one, and find the site you are looking for in panel that opens.
3. Click on “Deactivate” or “Block Site” next to the site you are interested in.

We accept many card brands, such as:

• American Express
• China UnionPay (CUP)
• Discover & Diners Club
• eftpos Australia
• Japan Credit Bureau (JCB)
• Mastercard
• Visa

Yes, you can buy as many plans as you want, but not in single transaction; you have to buy them one buy one.

No, you must be registered with us before buying a plan. Account creation require you to fill bare minimum information: Name, Email Address, and Password.

We store no billing and no card information that you fill while buying a plan, or anytime after. All your billing and card details are stored with Stripe—a highly reputable payment gateway service. What we store is: your name, email address, and password. Password is stored not in a format that you typed originally, but in a non-decodable format. This ensures that nobody can decode it even if they gain access to it.

As everything related to payments and billing is handled by Stripe, there is no need to worry. In our site, we have incorporated Stripe exactly as they recommend it. Even the interface, where you enter the billing and payment information, is provided by Stripe. We did everything to ensure that your data is highly secure.

You can buy in any of the listed currencies, but if your local currency is listed, we recommend you to go with that. If you live in India, make sure you choose INR, because the Merchant Account belongs to India.

Note: You get a chance to choose any of the listed currencies only before your first successful transaction, but after that you won’t be able to change it.

As “email address” is the primary handle of your account, so it can’t be changed. If you absolutely need to change it, you can contact us explaining the reason for such change. We’ll try to help you out the best we can.

For resetting your password, head over to “My Account” page, and follow the steps:

1. Click on “Forgot your password?”
2. Click “Reset Password” after entering your email address.
3. Check your email with reset link. If not received, wait for some time. If still not seeing it, check your spam folder. If it’s not in spam as well, repeat previous step.
4. Click “Save Password” after entering the new password.

Try logging-in with this new password. If still not able to log-in, perhaps you missed something. Repeat the above steps once again.

If anything is not working as expected, please feel free to contact us. We are always there for you.