“If your plugin is GPL, you are not selling the code. You are selling time, trust, and support.”
The short answer is yes: if a WordPress plugin is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), you can legally resell it, even at a lower price than the original vendor. The catch is that your business model cannot rely on exclusivity of the code. Your profit margin comes from packaging, support, updates, and distribution, not from owning the source. The market for GPL plugin reselling is real, but the winners treat it as a services business with software as the hook, not the other way around.
The GPL sits at the center of the WordPress economy. Every serious plugin that integrates tightly with WordPress must comply with the GPL license terms. The code inherits that license. That structure gives founders and agencies a lot of freedom and, at the same time, erases some traditional software advantages. The legal framework permits cloning, forks, and resale. The business reality rewards those who create upgrade paths, partner channels, and recurring value stacked on top of a license that anyone can reuse.
Investors look for recurring revenue backed by something defensible. The GPL does not give you classical defensibility on the code itself. The user base can move, copy, fork, and resell. The trend is not clear yet, but the projects that win in this space treat “GPL compliance” as the floor and build moats with distribution, brand, onboarding, and integrations with paid services. The legal right to resell plugins is just one lever inside that broader go-to-market puzzle.
How the GPL Works for Plugins: Rights and Limits
The GPL is a copyleft license. It grants users broad rights and then imposes a key condition on distribution of modified or combined works.
At a high level, the GPL grants:
– The right to run the program for any purpose
– The right to study the source code
– The right to modify the source code
– The right to distribute original or modified versions
The trade is simple: if you distribute a derivative work of GPL code, you must release that derivative under the GPL as well and provide source code access.
“The GPL permits charging a fee for distributing copies. The terms do not require you to charge or prevent you from charging any specific amount.”
– Free Software Foundation, GPL FAQ
For WordPress plugins, one question drives most business decisions: is the plugin a derivative work of WordPress itself? The WordPress project and its legal advisors take the view that plugins that hook into WordPress APIs are derivative. That means they must be GPL compatible.
Commercial plugin vendors usually take this route:
– Core plugin PHP: GPL
– JS, CSS, images: often GPL compatible, or other licenses but bundled under GPL terms in practice
– Brand assets and trademarks: separate and protected
This structure gives birth to a strange but powerful scenario. Someone can resell the plugin code. That person cannot, however, legally impersonate the original vendor or reuse trademarked names and brand assets in a misleading way.
What “You Can Resell GPL Plugins” Actually Means
When founders hear that GPL plugins can be resold, two reactions often appear:
– Panic: “Anyone can copy my plugin and kill my pricing.”
– Gold rush: “I will build a cheap ‘GPL club’ and undercut everyone.”
Both reactions miss how the economic engine really works.
Legally, reselling means:
– You can download a GPL plugin
– You can host it on your own site
– You can ask users to pay for access
– You must preserve the GPL license terms
– You must provide the source code (or clear access to it)
Commercially, this means:
– You cannot block others from doing the same
– You cannot claim the original project is closed source
– You cannot rely on code scarcity to keep your margins
So the question shifts from “Can I resell?” to “Can I build a business around reselling and still deliver enough perceived value that customers pay me instead of going to the original vendor or to a free mirror?”
Business Models Around GPL Plugins
The market now treats GPL plugins as raw material rather than finished goods. The legal right to resell is only the starting point. The business value comes from how you package that right.
Here are the main paths founders follow.
1. The GPL Reseller / “License Club” Model
These businesses buy or download premium GPL plugins, host them, and sell access for a flat fee subscription. Often the pitch is “get $10,000 worth of plugins for $15 per month.”
The economics look like this:
| Metric | Vendor Direct | GPL Reseller |
|---|---|---|
| Average annual price per plugin | $49 – $199 | Included in $15 – $25/month bundle |
| Support source | Original developer | Limited or none, basic docs |
| Update frequency | Real-time, from vendor | Lagged, batched syncs |
| Per-site licensing | Often 1-100 sites tiers | No license checks, unlimited installs |
The legal foundation:
– They redistribute GPL code
– They often strip license keys
– They do not provide official vendor support
– They cannot legally claim to be the original seller
The business upside:
– High perceived savings for agencies and freelancers managing multiple sites
– Low marginal cost of distributing another copy
– Simple upsell paths into “priority support” or managed updates
The business risk:
– Thin product moat: competitors can copy the same catalog
– Brand risk: plugin authors and some users view these services with suspicion
– Support burden: users expect help even when the pitch says “no support”
The ROI for the founder depends on user volume and churn. A reseller might pay for one full-price license just to access updates, then deliver that plugin to hundreds of users. The cost of goods sold is tiny. The real expense sits in:
– Infrastructure (file hosting, bandwidth)
– Customer service
– Marketing and affiliate payouts
From a legal perspective, the model is sustainable if the site clearly states that:
– The plugins are GPL licensed
– The files come without vendor support
– Trademarks remain with their respective owners
“GPL clubs are legal. They may be unpopular with some developers, but the license terms clearly allow redistribution and resale.”
– Common view among WordPress legal advisors
2. The Value-Added Distributor Model
A different group of founders takes GPL plugins and builds services around them. The plugin code is standard. The value sits in:
– Auto-updates from a curated catalog
– Compatibility testing with popular themes or hosting environments
– Pre-configured bundles for certain industries, such as eCommerce, education, or membership sites
– Extended documentation and video training
Here, the revenue story is closer to a classic SaaS play, even though the core products are GPL:
| Revenue Driver | Description | Business Value |
|---|---|---|
| Managed plugin stack | Curated list of plugins tested together | Reduces breakage risk, lowers maintenance costs |
| Automated updates | Central dashboard, staged rollouts | Improves uptime, lowers incident response time |
| Training content | Courses, tutorials, onboarding flows | Shortens time to value for clients |
| Priority support | Support layer on top of multiple plugins | Catches issues without users dealing with many vendors |
Clients pay for predictability. The GPL allows the distributor to offer a stable catalog without licensing headaches. The customer pays to avoid integration work and risk.
3. The Hosted Service + GPL Client Plugin Model
Many profitable WordPress companies shift key value into a hosted service. The plugin is GPL. The service is not. The code in WordPress becomes a client for an external API.
Revenue comes from:
– SaaS subscriptions for advanced features
– Usage-based billing (emails sent, form submissions, page views, etc.)
– Add-ons for integrations with CRMs, billing platforms, or analytics tools
Here the GPL does not block defensibility, because the differentiation moves to the hosted infrastructure, proprietary algorithms, or external data.
“The GPL controls your rights over the code in the user’s hands. It says nothing about your rights over remote services that code connects to.”
– Common interpretation in WordPress product circles
You can still have:
– Access tiers
– Rate limits
– Enterprise support contracts
The plugin can be resold, but without valid API keys, the key features will not function. Investors often prefer this structure because churn and expansion revenue live at the account level, not at the plugin file level.
Legal Boundaries: What You Can and Cannot Do
Founders who lean into GPL resale or distribution must respect a few key lines.
Rights Granted by GPL
Under GPL you can:
– Charge for distributing the plugin
– Bundle the plugin with other code
– Modify the plugin and distribute your fork
– Redistribute copies without paying royalties to the original author
The license does not cap your pricing. You can sell a copy for $5 or $500. The market response will be the only real limit.
Obligations Under GPL
GPL obligations kick in when you distribute:
– You must provide the source code or an offer to provide it
– You must keep the GPL license included with the code
– You must license derivative works under GPL as well
You cannot take GPL code, tweak it, and re-release it under a closed, proprietary license.
If you are reselling plugins, your site should make the licensing transparent:
– Link to the GPL v2 or v3 text as appropriate
– State that the plugins are open source under GPL
– Clarify what you actually sell: access, delivery, maybe your own support
Trademarks and Brand Restrictions
GPL applies to code. It does not handle names, logos, or trademarks. That is a separate body of law.
This means:
– You cannot call your fork “Yoast SEO” or “WooCommerce” and present it as the official plugin
– You cannot use another company’s logo in a way that confuses customers about the source
– You can say “works with WooCommerce” or “compatible with Gravity Forms” when that is true
Many major WordPress companies have trademark guidelines that allow some uses and block others. Those guidelines are often stricter than the GPL, but they are legally enforceable on the brand side.
If you build a GPL resale business, your marketing copy needs to stay on the safe side:
Bad: “Official Elementor Pro downloads for 90 percent off”
Better: “GPL licensed plugins for WordPress, compatible with Elementor. Not affiliated with Elementor.”
Brand clarity protects you from cease and desist letters and builds trust with users. Confused messaging might bring a short-term bump in conversions, but it raises legal risk and damages long-term retention once buyers realize they did not purchase from the original vendor.
Why Reselling GPL Plugins Has Not Crushed Original Vendors
If anyone can resell, why do original plugin vendors still thrive? The answer is boring and very relevant for business planning: most customers pay for certainty, not for code.
Here is what the data and market behavior indicate.
Customer Segments With Low Price Sensitivity
Agencies managing large portfolios, eCommerce site owners with significant revenue, and enterprise teams have:
– Higher risk exposure if a plugin breaks
– Less tolerance for outages and security holes
– Budgets that weigh risk more heavily than upfront license costs
For these segments, a $199 yearly license with official support is a rounding error compared to:
– Lost revenue from a broken checkout
– Billable hours troubleshooting a conflict
– Compliance or security incidents
This group continues to buy direct from vendors because:
– They want guaranteed updates as soon as a patch is released
– They want to talk to the original support team
– They need clear contracts and VAT-compliant invoices
Price-sensitive freelancers or hobby site owners lean more heavily toward GPL resellers, but they are also more likely to churn, suffer from misconfigurations, and generate high support volume relative to revenue.
Support as the Primary Value Driver
Most plugin businesses spend a large part of their budget on support. That support cost is invisible in the code license but very visible in customer satisfaction metrics.
From a business standpoint:
– Support volume scales roughly with active installs, not with revenue
– Support is hard to copy by resellers, because it requires product knowledge and trained staff
– Good support justifies higher price points without legal exclusivity on the code
Many customers pay for direct access to:
– The team that built the plugin
– Pattern recognition of solved issues
– Compatibility guidance for complex setups
A reseller could try to offer third-party support, but that raises staffing costs and reduces the advantage of a low-price model.
Update Velocity and Security
Security updates and compatibility fixes drive renewal decisions. Users stay on paid plans if they trust that:
– Updates arrive quickly after WordPress core changes
– Vulnerabilities are patched without delay
– Deprecation warnings and errors are handled before they hurt uptime
GPL resellers tend to lag:
– They must acquire the new version from the original vendor
– They must package it and push it to their users
– Some only sync updates in batches to reduce manual work
This lag introduces risk. For retail users and side projects, that trade-off is acceptable. For revenue-generating sites, it is not.
That gap creates room for original vendors to keep strong annual renewal rates even when copies of their plugins float around at lower prices.
Risk and Reward for Founders Entering the GPL Resale Space
From a founder’s standpoint, the big question is not “Is it legal?” but “Is this a defensible and sustainable way to grow revenue?”
Revenue Potential vs. Churn
The GPL resale model can scale quickly on revenue because:
– Marginal cost per extra customer is low
– Entry price for users is low, so conversion can be high
– Affiliate marketing and coupons can drive volume fast
The flip side:
– High churn: users join for a cheap download, leave after they get it
– Chargeback risk from users who expected original vendor support
– Ongoing pressure to keep prices low in the face of competition
Your retention and lifetime value (LTV) numbers dictate your ability to spend on acquisition:
| Metric | Healthy Range | Red Flag |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly churn | < 6% | > 10% |
| Average revenue per user (ARPU) | $12 – $30/month | < $8/month |
| Customer acquisition cost (CAC) payback | < 6 months | > 12 months |
If your user base views your service as a one-off download shop, those metrics will skew in the wrong direction. The fix is to reposition as a subscription worth keeping:
– Ongoing updates
– Clear roadmap of new plugins or features
– Extra tools such as backups, staging, or monitoring
Reputation in the Dev Community
From a pure legal stance, you owe nothing beyond GPL compliance and fair trademark use. From a growth stance, developer relations carry weight.
Plugin authors can:
– Publicly discourage the use of GPL resellers
– Block license keys that appear to be leaked from those services
– Limit access to support and documentation behind logins
If your long-term plan includes building your own plugins or partnering with authors, a pure “clone and resell” play might hurt those relationships.
Some GPL-focused businesses address this by:
– Contributing patches to the upstream projects they distribute
– Funding translations, documentation, or security audits
– Keeping clear messaging that encourages users to buy direct when they grow beyond hobby use
These gestures do not change the legal framework, but they help keep doors open with authors and with the wider WordPress community.
How Plugin Authors Can Compete When Their Code Can Be Resold
If you are on the other side of the table, building plugins that fall under the GPL, you need a strategy that does not depend on code exclusivity.
Product Design for a GPL World
Several tactics help:
1. Offload key differentiation to hosted components
– Example: spam filtering that runs on your servers
– Example: A/B testing, analytics, machine learning scoring
– Example: central license and subscription dashboards
2. Bundle services that do not transfer with the code alone
– Onboarding and migration
– Strategy sessions, audits, guided setup calls
– Certified partner programs for agencies
3. Create extension ecosystems
– Free core plugin with a marketplace of add-ons
– Resellers can copy the add-ons, but they cannot easily copy community momentum
These levers move the core business from “selling files” to “selling outcomes,” which are harder for resellers to undercut.
Pricing and Positioning
When any user can get a raw copy of your plugin at a low price, your pricing page must answer a simple question: why would they still pay you?
The message often highlights:
– Direct support from the original team
– Fast security and compatibility updates
– Access to private documentation, templates, and setups
– Priority bug fixes based on customer feedback
Position your offer as the “official, safe, and supported” choice. Let resellers serve the price-driven market. Your profit comes from the peace of mind segment that cares about continuity and trust.
Practical Scenarios: What Is Legal and What Is Risky?
To anchor the theory, consider a few common scenarios.
Scenario 1: Freelancer Sharing a Paid Plugin With a Client
You buy a premium GPL plugin for agency use. You install it on a client’s site.
Legal status:
– Allowed by GPL: you can distribute copies
– The client receives GPL rights to the code as well
Contract status:
– May violate the vendor’s terms of service if they restrict license usage to a certain number of sites
– Those terms bind you and the vendor, not the GPL itself
From a business angle, you must balance:
– License term compliance with the vendor
– Your cost per client vs. the license plan you bought
– The risk of losing support from the vendor if they revoke your license for overuse
Scenario 2: Launching a “Premium GPL Plugins” Website
You set up a subscription site that offers downloads of popular premium WordPress plugins. You fetch updates from your own licensed accounts and push them to subscribers.
Legal boundaries:
– GPL lets you redistribute the code
– You must not mislead users about your relationship with original vendors
– You must not reuse trademarks in a confusing way
Business constraints:
– You need processes to keep plugins updated quickly
– You must handle removal requests when authors introduce non-GPL assets or remote checks that limit function
– You must handle support expectations with clear terms
Scenario 3: Forking a Plugin and Selling Your Version
You fork a popular GPL plugin, add new features, and start selling access to your fork under a new brand.
Legal points:
– Allowed, as long as your fork remains under GPL
– You must keep license headers and copyright notices where required
– You cannot pretend to be the original vendor
Growth play:
– Differentiate on niche features, performance, or UI
– Target a specific vertical, such as digital publishers or course creators
– Over time, your fork can become its own product with its own community
This path requires more engineering and support investments than a generic reseller model but offers stronger long-term defensibility.
Key Takeaways For Founders and Investors
The question “Can you legally resell GPL plugins?” masks a more strategic question: “Can you build a durable business when the core asset can be copied?”
The legal answer is straightforward:
– Yes, you can resell GPL-licensed plugins, charge for them, and package them into subscriptions.
– You must keep them under GPL terms and provide source code.
– You cannot abuse trademarks or mislead users about official status.
The commercial answer is more nuanced:
– Original vendors survive because support, fast updates, and hosted services create value that copies cannot match.
– GPL resellers can grow quickly on volume but suffer from churn and thin moats.
– The best long-term plays treat GPL as a distribution advantage, not as a problem: wide reach on the free layer, monetization on services, integrations, and reliability.
“If your business model fails the moment someone mirrors your code, you do not have a GPL problem. You have a product strategy problem.”
The market shows a clear pattern: code under GPL is raw inventory. Revenue and profit come from how you package that inventory into outcomes customers want to pay for, year after year.