I didn’t write the first line of myCred’s code. Its previous author did, years before we owned it. He built points, ranks, badges and a long list of add-ons, mostly on his own.
In May 2018, my company WPExperts took myCred over. This is why we did it, what we got wrong, and where it’s going.
Where I started
I’ve been working with WordPress since 2008. In 2011 I started WPExperts as an agency, building websites and custom plugins for clients around the world.
Client work teaches you one thing quickly: most of what business owners struggle with isn’t a missing feature. It’s a feature that exists but is too hard to use.
A few years later we started building and selling our own plugins. Today WPExperts maintains 44 of them on WordPress.org.
Why myCred
We didn’t find myCred on a list of plugins for sale. We were already using it.
Before the acquisition, we used myCred on client projects and built custom reward solutions on top of it: points systems, custom integrations and setups for clients who needed more than the defaults. So we knew the code, we knew what it could do, and we knew where users got stuck.
To be honest, we were also looking for a really good plugin where we could improve the UX. myCred was perfect for that.
Then we learned that the previous author was finding it hard to keep managing myCred on his own. After years of building and supporting it alone, that’s understandable. For us, it was an opportunity: a plugin we already trusted, with a strong foundation, that needed a team behind it.
So we didn’t start over. We took on what he had built, and the responsibility to the people already depending on it.
What we got wrong
myCred’s biggest strength turned out to be its biggest problem.
Over the years, its features were split across many separate add-ons. A store owner who only wanted “points on every order, spend them at checkout” had to work out which add-ons to buy, how they fit together and what to configure first. For a developer, that flexibility is useful. For a shop owner who just wants a loyalty program running by Friday, it’s a lot.
The numbers show it. At one point myCred passed 20,000 active installs. Today WordPress.org shows 10,000+. Not all of that drop is down to us, but part of it is.
We kept that model for longer than we should have. The honest feedback we still hear is that myCred feels built for developers, not store owners. That’s fair, and fixing it is most of what we work on now.
What we’ve changed
We didn’t want to fix this by removing features. The flexibility is why people choose myCred. Instead, we’ve been reorganizing everything around it:
Bundles instead of a long list of add-ons. Features are now grouped into free and Pro bundles, sold through three plans instead of dozens of separate purchases.
A free WooCommerce addon. Points on every order and paying with points at checkout now work out of the box, with no purchase needed to get started.
A clearer admin. We’ve reworked the interface and workflows so it’s more obvious what to do next.
Help with setup. This week we released myCred 4.0 with the AI Assistant built in, so you don’t need to understand every setting before you start. It’s the biggest step yet towards guided setup.
A plugin with this many years of features behind it doesn’t become simple overnight. But every release should make it easier to go from an idea to a working loyalty program, and should earn back the sites we lost.
Not everything is work
Outside of work, it’s mostly family. I won’t invent a marathon habit for this post. Work and family time is honestly what my week looks like, and I’m fine with that.
I mention it because there’s a person behind every update and every support reply, not just a logo.
Where myCred is today
myCred now runs on more than 10,000 WordPress sites, with a 4.6 rating from 471 reviews. It connects with 50+ plugins, so a store can reward purchases, a course site can reward progress, a community can reward contributions, and a booking business can reward repeat appointments, all with one points system.
This week we shipped myCred 4.0, the biggest release since we took it over. The goal from here is simple to say and hard to do: make myCred the easiest way to build a loyalty program on WordPress, without losing the flexibility that made it worth saving in the first place.
If you use myCred, or you tried it and gave up, I’d like to hear why. Email me at saadiqbal@wpexperts.io. It comes straight to me.
Saad Iqbal, Founder, WPExperts