SaaS-based Wordpress Plugins

A primer on the SaaS-based Wordpress Plugins — how they're different, what are the pros and cons, and who should build one.

Presented at the WordCamp Dhaka 2025 on October 17th, 2025.

Transcript

1. SaaS-based WordPress Plugins WordCamp Dhaka 2025
2. Mohammad Emran Hasan @phpfour | https://phpfour.com
3. Have you used... 🫠
8. What's di ff erent? 😎
11. Tightly integrated with a cloud service (SaaS) for its core functionality.
12. The plugin provides UI in WordPress... while the heavy-lifting happens on the cloud.
13. Data is primarily stored in the cloud, while some cache may be stored locally.
14. Doesn't slow down customers' sites...plugin dependency is minimal.
16. Why care? 😅
17. Freedom to run heavy batch processes.
18. Debugging without going insane!
19. Rolling out new features gets easier.
20. Allows monitoring users and their behavior.
21. Maintenance is easier.
22. Any pitfalls? 🤔
23. Data synchronization can be tricky.
24. Thousands of local and development instances consume resources.
25. Maintaining uptime is a challenge...all customer instances are a ff ected.
26. Requires a learning curve...you can't just run $wpdb->get_results(...)
27. Customers' trust and data privacy concerns.
28. Should you do it? 🤑
29. Do you want to leverage your existing product in a new market segment?
30. Can you handle the infrastructure requirement? During peak times?
31. It's the best of both worlds: WordPress’s distribution + the power of cloud.
32. 100K+ 200K+
34. Y Combinator Nine out of ten people might tell you you're crazy. The tenth might see what you see.